A racists self-image as objective truth-teller can coexist with degrading claims.

Evidence

Leo the African did not ignore the elephant in the room. How do “I my selfe write so homely of Africa,” he asked, when “I stand indebted [to Africa] both for my birth” and education? He considered himself to be a “historiographer” charged with telling “the plaine truth in all places.” Africanus did not mind if Africans were denigrated. He believed he was describing Africans accurately. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 65

Categorization

• DEFINE: Illustrates Kendi’s definition of racist ideas as those that produce and justify inequity even when sincerely believed as ‘plain truth’ — sincerity does not exempt a claim from being racist.
• XREF: Echoes the reader’s stated discomfort — well-meaning people (like Africanus) regarding their own prejudice as objective description — mapping onto the assimilationist position. — connects to: A lynching victim’s self-defense account was reframed by white media as a monstrous attack — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long: The Legacy of White…, 88