How to Raise an Antiracist Quotes

“What if we realized the absurdity of blaming a bored child for misbehaving in class? What if we realized the inhumanity of blaming a child for being unable to articulate her emotions? What if we realized the error of blaming a learner for not knowing?”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Raise an Antiracist

“Is making our children feel good in moments more important than raising them for a lifetime in the real world? —”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Raise an Antiracist

“Culture is a resource, not a trap.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Raise an Antiracist

“every mother deserves reproductive justice. How a society treats pregnant women is a metaphor for how a society raises its children. Every year, about seven hundred American women die from pregnancy, the highest maternal mortality rate among rich countries in the world. Two-thirds of the annual deaths from pregnancy are considered preventable.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Raise an Antiracist

“Literacy is not an end. Literacy should be taught as a means to critical thinking. Knowledge isn't an end. Knowledge is a means to critical thinking. The smartest student is not the student who is the most literate, or who knows the most. The smartest student has the greatest desire to know—to know all the facts and perspectives of human life and of the world.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Raise an Antiracist

“If policy is our love language, as Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley tells us it should be, then the Swedes love their children. Do Americans?”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Raise an Antiracist

“Every parent and teacher should think their child is gifted and beautiful.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Raise an Antiracist

“race exists as a power construct, devised to divide people and justify exploitative practices and policies—and that it doesn’t exist as a meaningful biological reality.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Raise an Antiracist

“In order for cultural socialization to be antiracist, however, it has to unfold in three crucial steps. The first is to raise a child to comprehend and appreciate what is distinct about their own culture and history. Next, we have to raise a child to comprehend and appreciate what’s distinct about other cultures and histories. And finally, we must raise the child to comprehend and appreciate what’s the same about their own and the other cultural groups. In the words of the classic Sesame Street picture book, we have to teach kids that We’re Different, We’re the Same.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Raise an Antiracist

“We don’t want the child to view our admiration of them as conditional, as transactional—as coming only when they do something good. We want them to know we value them no matter what. Simply by virtue of being human and in community with other humans, they are of immeasurable intrinsic value.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Raise an Antiracist

“There are parents who think better of their kids based on what their words say, but think worse of their kids based on what their policies say. These parents SAY their kids are smarter and harder working than those other kids but these same parents resist equalizing educational opportunities between their kids and those other kids. ... Their defense of a rigged educational system conveys maybe they don't think their child is smart after all; that they don't believe their kids could rise above the pack if their kids were not privileged. It is the conceit of parents who claim their kids are excelling solely because they are smarter or harder working. It is the insecurity of parents who resist changing the structure to one that better benefits all children, including their child. This is an allegory for racism. The very racial groups at the top of the racial hierarchy claim they are there due to their superiority at the same time they resist antiracist efforts to create a fair and equitable society where they could actually show they are superior.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Raise an Antiracist

“To be racist is to be conceited AND insecure. To be conceited is to have an exaggerated sense of self, to think you are better than you really are, to think others are worse than they really are, to think you, and people "like" you in your racial group, sit at the top of an imagined racial hierarchy. To be insecure is to undervalue the self, to think you are worse than you really are, to think others are better than they really are, to think you, and people "like" you in your racial group, sit at the bottom of an imagined racial hierarchy. Conceit and insecurity are the twin children of being racist. Every racist idea is a conceited idea or an insecure idea. Every racist idea proclaims the proficiencies or deficiencies of a racial group. Racist ideas are red meat for ravenous egos and insecurities.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Raise an Antiracist

“When I wasn't told I was an impostor in these privileged classes, I was told I was privileged. To be a student in these classes is to be constantly told you are better than the students not in these classes. It is to be told you are gifted and hardworking--not like those other kids. For a teenager--whether White or Black or Asian or any other race--to be constantly told you are better is to start believing it. How else are you going to explain why so many kids like you or not like you are in--or are not in--these privileged classes?”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Raise an Antiracist

“Instead of calling these IB and AP courses "gifted" classes, I call them privileged classes. The students in the classes are privileged. Colleges give preferential treatment to students who take these classes. These classes are not offered at all or in full in some schools. Others have a full slate of IB or AP classes. Many IB programs require letters of recommendation, allowing eligibility to hinge on teachers' assumptions and expectations of students. Depending on their race, students aren't just steered away from them, they are also steered toward them.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Raise an Antiracist

“Caregivers must model a critical home, a critical classroom, a critical community, for kids to defy and question everything that’s questionable.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Raise an Antiracist

“To raise an antiracist is to raise a critical thinker. And to raise a critical thinker is to raise an antiracist.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Raise an Antiracist

“Then again, not everything is questionable. Facts are not questionable. Not all racial questions are antiracist. Our questions should be premised on the basic fact of our common humanity. To be racist is to assume that racial groups are not, or may not be, equals. This racist assumption ignores the nearly six centuries of power constructing the races and failing to prove that these racialized groups are anything but equals. To be antiracist is to assume that racial groups are equals. These different assumptions lead to different questions. Racist: What is wrong with those people? Antiracist: What is wrong with these racist policies? Different questions lead to different solutions. Racist: changing people. Antiracist: changing policy. The question—if wielded in antiracist fashion—is the most powerful sentence. The question is the seed to knowing. This process of persistent questioning is the key to critical thinking. To raise an antiracist is to raise a critical thinker.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Raise an Antiracist

“Republican state representative Jim Olsen introduced a bill that would prohibit Oklahoma state agencies and public school districts from teaching “that one race is the unique oppressor” during American slavery or “another race is the unique victim in the institution of slavery.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Raise an Antiracist

“In the months since my brother's diagnosis, Ma had become very protective of him in a way she'd never become of me. It made sense. Parents of black children can be ultra-protective, knowing they are raising their children within the dangerous smog of racism. Parents of children with disabilities can be very protective, knowing they are raising their children within the dangerous smog of ableism. Now imagine the level of protectiveness for parents of children of color with a disability, knowing they are raising them within the doubly thick smog of racism and ableism.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Raise an Antiracist

“Adoption agencies replaced orphanages, and prospective parents contacted these new adoption agencies seeking children of what they believed to be superior racial, ethnic, religious, and national “stock.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Raise an Antiracist

“Racist ideas have spread across humanity and history precisely because they are simple.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Raise an Antiracist

“There is no such thing as a “not racist.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Raise an Antiracist