On the Monday edition of his eponymously named PBS show, host Tavis Smiley provided a forum with little pushback for author and American University Professor Ibram Kendi to claim that the social problems that disproportionately exist within America's black population are the result of continuing racial discrimination, and that those who do not agree with his conclusions therefore must believe blacks are "inferior" or "subhuman."

Not acknowledged was the argument common on the conservative side that federal government programs have disproportionately hit poor blacks since the 1960s -- breaking up families and exacerbating social problems -- but not making the black population "inferior" or "subhuman."

Early in the show, Professor Kendi recalled misleading claims that "young black males" in recent years have been "21 times more likely to be killed by police than their white counterparts," and that "the median wealth of white households is a staggering 13 times the median wealth of black households. And black people are five times more likely to be incarcerated than whites."

He then argued that one must have "racist" views to deny that racial discrimination is the cause of these problems:

Most Americans know these statistics. They know these disparities, and there's only ways to explain that. Either there's something inferior and wrong about black people, or there's racial discrimination. And because so many Americans refuse to acknowledge the persisting sort of legacy and enduring prominence of racial discrimination, instead they say there's something wrong or inferior about black people -- which are racist ideas.

A bit later, as he argued that there has been a resurgence of racism in response to Barack Obama being elected President, he argued that, after the Thirteenth Amendment banned most slavery, the practice was still perpetuated in the criminal justice system:

So we of course know the Thirteenth Amendment abolished chattel slavery, but then it did not abolish slavery in the prisons. And we know about the convict lease system that emerged in which basically the law and the jail cell replaced the master and the whip.

The American University professor then pointed to the high rates of incarceration for blacks and suggested that, in reality, the crime perpetration rate of the black population is about equal to that of the white population as he cited studies that allege equal rates of whites breaking drug laws in spite of lower rates of white incarceration.

Not mentioned by either Professor Kendi or host Smiley was the argument that, even though there have been studies suggesting equal drug activity by whites, white drug dealers are less likely to be arrested because they tend to be more careful about selling drugs mostly to people they know, making them less likely to be caught. Additionally blacks are more likely to have a previous criminal record, making it more likely they will receive jail time.

Additionally, he did not mention statistics for other types of crimes -- for example, findings that blacks have a much higher rate of committing homicides than whites, which is consistent with higher incarceration rates for blacks as well as a disproportionately high rate of blacks being killed by police officers.

Kendi recalled: "And so people say, for instance, that arrest rates and incarceration rates are reflective of actual crime rates. And so, for instance, we know that our jails right now are flooded with people who committed drug offenses."

After Smiley injected, "Low-level," Kendi added:

Yeah -- possession-related drug offenses. But then we also have studies that show that the racial groups consume and sell drugs at similar rates. And so you have this huge disparity of incarcerated black and brown people in prison for drug crimes even though the actual crime rates when it comes to drug crimes are very similar between the races. And that says to me that that's racial discrimination within the criminal justice system.

Later in the interview, Kendi argued that many of those who do not believe blacks are genetically inferior to whites still hold "racist" views. alleging that they believe blacks are "inferior" because of their environment or other factors. Referring to such whites as "assimilationists," he asserted:

But assimilationists are somewhat different. They argue that "Yes, we are all created equal -- we're biologically equal," but then they say that black people have became [sic] inferior as a result of environment. So while segregationists say black people are inferior by nature, assimilationists say black people are inferior by nurture. And that nurture includes "We became inferior by -- as a result of slavery. Slavery wasn't just dehumanizing, it literally made black people subhuman -- segregation, poverty, or culture. So if we, you know, we just take them out of the barbarous wilds of Africa, or the cultural pathology of African-Americans, then we'll be able to civilize them and develop them and make them equal one day." And these ideas still suggest that black people are inferior. Now, it argues against segregationists who state that black people are permanently inferior, but they say black people are inferior nonetheless.

Below is a transcript of relevant portions of the Monday, July 17, Tavis Smiley Show on PBS: