- All's Well That Ends Well
- Antony and Cleopatra
- As You Like It
- The Comedy of Errors
- Coriolanus
- Cymbeline
- Hamlet
- Henry IV, Part 1
- Henry IV, Part 2
- Henry V
- Henry VI, Part 1
- Henry VI, Part 2
- Henry VI, Part 3
- Henry VIII
- Julius Caesar
- King John
- King Lear
- Love's Labor's Lost
- A Lover's Complaint
- Macbeth
- Measure for Measure
- The Merchant of Venice
- The Merry Wives of Windsor
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Othello
- Pericles
- The Rape of Lucrece
- Richard II
- Richard III
- Romeo and Juliet
- Shakespeare's Sonnets
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Tempest
- Timon of Athens
- Titus Andronicus
- Troilus and Cressida
- Twelfth Night
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- Venus and Adonis
- The Winter's Tale
Kendi has discussed the French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire’s belief in racial hierarchies and explained that in the 18th century, enslavers embraced the belief of ethnic hierarchies among Africans, which affected the price placed on the enslaved. Yet while there may have been similarities between Voltaire’s views on race and ethnicity and that of enslavers, Voltaire himself—like most Enlightenment philosophers—was opposed to slavery. In this short quotation, Kendi conveys this contradiction and emphasizes that it does not have an easy resolution.
It might at first seem strange or even paradoxical that a group of thinkers committed to arguing against slavery would…