How to Be an Antiracist
Ibram X. Kendi
One World
Nonfiction, Autobiography/History/Politics/Sociology
Themes: Cross-Genre, Diversity
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Description
Today's demonstrations in the name of Black Lives Matter are just the latest face of a struggle over racial equity that predates the founding of America. Many people are energized to join the marchers, many call for their dispersal, but a great number still sit on the sidelines as though it's not their problem. "I'm not a racist," they say, or "I don't have a dog in this fight" ... or "it'll die out on its own if we just ignore color altogether." But the story of racism is more than just the story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr or Jim Crow South or affirmative action. It's a story that involves everybody, a story on which power in the modern world as a whole has been built on a foundation of racism and inequity - one that's brought us to the literal brink, racially and politically and environmentally. It's not enough to just say one is not racist; to have any hope of actual, lasting change, one must be antiracist. Scholar, author, and activist Ibram X. Kendi traces the history of racism through history and his own life, from the invention of the concept of race through generations of supporters and detractors and the many (often flawed) proposed solutions, to the concept of antiracism as an active voice and movement.
Review
As a lower-income left-leaning white woman, I've been aware that racism existed for some time, though it never quite seemed to touch my life (that I was aware
of). Like many, I've been watching recent developments (or degenerations) with increasing concern. It seemed there was a lot I hadn't been told or did not
understand, for this much apparent progress - for the "arc of history" I'd been told to trust would inevitably bend toward justice and equality - to backslide
this far and this fast, despite apparent widespread objection. So, when the recent spurt of books on racism hit the library system where I worked, I figured it
was time to do some self-education to try to understand what was going on, and why, and if there was anything that could be done. After the initial surge, this
book was one of the ones that still surfaced regularly in circulation, so I figured it might be one to try. (It was also relatively short; some of those books are
bricks, and I'm an undereducated American public school alumnus, so they'd likely be way too much for an introduction.) It turned out to be a very good
choice.
Drawing on both deep scholarly research and his personal and family history, Kendi exposes the roots of racism at the start of the European slave trade (and the
very capitalistic idea of doing an end-run around the competition, slave-traders from the Middle East... plus advertising to justify their "product" and "brand"
by inventing a vision of Africa and Africans with no basis in reality but which rationalized the whole deal - and, not coincidentally, generated enormous profits.)
To be sure, humans have long held prejudices against other nations and cultures - a pitfall of a brain evolved to seek mental shortcuts and patterns even when
none exist, perhaps, as many prejudices seem to play right into hardwired mental blind spots - but color-based racism was an invention with a verifiable birth
date. These ideas were further refined down through the ages, evolving to counter arguments and objections, dehumanizing and othering non-Whites, layering
themselves into the fabric of society and policy and classes and popular thinking until even those who wanted to fix the problem too often came at the matter from
flawed and racist assumptions, that the Black people needed to be "elevated" (as though they were inherently lower) or "assimilated" (as though their cultures and
languages were inherently inferior) or "saved" (as though Europeans were doing their souls a favor.) Nor is racism strictly a problem of White people; many Blacks
(and other races) unthinkingly swallow and regurgitate racist ideas against Whites, against Blacks of a different social strata or cultural origin, against other
races - even against themselves, as reflected in movements that blame racial inequality on personal failings and laziness rather than institutions and policies
designed against them. Kendi again draws on his own life and his often-painful struggle with inherited ideas of race and gender (he ties feminism and LGBTQ+
issues into the greater struggle of racism and inequality; to embrace antiracism is to recognize that any policy dehumanizing or belittling or othering any part
of the human race, by skin color or gender or anything, shares the same root and spreads the same poison.) It is a very enlightening and sobering exploration, one
that left me astounded at my own short-sighted ignorance.
Toward the end, he explores why antiracism seems to be floundering - an overreliance on ideological
"purity" and moral victories over focusing on tangible policy changes that actually create change, plus a strange refusal to admit that flawed tactics are not
working even as progress gets steamrolled by the re-energized racists in power. Kendi acknowledges that we're in dire straits, especially with the racist power
structure bringing us to the edge of economic, social, and environmental collapse (racism is inextricably tied with capitalism, which is responsible for so much
destruction and anti-environmental policies linked to runaway global warming), but insists that hope cannot be abandoned altogether. In the end, I consider myself
much more educated on the subject, if much more aware of how deep the problem truly runs and how big and many-headed this Goliath truly is. I may not be able to do
much, if anything, about the greater problems, but I can hopefully do something about my own misconceptions.