Antiracism benefits most White people more than racism does

Evidence

Racial reformers have customarily requested or demanded that Americans, particularly White Americans, sacrifice their own privileges for the betterment of Black people. And yet, this strategy is based on one of the oldest myths of the modern era, a myth continuously produced and reproduced by racists and antiracists alike: that racism materially benefits the majority of White people, that White people would lose and not gain in the reconstruction of an antiracist America. It has been true that racist policies have benefited White people in general at the expense of Black people (and others) in general. That is the story of racism, of unequal opportunity in a nutshell. But it is also true that a society of equal opportunity, without a top 1 percent hoarding the wealth and power, would actually benefit the vast majority of White people much more than racism does. It is not coincidental that slavery kept the vast majority of southern Whites poor. It is not coincidental that more White Americans thrived during the antiracist movements from the 1930s to the early 1970s than ever before or since. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 1242

Categorization

• SEED: Article angle: reframing antiracism as smart self-interest rather than altruism, directly upending how antiracist appeals are normally framed.
• QUESTION: The claim that Whites prospered most during antiracist eras (1930s-1970s) is correlational — is there stronger causal evidence behind it, or a confound worth chasing?