How to Be an Antiracist (One World Essentials)

by Ibram X. Kendi

Racial inequity is when two or more racial groups are not standing on approximately equal footing.

Can I admit something? It annoys me to no end when racist propagandists falsely claim that antiracists are saying that racial inequity is when there is not the same exact outcomes; and that to be antiracist is to advocate for the exact same outcomes; that if the White employment rate is 5.251%, then to be antiracist is to demand that the Black unemployment rate to be exactly 5.251%. This is false. Call me cynical but I feel racist propagandists purposefully state this to make the drive to equity seem impossible and impractical. Approximately, is the key word here. If the White unemployment rate is 5.251% and the Latinx unemployment rate is 8.25%, then why can’t we recognize that as an inequity, as a problem? Why can’t we strive to lower the Latinx unemployment rate to close to 5%? And why can’t we simultaneously seek to lower the White unemployment rate while lowering the Latinx rate? I wanted to write a whole chapter on my use of the term “approximately” instead of “exactly” in this sentence. But I think that would have been too much? I think no matter how much I explain, propagandists will still distort what I was saying. I don’t know.