Ibram Kendi: we need a new definition of intellectuals...

...that includes grifters!

UPDATE:   A longtime reader writes:

Thank you for sharing the take-down of Kendi’s Atlantic piece. He is even more wrong than the comment assumes. The term intellectual as we use it dates back to a racist scandal, the Dreyfus affair, and, meant, from the beginning, writers/thinkers who search for truth and advance social justice. Emile Zola and other defenders of Dreyfus used it for themselves to characterize their public intervention in this political affair. And they were ridiculed as intellectuals because they took a political stance. In German, the term was more often used as an insult for progressive thinkers until 1945. Here are some resources that are easily accessible via a Google search:

https://intellectualsandthemedia.org/2021/12/11/the-dreyfus-affair-and-the-image-of-the-intellectual/
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230006096_2

The German resources are especially informative:
https://www.bpb.de/shop/zeitschriften/apuz/32481/intellektueller-schimpfwort-diskursbegriff-grabmal/

https://edoc.unibas.ch/5607/1/%5BHistorische%20Anthropologie%5D%20Emile%20Zola%20%20oder%20die%20Erfindung%20des%20Intellektuellen.pdf