How to Be an Antiracist (One World Essentials)

by Ibram X. Kendi

Being antiracist is a journey, not a destination.

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.

Internalized racist ideas are the real Black on Black crime. NOTE ON “RACISM” AND “RACIST” Here, I corrected one of my biggest errors in the hardcover edition: my use, at times, of the terms “racism” and “racist” interchangeably. Many people use “racism” and “racist” interchangeably. But we must stop. I am trying to stop. Because they mean different things. “Racism” connotes power, policies, and ideas. “Racist” connotes a power, a policy, or an idea. “Racism” connotes what is structural, systemic, institutional, connected, or plural: a powerful collection of unjust or inequitable policies justified by ideas of racial hierarchy. “Racist” connotes what is individual or singular, such as a single (racist) policy or idea, or a single person who is being racist. I changed “internalized racism” to “internalized racist ideas” because an individual cannot have or internalize racism. A group of people can engage in racism, while an individual can be racist. The common definition of racism can no longer hold. When we define racism as only a belief, philosophy, or ideology that can be internalized by an individual, it undermines two things: (1) the recognition of racism as structural, institutional, and systemic; and (2) the powerful role of policymakers, policies, and practices in the operation of racism. Power and policy are more foundational to racism than ideas (with ideas justifying the policies and practices). When we think racism, what comes to mind should be structures. When ...

Denial is the heartbeat of being racist, beating across ideologies, races, and nations.

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.

racist policies and racist ideas and how they are married.

Racial inequity (or disparity) is when two or more racial groups are not standing on approximately equal footing.

racist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial inequity or injustice. An antiracist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial equity or justice. By policy, I mean written and unwritten laws, rules, procedures, processes, regulations, and guidelines that govern people. There is no such thing as a nonracist or race-neutral policy. Every policy in every institution in every community in every nation is producing or sustaining either racial inequity or equity, racial injustice or justice.

The most threatening racist movement is not the alt right’s unlikely drive for a White ethnostate but the regular American’s drive for a “race-neutral” one. 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.”

An antiracist idea is any idea that suggests the racial groups are equals in all their apparent differences—that there is nothing right or wrong with any racial group. Antiracist ideas thereby convey that racist policies and practices are the cause of racial inequities. NOTE ON SCHOLARSHIP What drives me to produce scholarship about being antiracist is learning from the research how and what I can be and do to dismantle the power and policy structure of racism—and knowing I’m not alone in this learning journey. It does not help me—nor, I suspect, you—for scholars to say what we should not be doing if scholars do not also use their research expertise to say what we should be doing. It is like a nutritionist telling clients to cut back on red meat without suggesting what they should eat instead. We need scholarship that helps us make the world healthy. An equitable and just world is a healthy world.

Racism is a powerful collection of policies that lead to racial inequity and injustice and that are substantiated by ideas of racial hierarchy. Antiracism is a powerful collection of policies that lead to racial equity and justice and that are substantiated by ideas of racial equality.

SEGREGATIONIST IDEA: Any notion that suggests that a permanently inferior racial group can never be developed, which justifies policies and practices that kill, terrorize, deport, incarcerate, or separate away that racial group.

ANTIRACIST IDEA: Any notion that suggests that racial groups are equals and none needs developing, which justifies policy focused on creating racial equity and justice.

And the instances of Black people engaging in anti-White discrimination are as negligible as Black people engaging in voter fraud, even as propagandists keep fearmongering about both. Equitable actions—actions that do not reinforce White supremacy, and which White supremacists have historically framed as anti-White—are, in fact, antiracist. When I say Black individuals can be racist toward White people, I am specifically calling attention to anti-White racist ideas.

I don’t think people realize that “racial prejudice” or racist ideas about any racial group do not cause racism, they conserve racism.

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