How to Be an Antiracist (One World Essentials)

by Ibram X. Kendi

Crucially, their going after all homophobes, no matter their sexual identity, showed me that homophobic ideas and policies and power were their fundamental problem. Crucially, their going after all patriarchs, no matter their gender identity, showed me that patriarchal ideas and policies and powers were their fundamental problem.

Healing symptoms instead of changing policies is bound to fail in healing society.

I had learned a long time ago to tune out the antics of drunk White people doing things that could get a Black person arrested. Harmless White fun is Black lawlessness.

We thought on a false continuum, from more racist to less racist to not racist. We believed good Black behavior made White people “less racist,” even when our experiences told us it usually did not.

We’d remember what history teaches us: that when racist policy knocks Black people down, the judge orders them to uplift themselves, only to be cut down again by racist terror.

I feel free to move in my imperfections. I represent only myself. If the judges draw conclusions about millions of Black people based on how I act, then they, not I, not Black people, have a problem. They are responsible for their racist ideas; I am not. I am responsible for my racist ideas; they are not. To be antiracist is to let me be me, be myself, be my imperfect self.

What if economic, political, or cultural self-interest drives racist policymakers, not hateful immorality, not ignorance?

The problem of race has always been at its core the problem of power, not the problem of immorality or ignorance.

We do not have to be fearless like Harriet Tubman to be antiracist. We have to be courageous to be antiracist. Courage is the strength to do what is right in the face of fear, as the anonymous philosopher tells us. I gain insight into what’s right from antiracist ideas. I gain strength from fear. While many people are fearful of what could happen if they resist, I am fearful of what could happen if I don’t resist. I am fearful of cowardice. Cowardice is the inability to amass the strength to do what is right in the face of fear. And racist power has been terrorizing cowardice into us for generations.

We use the terms “protest” and “demonstration” interchangeably, at our own peril, like we interchangeably use the terms “mobilizing” and “organizing.” A protest is organizing people for a prolonged campaign that forces racist power to change a policy. A demonstration is mobilizing people momentarily to publicize a problem.

(someone who is expressing an idea of racial hierarchy, or through actions or inaction is supporting a policy that leads to racial inequity or injustice).

(someone who is expressing an idea of racial equality, or is actively supporting a policy that leads to racial equity or justice).

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

Admit racial injustice and inequity are problems of bad policy, not bad people. Identify racial injustice and inequity in all their intersections and manifestations. Investigate and uncover the racist policies causing racial injustice or inequity. Formulate or find antiracist policy that can eliminate racial injustice or inequity. Figure out who or what group has the power to institute antiracist policy. Disseminate and educate about the uncovered racist policy and antiracist policy correctives. Work with sympathetic antiracist policymakers to institute the antiracist policy. Deploy antiracist power to compel or drive from power the unsympathetic racist policymakers in order to institute the antiracist policy. Monitor closely to ensure the antiracist policy reduces and eliminates racial injustice or inequity. When policies fail, do not blame the people harmed by the racial injustice. Start over and seek out new and more effective antiracist treatments until they work. Monitor closely to prevent new racist policies from being instituted.

Pain is usually essential to healing. When it comes to healing America of racism, we want to heal America without pain, but without pain, there is no progress.

Race and racism are power constructs of the modern world. For roughly two hundred thousand years, before race and racism were constructed in the fifteenth century, humans saw color but did not group the colors into continental races, did not commonly attach negative and positive characteristics to those colors and rank the races to justify racial inequity, to reinforce racist power and policy. Racism is not even six hundred years old. It’s a cancer that we’ve caught early.