How to Be an Antiracist (One World Essentials)

by Ibram X. Kendi

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.