How to Be an Antiracist (One World Essentials)

by Ibram X. Kendi

A racist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial inequity between racial groups. An antiracist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial equity between racial groups. 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 between racial groups.

One of my highlights of 2021 was being awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, popularly known as the “Genuis Grant.” I’ve since decided to use the funding to continue my years of research on a narrative history of racist power and policy from the origins to the present, which I’m tentatively titling, Bones of Inequity. I’ve been working on this book for five years now, and it may take another few years to complete. This book will historically and empirically demonstrate how racist policies came to be, how they produced and reproduced inequity, how these policies are connected like bones, how all these bones make up a structure: the structure of racism.