Banneker framed Jefferson’s slaveholding as contradicting his antislavery rhetoric.

Evidence

Banneker began his letter “freely and cheerfully” acknowledging that he was “of the African race.” If Jefferson was flexible in his sentiments of nature, friendly to Black people, and willing to aid in their relief, Banneker wrote, then “I apprehend you will embrace every opportunity, to eradicate that train of absurd and false ideas and opinions.” Jefferson and his slaveholding countrymen who were “detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren,” but who assailed against British oppression, were walking, talking contradictions. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 321

Categorization

• XREF: Concrete instance of the book’s thesis: antiracist ideas were voiced by Black people in the 1790s, contradicting any claim that antiracism is a modern import.
• DEFINE: The passage is a textbook exhibit of Kendi’s antiracist category — direct confrontation to racist ideas, not mere assimilationism.