The Grifter will see you now

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Professional Black Person Dante King makes a fine living from this.

Not surprisingly, the San Francisco Chronicle was appalled when one of King’s employers was embarrassed into cancelling one of his (paid) student indoctrination sessions.

Exclusive: UCSF severs relationship with provocative anti-racism speaker targeted by right-wing groups

By Nanette Asimov, Higher Education ReporterJan 15, 2025

Author and consultant Dante King has taught anti-racism classes at UCSF since 2021, but the university abruptly severed its relationship with him this month amid right-wing complaints and accusations that his content is “blatantly racist.”

UCSF abruptly canceled a two-day anti-racism class for doctors and nurses that was to be taught in February by a consultant who was targeted by right-wing groups that called his provocative content racist, the Chronicle has learned.

The cancellation, confirmed by the San Francisco medical school last week, followed questions from the Chronicle about allegations made against the consultant, Dante King, and his accredited online class, “Understanding the Roots of Racism and Bias: Anti-Blackness and Its Links to Whiteness, White Racism, Privilege, and Power.”

The controversy dates back to a talk King delivered at UCSF during Black History Month last February in which he argued that white treatment of Black people over generations is “psychopathic.” 

In his speech, King said, “In their relationship with the Black race, whites are psychopaths,” attributing the statement to the late psychologist Bobby Wright.

A conservative group, Young America’s Foundation, reduced the nearly 90-minute presentation to a 2.5-minute video that made it sound like King had said only: “Whites are psychopaths,” rather than in the context of how they relate to Black people. [Check King’s website, linked to above, for other, longer videos — in them, he repeats the same inflammatory language at great length. YAF distilled his comments, it didn’t distort or misrepresent them — Ed]. The group posted the video on the social platform X, and it went viral, with hundreds commenting. Many accused King of being racist but also attacked him in racial terms, even praising the KKK. King shared emails he received calling him “n—” and comparing him to animals.

…. UCSF, which has hosted King’s continuing-education class multiple times a year since 2021, gave no explanation for the reversal. Administrators said only that it’s happening by mutual agreement with King.

…. The university’s action comes at a highly politicized time for UCSF. Republicans, who will soon sweep into control of all branches of the federal government, have been scrutinizing UCSF since August.  

That’s when House Republicans sent UCSF a harshly worded letter saying they were opening an investigation into allegations of antisemitism at the medical center and threatening to withdraw its right to participate in Medicare and Medicaid. Since the Israel-Hamas war erupted in October 2023, House Republicans have accused many university leaders of allowing antisemitism to flourish at their campuses.

At the same time, anti-racism efforts — often called “diversity, equity and inclusion,” or DEI — have become a favorite target of conservatives, who have attacked the programs as part of a broad strategy to instill fear in white people that others threaten their safety and financial well-being. In California, some faculty have sued community colleges over DEI requirements, and at least one would-be applicant to the University of California tried to sue, arguing that public schools should not require employees to embrace such efforts. President-elect Donald Trump could halt federal funding to DEI programs, as he did in his first administration. 

UCSF’s action echoes the response last February by the Mayo Clinic, which canceled King’s contract after the clip went viral, King said. He had delivered anti-racism instruction at the Mayo Clinic since 2022. Mayo officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

King, who is not a professor, holds a master’s degree in adult learning and equity. He is the author of “The 400-Year Holocaust: White America’s Legal, Psychopathic, and Sociopathic Black Genocide — and the Revolt Against Critical Race Theory.” (Researchers define psychopathy as a mental disorder marked by a lack of empathy and an increased risk of extreme behavior.)

In the past, King worked on equity programs and initiatives for multiple San Francisco city departments. In 2023, the city paid him $563,000 to settle allegations that he had been discriminated against.

The concepts that have prompted the most recent conservative criticism of King are consistent with his writing, and those of a number of other anti-racism scholars and advocates.

On his website, King criticizes current racial conflicts and their roots in the slavery-era legal system in the strongest terms, often in ways that many people find offensive. Others, including several Black members of the audience at last year’s talk at UCSF, have thanked him for putting their emotions into words. 

“I cannot say this enough,” King wrote. “This country was legally and socially constructed by diabolical, #White, ‘ultra-religious’ maniacs, and psychopathic sociopaths who assumed authority through treacherous acts of violence.” He wrote that “white psychosis” is a “defense mechanism White people employ to (project) their undesirable and otherwise unacceptable thoughts, feelings, and impulses onto others, rather than accepting them.”

The 2.5-minute video that the Young America’s Foundation created from the 90-minute recording of King’s presentation eliminated its context and attributions. [No, it didn’t — Ed]

“Selecting highlights is standard practice in social media exposés,” said Spencer Brown, the group’s spokesperson. 

“Even in the full context of the more than hour-long, university-sponsored tirade,” Brown said, “it’s undeniable that Mr. King’s lessons are blatantly racist.” 

…. The clip also quoted King saying, “Rape culture in America is a legal, economic and moral institution.”

The comment was provocative, and King later told the Chronicle that he meant to use the past tense. [He makes the same “error” in the other videos of his that I’ve viewed — Ed[]. In his presentation, he argued that Black people had suffered ongoing abuses by whites: from the slavery-era death sentence imposed on a Black teenager for killing the white man who raped her for years, to the persistent claims that Black people are genetically inferior to whites, to recent cases of Black children being sent home from school because of their hairstyles.  

In the full video, UCSF’s executive director of diversity and inclusion, Klint Jaramillo, asked King to respond to critics who consider his ideas to be “reverse racism.” 

The short clip included King saying only, “I don’t make room for that.” The full video showed that he responded for nearly four minutes, defending his views. [And repeating his accusations — Ed}

He referenced laws and social expectations that he said have been stacked against Black people for generations, including the present.

“Tell me how that is not psychopathic and sociopathic. That’s what I want someone to explain to me,” King said, before asking the audience how they would feel if they or their ancestors had suffered the abuse he had described.