Conservatives have had to endure a week of leftists screaming that “Charlie Kirk is a racist!” The evidence? The same three quotes (and that term is used lightly) on repeat, the ones where he dared to question affirmative action and DEI policies that use skin color as the deciding factor for hiring or promotions. Those quotes were ripped out of context and edited to fit their predetermined conclusions, but no surprise there. The left thrives on cherry-picking words to build their narratives. Remember the infamous “good people on both sides” line, endlessly wielded to brand President Trump a racist?
But strip away the emotion and labels.
Was Charlie wrong? Or was he pointing out something Americans are waking up to? Namely, that DEI and affirmative action are not progress at all, but rather a regression. They are pushing us not forward, but backwards to a place where skin color determines opportunity, worth, and even morality.
That brings us to Race Forward, a nonprofit that claims to be advancing justice but is really pushing the same race-obsessed narrative Charlie warned us about.
Race Forward was founded in 1981 as the Applied Research Center, later merging with the Center for Social Inclusion in 2017. Today, it positions itself as a national hub for “racial justice,” publishing research, running training programs, and producing media content through its digital platform, ColorLines. Its stated vision is to create “a just, multiracial, democratic society in which people of color thrive with purpose and power.” In practice, that translates into lobbying for policies that treat race as the primary factor in every decision, including hiring practices, education, healthcare, and even climate policy.
The group’s reach is more than just producing viral content clips, however. Race Forward runs formal programs embedded in government and public policy. Their Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE) is a network of local and regional governments that collaborate with Race Forward to adopt racial equity frameworks, create action plans, and implement policies at the institutional level. They also operate the Federal Initiative on Governing for Racial Equity (FIRE), through which they have partnered with more than a dozen federal agencies to advance racial equity across government operations.
Who Pays for the Message?
In terms of money, Race Forward is hardly grassroots. In 2023, the group reported revenue of more than $27 million, a whopping $10 million more than the previous year. It has raked in major grants from the Open Society Foundations, the Ford Foundation, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, Blue Meridian Partners, and other left-wing philanthropies that view it as a dependable vehicle for pushing their ideology under the friendlier label of “equity.”
One of its biggest backers is the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the multibillion-dollar philanthropy empire created by the cereal tycoon himself. According to the Foundation’s own filings, Kellogg gave Race Forward $14.9 million between 2019 and 2022.
Kellogg’s original charter promised to serve “the health, education, and welfare of mankind, but principally of children or youth, directly or indirectly, without regard to sex, race, creed, or nationality.” Today, the Foundation has made “racial equity” one of its defining missions, pouring millions into groups like Race Forward that preach systemic racism, push DEI, and call for “transformative” racial healing. Slowly turning their founders’ original direction from “without regard to race” to “only about race.”
The “Systemic Racism” Sermons
Race Forward’s slickest product is its “What Is Systemic Racism?” YouTube series. These short videos are marketed as bite-sized “explainers” for why racism is everywhere, all the time. Each clip focuses on a different sector, such as wealth, employment, housing, and the justice system, and concludes with the same drumbeat: disparities exist, therefore racism must be baked into the system.
In one video, they point out that black unemployment has hovered around twice that of whites for 60 years. The conclusion? Racism. Another claims the racial wealth gap proves systemic racism, even though it never addresses deeper issues like the destruction of the family unit, education quality, or government welfare dependency. Conveniently, they always seem to leave out Asian and Indian Americans, who consistently outperform white people in many of the stats they reference in their videos. Perhaps they just dismiss them as “white adjacent.” The series does not encourage personal responsibility or upward mobility. It simply reinforces the left’s favorite message: if you are struggling, it is someone else’s fault, and the system owes you.
This is not empowerment. It is a victimhood narrative disguised as social science.
Backward, Not Forward
The organization calls itself “Race Forward,” but its entire agenda drags us backward. By framing every outcome gap as proof of oppression, they erase the progress America has made. By demanding that race be the central lens for every decision, they undermine Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of judging people by the content of their character.
Even worse, Race Forward’s work provides intellectual cover for the very DEI policies Charlie Kirk warned us about. Those policies tell hardworking Americans, like me and so many others, that merit is less important than melanin.
I know firsthand as a black woman who benefited from racial preferences. My GPA was a 3.2 when I was admitted to my highly competitive master’s program at UC Santa Cruz, while most of my non-black classmates had GPAs higher than a 3.6. I don’t know for certain if I was admitted to the program because of my skin color, or if that was what gave me an edge over a more qualified white applicant, but it is a question I will always ask. I was offered a $40,000 scholarship during undergrad simply because I was black. Policies like this do not create fairness. They breed entitlement, suspicion, and bitterness.
Race Forward insists that America cannot succeed without more race-based policies. But does this move us forward, or does it cement a permanent cycle of grievance and dependency?
Charlie Kirk saw this problem clearly and was brave enough to speak against it. Race-based preference is not equality, it is inequality dressed up as justice. And no amount of slick YouTube videos can change that truth.
