How to Be an Antiracist comes from an author good enough to be banned by school boards. That alone should pique your interest. Ibram X. Kendi writes from a standpoint that is informed by “critical race theory”, a focus on racial capitalism, and an interest in decolonization. For these reasons, his work is sometimes deemed a threat to American values or to the minds of young people. It doesn’t seem to have stopped his ride, though. Kendi’s on the ascent with this and other bestselling books, a very popular podcast, and a seat at the table of intellectual powerhouses affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement.
And boy oh boy, are people scared of “critical race theory”. They worry that it teaches us to hate America, to hate white people or at least to believe that white people are inherently racist. It doesn’t really do anything of the kind, and that’s clearly not Kendi’s intent – any honest reading of the book would come to the same conclusion. But Kendi makes a distinction between “white people” and “whiteness”. In fact, a lot of the book is a series of interlaced distinctions and definitions. Kendi is in some way trying to restructure and clarify the language we use to talk about race, and I think in just about every sense, it’s an effort well-made. His core arguments are several:
- Racism isn’t just hatred in your heart for members of the other race. It’s any standpoint or behavior that causes racially inequitable outcomes. This is the case whether there’s malice or bad intent behind it or not.
- The opposite of racist isn’t non-racist. It’s antiracist. Non-racist implies you’re neutral, you’re Switzerland, staying out of the conflict. You’re not the worst, but you’re no hero, and not on the side of the angels. To be antiracist is to work against racism, to tear down the systems that bring it influence over society.
- Kendi argues that the phrase systemic racism is a redundant term. To quote the author, “Racism itself is institutional, structural, and systemic”. You don’t need to qualify it. That’s what it is – a system.
Kendi spends some time early in the book introducing himself and how that system affected him as a young man. It shows Kendi internalizing some of its ideology in a way that is probably a little embarrassing for him. It’s also also brave and helpful for him to present to us. I’ve written a lot and done public speaking too, and there’s definitely things out there I no longer believe and would cringe to see read again. I empathize with him a lot here. Then the author moves to establish his system of terminology around race. He does this bit by bit, chapter by chapter, guiding us along the way. This helps us can associate each term with examples from his life, our own lives, or the pages of history. Kendi’s a fantastic writer. Reading him, you feel that he is bringing his whole self to the text and to the effort to describe both racism and antiracism. He’s also a gifted and thorough historian. A few years before the release of this book, he wrote Stamped From the Beginning, which actually lives up to its subtitle as a definitive history of racial ideology in the United States. He revisits a decent amount of that material here. If you’re only in the mood to read one book by Kendi, though, this is still the more approachable one.
This book also succeeds where others fail. Unlike Robin DiAngelo’s This book also succeeds where others fail. Unlike Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility, Kendi makes clear that racist policies drive racism. The racist ideology of black inferiority, backwardness, and laziness are really justifications after-the-fact. They were devised as excuses for the policies of enslavement already taking place before the ideas took root. The question that results is why? Who benefits from those policies? Kendi, to his credit, doesn’t shy away from this. He describes how racism, capitalism and colonial imperialism are deeply intertwined forces and have been for the last half-millennium in the Western world. We can’t fight one of these demons effectively without taking the battle to them all.
He also doesn’t make the case that white people are inherently racist, as some of his detractors claim (no doubt without reading the book itself). Kendi and others will point out that whiteness, as an ideology constructed to justify privileges given to one group of people and burdens placed upon others, does carry privilege with it. This does not imply that white people inherently have lives of privilege in the familiar sense. It doesn’t mean they automatically are bad people or intentionally exploitative. It doesn’t mean they have to work in furtherance of racism or racist policies. In the author’s own words:
“To be antiracist is to never mistake the global march of White racism for the global march of White people. To be antiracist is to never mistake the antiracist hate of White racism for the racist hate of White people. To be antiracist is to never conflate racist people with White people, knowing there are antiracist Whites and racist non-Whites.”
How to Be an Antiracist is a masterclass. I’m grateful to have read it, and that so many others have done so. Like the other great books I’ve read, his work propels me in new directions and gives me the drive to discover and understand more about the subject. This is what learning should do – compel us to seek out what pulls us to the page, and invite us to understand each other and ourselves better.
How to Be an Antiracist
A personal, sharp look at how racism is constructed in America, how it serves the interest of those in power, and how to fight it. This one is essential.
Have a comment, or a different reaction to these books? Share it with us below: