The Trump administration is trying to put everyone on patrol – serving and protecting racism. Americans are being ordered to report on their neighbors’ antiracist activities.

This takes a page out of an old racist playbook. From the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 to intelligence agencies infiltrating antiracist movements in the 1960s and recently, the U.S. government has long turned everyday Americans into informants to conserve racism.

Ibram X. Kendi breaks it down in this exclusive, new video commentary from The Emancipator.

Creative Commons License

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Co-founder of The Emancipator, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi is a National Book Award-winning author of sixteen books for adults and children, including nine New York Times bestsellers—five of which were #1 New York Times bestsellers. Dr. Kendi is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, and the director of the BU Center for Antiracist Research.