How to Be an Antiracist (One World Essentials)

by Ibram X. Kendi

What’s the problem with being “not racist”? It is a claim that signifies neutrality: “I am not a racist, but neither am I aggressively against racism.” But there is no neutrality in the racial struggle. The opposite of “racist” isn’t “not racist.” It is “antiracist.” What’s the difference? One endorses either the idea of a racial hierarchy as a racist, or racial equality as an antiracist. One either believes racial inequities are rooted in groups of people, as a racist, or locates the roots of racial inequities in power and policies, as an antiracist. One either allows racial injustice to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial injustice, as an antiracist.

RACIST: One who is expressing an idea of racial hierarchy, or through actions or inaction is supporting a policy that leads to racial inequity or injustice. ANTIRACIST: One who is expressing an idea of racial equality, or is actively supporting a policy that leads to racial equity or justice.

Racist policies have been described by other terms: “institutional racism,” “structural racism,” and “systemic racism,” for instance. But those are vaguer terms than “racist policy.” When I use them I find myself having to immediately explain what they mean. “Racist policy” is more tangible and exacting, and more likely to be immediately understood by everyday people, including its victims, who may not have the benefit of extensive fluency in racial terms. “Racist policy” says exactly what the problem is and where the problem is. “Institutional racism” and “structural racism” and “systemic racism” are redundant. Racism itself is institutional, structural, and systemic.

As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun wrote in 1978, “In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way. And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently.”

To be assimilationist is to believe in the post-racial myth that talking about race constitutes racism, or that if we stop identifying by race, then racism will miraculously go away. They fail to realize that if we stop using racial categories, then we will not be able to identify racial inequity. If we cannot identify racial inequity, then we will not be able to identify racist policies. If we cannot identify racist policies, then we cannot challenge racist policies. If we cannot challenge racist policies, then racist power’s final solution will be achieved: an unjust world of inequity none of us can see, let alone resist. Terminating racial categories is potentially the last, not the first, step in the antiracist struggle.

In other words, researchers have found a much stronger and clearer correlation between violence levels and unemployment levels than between violence and race.

The truth is that I should be critiqued as a student—I was undermotivated and distracted and undisciplined. In other words, a bad student. But I shouldn’t be critiqued as a bad Black student. I did not represent my race any more than my irresponsible White classmates represented their race.

Just as race doesn’t exist biologically, race doesn’t exist behaviorally.

Black individuals can be racist toward White people. But since White people remain on the higher end of nearly every racial disparity, we can conclude that Black people (and non-Black people) hardly wield racist policy when being racist toward White people.

This definition of “prejudice plus power” does not explain how people become prejudiced, and it falsely positions power as secondary. It maintains this notion that people of all races have prejudice, but only White people have the addition—power—which is why their “prejudice results in acts of discrimination and oppression against groups or individuals.”

To be antiracist is to never conflate racist individuals with White people, knowing there are antiracist White individuals and racist individuals of color.

Can Black people be racist? This question is based on a false premise. An individual can be racist. A group can engage in racism. Instead of, Can Black people be racist?, the question should be: Can a Black individual be racist? And this question is usually asking whether Black individuals can be racist toward White people.

Does a Black individual—do I—have the power to reinforce the structure of anti-Black racism through my actions or inaction? Does a Black individual—do I—have the power to express racist ideas about Black people or any other racial group (which reinforces the structure)? Does a Black individual—do I—have the power to make, manage, support, or protest racist policies that harm Black people or any other racial group (which reinforces the structure)? Or are all Black individuals powerless (and therefore we all need White saviors)?

The heartbeat of being racist is denial. If the sound of that denial is “I’m not racist” for White individuals, then the sound of that denial for individuals of color is “I can’t be racist.”

The truth is: Black individuals can be racist because Black individuals do have power, even if limited.

Antiracist policies cannot eliminate class racism without anticapitalist policies. Anticapitalism cannot eliminate class racism without antiracism.

Socialist and communist spaces are not automatically antiracist. Some socialists and communists have pushed a segregationist or assimilationist program in order not to alienate racist White workers.

Capitalism, in producing racial injustices and inequities between race-classes, is essentially racist; racism, in also producing economic injustices and inequities between race-classes, is essentially capitalist. They were birthed together from the same unnatural causes, and they shall one day die together from unnatural causes.

In my first course with Mazama, she lectured on Asante’s contention that objectivity was really “collective subjectivity.” She concluded, “It is impossible to be objective.” It was an idea that shifted my view of the world immediately. It made so much sense to me as I recalled the subjective choices I’d made as an aspiring journalist and then scholar. If objectivity was dead, though, I needed a replacement. I flung up my hand like an eighth-grader. “Yes?” “If we can’t be objective, then what should we strive to do?” She stared at me as she gathered her words. Not a woman of many words, it did not take long. “Just tell the truth. That’s what we should strive to do. Tell the truth.”

Incorrect conceptions of race as a social construct (as opposed to a power construct), of racial history as a singular march of racial progress (as opposed to a duel of antiracist and racist progress), of racism as rooted in ignorance and hate (as opposed to powerful self-interest)—all come together to produce solutions bound to fail.

I’ve since realized that “individual racism” is a contradiction in terms. An individual can challenge racism as an antiracist. An individual can express racist ideas, can support racist policies. An individual can be racist. But an individual cannot engage in racism; racism is structural, institutional, and systemic.

This framing of White people versus Black people does not take into account that all White people do not benefit equally from racism. It does not take into account how rich White people benefit more from racist policies than impoverished and middle-income White people. It does not take into account that Black people are not harmed equally by racism or that some Black individuals champion White supremacy to boost their own wealth and power.

The term “institutionally racist policies” is more concrete than “institutional racism.” The term “racist policies” is more concrete than “institutionally racist policies,” since “institutional” and “policies” are redundant: Policies are institutional.

when we realize old words do not exactly and clearly convey what we are trying to describe, we should turn to new words.

Policymakers and policies make societies and institutions, not the other way around. The United States is a racist nation because its policymakers and policies have been racist from the beginning.

The source of racist ideas was not ignorance and hate, but self-interest.

The history of racism is the history of powerful policymakers erecting racist policies out of self-interest, then producing racist ideas to defend and rationalize the inequitable effects of their policies, while everyday people consume those racist ideas, which in turn bleeds ignorance and hate.