Even post-emancipation debates among northern elites were racist by both camps

Evidence

For years, northern racists had agreed, almost religiously, that enslaved Africans were like brutes. They disagreed, among themselves, about the capacity of Black people for freedom, independence, and civilization. This racist northern debate—segregationists adamant about Black brutes’ incapacity, assimilationists like Garrison and Villard adamant about Black brutes’ capacity—became the primary conversation in the wake of emancipation. Hardly anyone in a position of authority—whether in the economic elite, the political elite, the cultural elite, or the intellectual elite—brought antiracist ideas of equal Black people into this conversation. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 597

Categorization

• DEFINE: Crisp application of the segregationist vs. assimilationist scheme to the actual historical debate over freedpeople’s capacity — both are racist positions, exactly the uncomfortable move the reader wants to master.
• XREF: Directly tests the reader’s goal: placing an argument into Kendi’s three-way scheme. The Garrison/Villard assimilationist position is precisely the ‘well-meaning racist’ category the reader flags as discomfort.