It's the Brian Laird Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone.

Howard University History Professor Ibram X. Kendi is back with us. Some of you know his influential books,

such as How to Be an Anti-Racist and Stamped from the Beginning, the Definitive History of Racist Ideas in

America. His new book is called Chain of Ideas, The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age. The Origins of

our Authoritarian Age. We'll talk about that now,

including how it relates to the current backlash against all things DEI, and some of that

backlash has been directed at him. Professor Kendi, thanks for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Of course. Thank you for having me. Let's start, as your book does, 30 years ago, 1996.

A French novelist coins the term Great Replacement Theory, which you say is now the most

dominant political theory of our time.

Who was that French novelist?

And what did he mean by Great Replacement Theory?

So the French novelist is named Renaud Camus, and he was actually, he's a pioneering French novelist,

and when he was in southern France in the late 1990s and frankly first in 1996, he perceived

that people of North African descent who were likely Muslim were overrunning this town that he was in,

that they were everywhere, and that ultimately they were replacing

white French people and their cultures. And at the time, though, North African immigrants and

African migrants more broadly only made up about 4 to 6% of that actual area.

So, of course, he exaggerated the number that was coming as great replacement theorists typically do.

But he essentially framed these people as replacing white people and as taking over.

But also that there was a group of elites who was directing this, right?

Yes, and so that's a critical part of Great Replacement Theory, which we can define

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