How to Be an Antiracist (One World Essentials)

by Ibram X. Kendi

This powerless defense, as I call it, emerged in the wake of racist power dismissing antiracist policies and ideas as racist in the late 1960s. In subsequent decades, Black voices critical of White racism defended themselves from these charges by saying, “Black people can’t be racist, because Black people don’t have power.” Quietly, though, this defense shields Black individuals and other individuals of color in positions of power from having to make antiracist policy, since even they are apparently powerless, since apparently White people have all the power. This means that individuals of color are powerless to roll back racist policies and eliminate racial injustice even in their own spheres of influence, the places where they actually do have some power to effect change. The powerless defense shields individuals of color from charges of racism even when these individuals are reproducing racist policies and justifying them with the same racist ideas as the White individuals they call racist. The powerless defense shields its believers from the history of racist White people empowering individuals of color to oppress people of color and of individuals of color using their limited power to oppress people of color for their own personal gain. Like every other racist idea, the powerless defense underestimates Black people and overestimates White people. It erases the small amount of power that Black individuals have and expands the already expansive reach of power that White...