Frank Furedi, a columnist for the British magazine Spiked, expresses concern that the current cultural focus on race and other aspects of collective identity has gone to such an extreme that even babies can now be considered racist due to “unconscious bias” in favor of certain races. Furedi points out that “the main proponents of this view today are not the racists of the old guard” but rather those who label themselves as antiracists.

To illustrate this phenomenon, Furedi cites a recent campaign by the British Labour Party, which governs the London borough of Islington. The campaign distributed posters stating, “At three months, babies look more at faces of their caregivers’ race,” and declared, “Children are never too young to talk about race.” Similarly, the Labour Party, which also controls the city council of Nottingham, implemented a program aimed at “decolonizing” kindergartens through “antiracist training consultancy.” These programs have been in place at the national level since 2008.

Two academic sources have influenced such initiatives. One comes from studies dating back to the 1950s, which have shown a preference among three-month-old babies for faces of their race. For instance, a study led by Yair Bar-Haim from the Department of Psychology at Tel-Aviv University evaluated a small sample of 36 babies, divided into three groups: white Israelis, black Ethiopians, and black Israelis of Ethiopian descent. The study found that babies spent more time looking at the faces of their race. However, this preference was not observed among black Israeli babies. Other studies have examined babies from different racial groups, such as Chinese infants, and have even explored which facial features (like the nose) might be most indicative of racial identity in babies. A standard critique of these studies is their reliance on small sample sizes.

Another academic source is Talee Ziv’s 2012 doctoral thesis, which was written by a child development psychologist at Harvard University. In it, Ziv investigated racial preference in three-month-old babies and found that this preference appears only for male faces, not female ones. This suggests that a baby’s interaction with their mother might influence their time looking at specific faces.

Questioning Unconscious Bias

The claim that babies can be racist is also supported by the vocabulary of these programs, which frequently mention “unconscious bias.” Unlike the traditional view of racism as a conscious belief in the superiority or inferiority of certain racial groups, a collaboration between certain researchers and identity activists seeks to redefine racism to include any statistical disparity between groups, such as differences in babies’ eye movements. Similar efforts are made to detect biases in adults using tools like the Implicit Association Test (IAT), which measures reaction times to pairings of racial, sexual, or disability-related characteristics with positive or negative words, supposedly revealing unconscious biases.

The IAT has been widely used in racial sensitivity training by human resources departments in many American companies, but it has faced criticism during the replication crisis in psychology studies. Additionally, it remains unclear whether the test accurately measures any genuine aversion to certain races, groups, or disabilities. American deaf mathematician and blogger Holly “Math Nerd” (who does not reveal her last name) shared her experiences with the IAT. Despite being aware of stereotypes such as “disability = burden,” Holly’s initial test results suggested a strong negative attitude toward disability, which she insists does not reflect her true feelings. She explained this was because she was highly conscious of these stereotypes when taking the test.

Holly advises her readers on how to score better on the IAT: “When black faces and negative words are paired, be slow to respond.” Essentially, the test can be “gamed” by training oneself to associate marginalized groups with positive words. Holly mentions that she was required to take the test four times during her studies and achieved perfect scores on the final attempts. “Yes, it’s ridiculous,” she concludes, “but it’s what you have to do to keep your job.”

The Rise of the ‘AAntiracistBaby’

Children’s literature has also become a battleground in the culture wars. In 2020, Ibram X. Kendi, director of the Center for AAntiracistResearch at Boston University, published a children’s book titled AAntiracistBaby. The book posits that “babies learn to be racist or aantiracistthere is no neutrality” and features an illustration of a baby spelling out “race” with blocks. It offers nine pieces of advice for raising an aantiracistbaby, such as understanding that racial inequities stem from policies, not people, and encouraging babies to “confess when they are being racist.”

Kendi’s book draws on ideas against racism that have become commonplace since the post-Apartheid era, such as the notion that “we are all human.” However, the book also aligns with critical race theory, which challenges the idea of color blindness (the notion that race should be irrelevant). Instead, it promotes actively discussing race and dismantling systemic inequalities.

Kendi’s efforts to practice his preaches can be seen in his social media activity. For instance, he criticized Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, appointed by then-President Trump, for not being “color blind” about her two adopted children of Haitian origin. Kendi tweeted that some white settlers “adopted” black children to “civilize” them into “higher” ways, using these children as props while erasing their biological parents’ humanity.

Netflix, under pressure from employees upset by specific content, such as Dave Chappelle’s comedy specials (which were accused of transphobia), laid off 2% of its workforce and canceled an animated adaptation of Kendi’s children’s book after losing 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of this year. While new competition and the end of pandemic restrictions contributed to Netflix’s losses, the company’s internal policy updates suggest that cultural factors also played a role in their decisions.

Morgan Freeman’s Perspective

Every year on Brazil’s Black Consciousness Day, critics often share an interview with acclaimed actor Morgan Freeman from the American television program 60 Minutes in 2005. Freeman expressed discontent with the idea of “Black History Month,” arguing that the focus on racial identity—like referring to him as a “black actor”—perpetuates the problem of racism. He suggested that we “stop talking about it.” Proponents of Kendi’s ideas, however, argue that not discussing racism does not solve racism. Freeman’s comments appear to focus on the overemphasis on racial identity, which, according to some psychological studies, might exacerbate racism rather than alleviate it.

British historian Helen Pluckrose and American mathematician James Lindsay suggest distinguishing between two types of activism: those who follow the civil rights tradition, which is liberal and seeks to remove unfair restrictions based on race, gender, or sexual orientation, and those who promote identity politics. The latter, influenced by radical academic thought, often advocate for differential treatment and reinterpret words like “racism” to fit their narrative.

Identitarianism also tends towards what conservative philosopher Roger Scruton calls “oikophobia,” an irrational aversion to one’s own culture or country. This perspective often portrays Western society as uniquely oppressive, a view challenged by figures like bell hooks, who described the West as a “heteronormative white supremacist patriarchy” despite it being one of the most tolerant regions globally for women, racial minorities, and LGBTQ+ individuals. Civil rights activism is associated with figures like Martin Luther King Jr.. At the same time, identitarianism aligns with the more separatist and militant phase of Malcolm X, shaped by Marxism, critical theory, and postmodernism.