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How to Be an Antiracist

Ibram X. Kendi

Start date: July 1, 2020

Finish date: July 28, 2020

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How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
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How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

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Sep 22, 2019 Jeanne rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: politics, read-2020, african-african-american, read-2019

I thought I was a subpar student and was bombarded by messages—from Black people, White people, the media—that told me that the reason was rooted in my race…which made me more discouraged and less motivated as a student…which only further reinforced for me the racist idea that Black people just weren’t very studious…which made me feel even more despair or indifference…and on it went. (p. 6)

What is racism? How can we remove it from our world? Our goal is not to become not racist but, as Ibram Ken I thought I was a subpar student and was bombarded by messages—from Black people, White people, the media—that told me that the reason was rooted in my race…which made me more discouraged and less motivated as a student…which only further reinforced for me the racist idea that Black people just weren’t very studious…which made me feel even more despair or indifference…and on it went. (p. 6)

What is racism? How can we remove it from our world? Our goal is not to become not racist but, as Ibram Kendi argued, the only way to undo racism is to consistently identify and describe it—and then dismantle it (p. 9).

Sure. I can do that. Before breakfast. No problem.

Kendi argues that undoing racism requires that we open our eyes and pay attention to the central agents of racism: racist policy, racist ideas and racist policymakers. If you are thinking, easy-peasy, I'm Black, you're mistaken. People of all colors – black, brown, red, yellow, and white – are vulnerable to racist ideas. In How to be an Antiracist, Abram Kendi tells stories of his own racism. Kendi's difficulties in high school, his Martin Luther King speech, and his mistakes in college and graduate school were all attempts to motivate positive change, yet Kendi convincingly identified these as racist acts, as he blamed individual Blacks for problems rather than racist ideas or policies (which all of us can believe or make) or accepted racist ideas and policies.

Racist ideas make people of color think less of themselves, which makes them more vulnerable to racist ideas. Racist ideas make White people think more of themselves, which further attracts them to racist ideas. (p. 5)

Everyone is a racist. The good news is that everyone can be an antiracist. With attention, with focus, and lots of mistakes. Or as Kendi said, We know how to be racist. We know how to pretend to be not racist. Now let’s know how to be antiracist (p. 11).

Some quotes:

The construct of race neutrality actually feeds White nationalist victimhood by positing the notion that any policy protecting or advancing non-White Americans toward equity is “reverse discrimination.” (p. 19)

To be antiracist is to recognize there is no such thing as White blood or Black diseases or natural Latinx athleticism. To be antiracist is to also recognize the living, breathing reality of this racial mirage, which makes our skin colors more meaningful than our individuality. To be antiracist is to focus on ending the racism that shapes the mirages, not to ignore the mirages that shape peoples’ lives. (p. 54)

Black people are apparently responsible for calming the fears of violent cops in the way women are supposedly responsible for calming the sexual desires of male rapists. If we don’t, then we are blamed for our own assaults, our own deaths. (p. 76)

Those of us Black writers who grew up in “inner city” Black neighborhoods too often recall the violence we experienced more than the nonviolence. We don’t write about all those days we were not faced with guns in our ribs. (p. 77)

To be an antiracist is to eliminate any beauty standard based on skin and eye color, hair texture, facial and bodily features shared by groups. To be an antiracist is to diversify our standards of beauty like our standards of culture or intelligence, to see beauty equally in all skin colors, broad and thin noses, kinky and straight hair, light and dark eyes. To be an antiracist is to build and live in a beauty culture that accentuates instead of erases our natural beauty. (p. 113)

We did not place loud people who happened to be Black into an interracial group of loud people—as antiracists. We racialized the negative behavior and attached loudness to niggers, like White racists, as Black racists. We did not place negligent Black parents into an interracial group of negligent parents—as antiracists. We racialized the negative behavior and attached negligent parenting to niggers, like White racists, as Black racists. We did not place Black criminals into an interracial group of criminals—as antiracists. We racialized the negative behavior and attached criminality to niggers, like White racists, as Black racists. We did not place lazy Blacks into an interracial group of lazy people—as antiracists. We racialized the negative behavior and attached laziness to niggers, like White racists, as Black racists. (p. 138)

* * *

To be antiracist is to see each other as individuals rather than groups. To be antiracist is to correctly locate the root of problems in power and policies. When some Blacks – or Whites – mess up, some Blacks or Whites mess up, not all. We need to see each of us as individuals and allow each other to be individuals in all our warts and beauty.

