How to Be an Antiracist (One World Essentials)

by Ibram X. Kendi

It happens for me in successive steps, these steps to be an antiracist. I stop using the “I’m not a racist” or “I can’t be racist” defense of denial. I admit the definition of racist (someone who is supporting racist policies or expressing racist ideas). I confess the racist policies I support and racist ideas I express. I accept their source (my upbringing inside a nation making us racist). I acknowledge the definition of antiracist (someone who is supporting antiracist policies or expressing antiracist ideas). I struggle for antiracist power and policy in my spaces. (Seizing a policymaking position. Joining an antiracist organization or protest. Publicly donating my time or privately donating my funds to antiracist policymakers, organizations, and protests fixated on changing power and policy.) I struggle to remain at the antiracist intersections where racism is mixed with other bigotries. (Eliminating racial distinctions in biology and behavior. Equalizing racial distinctions in ethnicities, bodies, cultures, colors, classes, spaces, genders, and sexualities.) I struggle to think with antiracist ideas. (Seeing racist policy in racial inequity. Leveling group differences. Not being fooled into generalizing individual negativity. Not being fooled by misleading statistics or theories that blame people for racial inequity.)