Mao endorsed racist social science to diagnose African Americans

Evidence

When Mao started musing about the “diseased psychology” of African Americans, showing that he was attuned to the latest racist social science, Du Bois interjected. Blacks were not diseased psychologically; they lacked incomes, Du Bois explained, inciting a debate and a fusillade of questions from Mao. When Du Bois expressed some of his failures as an activist, Mao interjected. Activists only failed when they stopped struggling. “This, I gather,” Mao said, “you have never done.” — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 939

Categorization

• QUESTION: Notable that Communist China’s leader, an anti-colonial figure, was ‘attuned to the latest racist social science’ — how did racist theories travel into anti-colonial movements? Worth chasing the intellectual transmission.
• XREF: Connects to reader’s Stamped goal of placing any argument — even Mao’s anti-colonial framing — into segregationist/assimilationist/antiracist categories. Mao’s ‘diseased psychology’ reading is a segregationist move even from a would-be ally.