Complementary-race claims are racist even when framed as praise

Evidence

It was a racist idea to suppose that the racial groups were not equal, and that a racial group lacked certain human characteristics. In 1903, White people did not lack “simple faith and reverence,” and Black people did not lack materialism and “smartness.” Ironically, many of the northern defenders of slavery and abolition, and now Jim Crow and civil rights, had attested to the “simple faith” of humble Blacks and the “smartness” of strong Whites. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 767

Categorization

• DEFINE: Sharpens Kendi’s definition of racist ideas: any claim that races differ in human traits is racist, even complementary ‘positive’ framing, because it denies equality.
• ADDENDUM: Parallels the immodesty moral-panic article: both show how ‘positive’ or high-minded framing (protection, reverence) can carry the same hierarchical cargo as explicit contempt.