Positive stereotypes of a race can still be racist

Evidence

Du Bois followed in the long line of reformers who played up in Black people what racists played down—in his case, he turned the global projection of the Black woman as the immoral anti-mother, the anti-woman, into the global projection of the Black woman as the moral super-mother, the super-woman. But whether redeeming or degrading Black women, such projections spun reality, generalizing the behavior of immoral individuals or motherly individuals, and in the process propagating racist ideas. An antiracist sketch of Black women would have depicted the same diversity of motherly and un-motherly behavior found in all equally imperfect female racial groups. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 826

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies Kendi’s definition of racism: generalizing any trait to a whole racial group — even a flattering one — is racist, because it erases diversity.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s three-way scheme: the ‘super-woman’ reversal is assimilationist in structure — it accepts the framework of racial measure and just flips the sign.