Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America

by Ibram X. Kendi

Hate and ignorance have not driven the history of racist ideas in America. Racist policies have driven the history of racist ideas in America.

Their own racist ideas usually did not dictate the decisions of the most powerful Americans when they instituted, defended, and tolerated discriminatory policies that affected millions of Black lives over the course of American history. Racially discriminatory policies have usually sprung from

economic, political, and cultural self-interests, self-interests that are constantly changing.

Black Americans’ history of oppression has made Black opportunities—not Black people—inferior.

When you truly believe that the racial groups are equal, then you also believe that racial disparities must be the result of racial discrimination. Committed to this antiracist idea of group equality, I was able to self-critique, discover, and shed the racist ideas I had consumed over my lifetime