{"id":570803,"date":"2021-06-22T16:07:32","date_gmt":"2021-06-22T20:07:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=570803"},"modified":"2021-06-22T16:07:34","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T20:07:34","slug":"amazon-funding-distribution-of-ibram-x-kendis-antiracist-books-in-public-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/amazon-funding-distribution-of-ibram-x-kendis-antiracist-books-in-public-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon Funding Distribution of Ibram X. Kendi\u2019s \u2018Antiracist\u2019 Books in Public Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Famazon-funding-distribution-of-ibram-x-kendis-antiracist-books-in-public-schools%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=570803&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div readability=\"28.63813229572\">\n\t\t\t<span class=\"article-category\"><a class href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/campus\/\">Campus<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"article-excerpt\">Company bought hundreds of copies of &#8216;antiracist&#8217; scholar&#8217;s book for Arlington students<\/p>\n<figure class=\"post-thumbnail-container relative lg:mr-24 w-full my-4 mb-8\">\n\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"736\" height=\"514\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-1189253645_736x514-736x514-1.jpg\" class=\"w-full lazyload blur-up wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 736px) 100vw, 736px\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/fb_image-594.jpeg 736w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/GettyImages-1189253645_736x514-300x210.jpg 300w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/GettyImages-1189253645_736x514-703x491.jpg 703w\" data-sizes=\"auto\"  style=\"display:none\"><figcaption class=\"absolute text-white p-4 w-full text-right text-xs bottom-0 bg-black opacity-75\">\n\t\t\t\tGetty Images\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\t\t\t<span class=\"text-gray text-xs md:text-lg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/author\/alex-nester\/\" title=\"Posts by Alex Nester\" class=\"author url fn text-red-700\" rel=\"author\">Alex Nester<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/author\/santi-ruiz\/\" title=\"Posts by Santi Ruiz\" class=\"author url fn text-red-700\" rel=\"author\">Santi Ruiz<\/a> \u2022 June 22, 2021 4:02 pm<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<div readability=\"105.22768789144\">\n<p>Amazon spent $5,000 to distribute hundreds of copies of &#8220;antiracist&#8221; writer Ibram X. Kendi&#8217;s book to Virginia public school students as part of a program to promote black authors, according to emails between Amazon and school district officials.<\/p>\n<p>The emails show Amazon employees reached out to Arlington Public Schools as part of &#8220;NeighborGood,&#8221; a program to donate $100,000 to schools and other institutions that &#8220;empower black voices and serve black communities.&#8221; Despite Amazon&#8217;s offer to purchase Kindles or other equipment, Arlington Public Schools director of diversity and inclusion Arron Gregory requested copies of Kendi&#8217;s <em>Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You<\/em>. Amazon donated between 500-600 copies of the book to Wakefield High School and paid $10,000 to have Kendi&#8217;s coauthor Jason Reynolds address students.<\/p>\n<p>Asra Nomani, vice president of Parents Defending Education, the watchdog group that obtained the emails through a public records request, called Amazon&#8217;s prioritization of &#8220;antiracism&#8221; efforts during a pandemic &#8220;shortsighted&#8221; in a statement to the <em>Washington <\/em>Free<em> Beacon.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Instead of donating Kindles and hot spots to students in Arlington Public Schools, Amazon chose to spread the controversial ideology of critical race theory,&#8221; Nomani said. &#8220;The shortsighted decisions during a pandemic, with so many students vulnerable, reflect the national crisis of school districts circumventing parents to indoctrinate students\u2014in this case, with the help of corporate America.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Purchasing Kendi&#8217;s book was one of Amazon&#8217;s many Black History Month <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aboutamazon.com\/news\/workplace\/black-history-month-2021#:~:text=Amazon%20is%20kicking%20off%20Black,innovation%20in%20the%20Black%20community.\">initiatives.<\/a> The company also promoted work by black authors and created an &#8220;Amplify Black Voices&#8221; channel on Prime Video. Amazon came under fire for removing a top-rated documentary about Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas during Black History Month. The film was number one on Amazon&#8217;s documentary list before it was pulled, and Amazon has refused to explain the move.<\/p>\n<p><em>Stamped<\/em>\u00a0is billed as a young adult &#8220;remix&#8221; of Kendi&#8217;s <em>Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America.\u00a0<\/em>Kendi, who also wrote the commercially successful\u00a0<em>How to Be An Antiracist<\/em>, has become a lightning rod in the national debate over critical race theory.<\/p>\n<p>Amazon public relations manager Justin Grayson oversaw the donation of Kendi&#8217;s book and an accompanying study guide to Wakefield High School. The guide explains how <em>Stamped <\/em>&#8220;debunks the myths of several master narrative themes,&#8221; including the notion that &#8220;America is a meritocracy&#8221; and that &#8220;truth and justice (or law and order) should be valued.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Amazon found a willing partner for its &#8220;antiracism&#8221; push in Arlington Public Schools, which has poured resources into &#8220;antiracist&#8221; training. The district required teachers to undergo equity <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/campus\/virginia-school-district-forces-teachers-to-undergo-equity-training-on-day-off\/\">training<\/a> last fall, during which educators learned how to create an &#8220;actively antiracist learning environment.&#8221; In an email to parents following the conviction of Derek Chauvin, Arlington superintendent Francisco Duran promoted resources from Learning for Justice, the educational arm of the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center.<\/p>\n<p>Asked for comment, Arlington Public Schools spokesman Frank Bellavia directed the <em>Washington Free Beacon <\/em>to Amazon, which did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Amazon isn&#8217;t the only tech giant using book drives to boost &#8220;antiracism&#8221; efforts in elementary and high school classrooms. YouTube partnered with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theconsciouskid.org\/antiracist-childrens-books\">The Conscious Kid<\/a>, an education and policy nonprofit set out to &#8220;disrupt racism in kids,&#8221; to develop a playlist of videos for children &#8220;to counter anti-blackness and amplify black authors and stories.&#8221; Google has also partnered with the group, which donated 120,000 &#8220;antiracist&#8221; books to thousands of schools across the United States in the 2020-21 school year.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Campus Company bought hundreds of copies of &#8216;antiracist&#8217; scholar&#8217;s book for Arlington students  Getty Images  Alex Nester and Santi Ruiz \u2022 June 22, 2021 &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2281011,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-1189253645_736x514-736x514-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Amazon Funding Distribution of Ibram X. Kendi\u2019s \u2018Antiracist\u2019 Books in Public Schools","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-570803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-1189253645_736x514-736x514-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Amazon Funding Distribution of Ibram X. Kendi\u2019s \u2018Antiracist\u2019 Books in Public Schools","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2281011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}