Kyle Rittenhouse, race and self-defense: Historian Ibram X Kendi's view on this moment in the U.S.

NPR

Published November 22, 2021 at 1:20 PM EST

Kyle Rittenhouse looks back as the late Anthony Huber's great aunt, Susan Hughes, enters the courtroom during his trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse on November 5, 2021 in Kenosha, Wisconsin. (Sean Krajacic-Pool/Getty Images)

Protests broke out in several large cities over the weekend including Portland, Oregon, Chicago and New York City — but nothing major in Kenosha, Wisconsin — after the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse.

The 18-year-old was found not guilty of all charges last week after killing two people and wounding another during racial justice protests last summer over the police shooting of a Black man in Kenosha.

Gun rights groups and supporters of former President Trump are celebrating the Rittenhouse acquittal. Rittenhouse himself is also speaking out now that his trial is over, saying in a new interview airing on Monday with Tucker Carlson of Fox News that the case had “never had anything do with race, it had to do with the right to self-defense.”

Here & Now‘s Robin Young speaks with author and historian Ibram X Kendi, founding director of Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.