I suspect that some people will find How to be an Antiracist to be strident, difficult, or repetitive. Maybe I would have seen him this way at some points, but Kendi is a compelling writer, who carefully decodes and defines his terminology, and tells stories about himself that are clearly of a young Black man trying to do the right thing, yet not quite getting it. I found his stories helped me recognize and forgive my own mistakes.

Those of us living in the US have been going through a very difficult period (and it has gotten even worse since my first reading), so this book was very timely, although it would have been timely at any point in my life. Because Kendi, his wife, and both of his parents were each diagnosed with cancer in a four-year period, Kendi framed his discussion of antiracism from that perspective:

Our world IS suffering from metastatic cancer. Stage 4. Racism has spread to nearly every part of the body politic, intersecting with bigotry of all kinds, justifying all kinds of inequities by victim blaming; heightening exploitation and misplaced hate; spurring mass shootings, arms races, and demagogues who polarize nations; shutting down essential organs of democracy; and threatening the life of human society with nuclear war and climate change. (p. 234)

This cancer is curable. We can do better.

11/2020: This reading was with a board I'm on. We want to do better and are trying.
...more

15 likes · Like · see review

Nov 23, 2020 V.E. Ulett rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I want to live in a society of compassion, tolerance, and equal justice. Kendi's narrative is a roadmap toward the thought processes and policy needed to get us there. ...more

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Mar 10, 2021 Alana rated it really liked it

Shelves: educational, political, biographical, christians-should-read, current-events, philosophy

Though I didn't agree with all his thoughts and ideas (and honestly, it seemed as though he kind of went back and forth himself), as I probably wouldn't agree 100% with anyone, really, as we're all human.... I did like hearing his thought processes and overarching themes. I especially appreciated his openness to sharing his own struggle in defining what racist and antiracist mean, and that they can exist in the same person at the same time. He has learned and educated himself (and others) and ha Though I didn't agree with all his thoughts and ideas (and honestly, it seemed as though he kind of went back and forth himself), as I probably wouldn't agree 100% with anyone, really, as we're all human.... I did like hearing his thought processes and overarching themes. I especially appreciated his openness to sharing his own struggle in defining what racist and antiracist mean, and that they can exist in the same person at the same time. He has learned and educated himself (and others) and has grown and expanded his perspectives on race and politics and policies over time. In a word: matured. He is not stagnant to one idea, but constantly adjusting and growing as he's presented with new information and ideas. That truly is what all open-minded learners should strive for.

I listened to the audio read by the author, which was the only major drawback. It felt. Like. William Shatner. Reading. Only a word. Or two. At. A time. And it was. Hard. To concentrate. Sometimes. On. The message. He wanted. To convey. It took quite awhile for me to really get into the book because the narration cadence was so distracting. Actually, the parts of the book that drew me in the most were the couple of places where it was obvious he was incredibly passionate about the topic, so much that the words flowed smoothly and didn't feel so "scripted." But that's not a critique of the book, just of the audio narration, which is disappointing, because I imagine he's great to listen to in a speaking venue.

For some reason, this paragraph struck me the most:
"The idea of the dangerous Black neighborhood is the most dangerous racist idea. And it is powerfully misleading. For instance, people steer away from and stigmatize Black neighborhoods as crime-ridden streets where you might have your wallet stolen. But they aspire to move into upscale White neighborhoods, home to white-collar criminals and "banksters"...who might steal your life savings....Estimated losses from white-collar crimes are believed to be between $300 and $600 billion per year, according to the FBI. By comparison, near the height of violent crime in 1995, the FBI reported the combined costs of burglary and robbery to be $4 billion."
Why ARE we so afraid of petty crime, when major crimes occur in devastating proportions all around us? What in the world are we focused on? ...more

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Sep 01, 2020 Joanne rated it it was amazing

This one took me a while to read, as its depth demanded small bites a chapter or two at a time, plus time to think about what I just read. Part memoir, part self examination, and part how -to book, really. Kendi asks us to be as thorough and strategic as a surgeon in examining the sources of US racism by working to help eliminate the policies that have created and continue to propagate it. No one is immune from becoming better at being antiracist, not even Kendi himself, a PhD in the subject. I ...more

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