Even egalitarian abolitionists of the era framed Blackness as pathology needing cure

Evidence

Benjamin Rush projected himself as a friend of the Philadelphia Negro, a racial egalitarian, and an abolitionist. He attempted to uphold his persona at the end of his address. “All the claims of superiority of the whites over the blacks, on account of their color, are founded alike in ignorance and inhumanity,” he stressed. “If the color of the negroes be the effect of a disease, instead of inviting us to tyrannise over them, it should entitle them to a double portion of our humanity.” — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 339

Categorization

• XREF: Directly illustrates the assimilationist position Kendi places most well-meaning white people in — here the ‘cure’ framing of Blackness makes even an abolitionist’s love a form of racist erasure. — connects to: Paternalist abolitionists reproduced rather than abolished racial hierarchy — Marianne DeKoven, Utopia Limited: The Sixties and the…, 907