How to Be an Antiracist (One World Essentials)

by Ibram X. Kendi

Internalized racism is the real Black on Black crime. I was a dupe, a chump who saw the ongoing struggles of Black people on MLK Day 2000 and decided that Black people themselves were the problem. This is the consistent function of racist ideas—and of any kind of bigotry more broadly: to manipulate us into seeing people as the problem, instead of the policies that ensnare them.

This passage was emblematic of the depth of vulnerability I had to reach in the book. But I must admit, I was ashamed of writing this. I was ashamed to admit I had been duped by racist ideas; that I had blamed the Black victims of racism rather than anti-Black racism. I can still picture me viewing the tape of the MLK Day speech for the first time fifteen years later. I couldn’t watch it with anyone else. I was so ashamed of what I said. I carried so much shame—and guilt—as I carried along writing this book, even as I knew the shame and guilt are pacifying and counterproductive. But the more I wrote and unpacked how I had been systematically taught racist ideas by racist power, the more I realized I was the victim of racist ideas as much as I was victimizing Black people—including myself—with my ideas. And the more I realized this, the more my shame and guilt melted away. And as the shame and guilt melted away, the more empathy took over for myself, my people, and other people. I didn’t want to be duped anymore. I wanted to be antiracist. What about you? Did you struggle with guilt and shame as you read the book? Did it start to go away by the end? It sometimes resurfaces for me. What about you?