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How to Be an Antiracist
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the National Book Award–winning author of Stamped from the Beginning comes a “groundbreaking” (Time) approach to understanding and uprooting racism and inequality in our society and in ourselves—now updated, with a new preface.
“The most courageous book to date on the problem of race in the Western mind.”—The New York Times
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR—The New York Times Book Review, Time, NPR, The Washington Post, Shelf Awareness, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews
Antiracism is a transformative concept that reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism—and, even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. At its core, racism is a powerful system that creates false hierarchies of human value; its warped logic extends beyond race, from the way we regard people of different ethnicities or skin colors to the way we treat people of different sexes, gender identities, and body types. Racism intersects with class and culture and geography and even changes the way we see and value ourselves. In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi takes readers through a widening circle of antiracist ideas—from the most basic concepts to visionary possibilities—that will help readers see all forms of racism clearly, understand their poisonous consequences, and work to oppose them in our systems and in ourselves.
Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science with his own personal story of awakening to antiracism. This is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond the awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a just and equitable society.
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Reviews
Kendi's thesis is that racism is rooted in policy, not in ideology. Racist policies are created to serve the self interests of the people who create them, then racism is used to promote and defend these policies. According to Kendi, the key antiracism is to dismantle racist policies, then racist ideas will fall with them. Agree with it or not, Kendi defends his thesis well with strong evidence and great writing. Each chapter defines a type of racism and the corresponding type of antiracism that challenges it. And each ties a story from Kendi’s personal experiences with the theory and history of the concept. This is mostly a high quality text with comprehensive content that is well-cited. One area of disappointment is the “Class” chapter. Antiracist authors are often dismissed as Marxists, and it is difficult to defend them when they write language like Kendi uses here, which—in a Marxist fashion—emphasizes history and identity over theory and praxis. To his credit, Kendi differentiates between historical capitalism and theoretical capitalism. However, he chooses to focus on the historical definition, and he uses contradictions and generalizations to dismiss capitalism racist, without fully supporting the claim as he does with almost all other claims in the book. To use Kendi’s own logical approach, I would argue that if antiracists do not wish to be dismissed for having a Marxist agenda, then they should not dismiss capitalists as having a racist agenda. For me, Kendi more than makes up for this in the “Gender” chapter, which provides an excellent explanation of intersectional identities and how they affect many racist policies and racist behaviors. This is an area of racism I was not informed enough about, so I got a lot out of this chapter. Some other big takeaways from this book: Race is more than a social construct, it is a power construct. Racist policy has only been changed when it served the interests of racist power. And, perhaps one of his more controversial points: anyone can be racist against any racial group, including their own and including a group that has racial power. Some of Kendi's ideas have received mixed responses in the antiracist community. There is some controversy over his thesis and the "White" and "Black" chapters, for example. I am not going to comment on them here because as a straight white male, it's not really my place to say what people in these more vulnerable groups should and should not be worried about. I will just do what I can to read a lot of antiracist work, listen to the concerns of other people, and fight for equality in policy. I will say that Kendi does explain his ideas well, and they are worth reading and considering as part of a broader education in antiracism. As important as this reading and listening are, we must do more. As Kendi states, “Knowledge is only power if knowledge is put to the struggle for power. Changing minds is not a movement. Critiquing racism is not activism. Changing minds is not activism. An activist produces power and policy change.” That is the ultimate lesson of this book. We must apply what we have learned from books like this one to changing the policies in our communities that empower racism.
By gakingmusic
…And this is not the last time I’ll read this book, talk about it, wrestle with it, or recommend it to anyone who’ll listen. Kendi picked apart so many narratives that I had taken for granted since birth, and I’m grateful for it. It’s cemented in my brain- among many other things- that what I’d felt deep down about human value was more than hopeful naïveté all along. My own racist ideas have been hard to start rooting out, but this book has given me language, tools, and most important of all a starting point from which to begin the work on myself. Ibram provides a framework for anyone who is open to a reasoned, researched, and historically-informed approach to constructing an equitable world for everyone. Don’t dismiss this book as racist before reading it. We can do better than that, both for ourselves and our children.
By BobbyoftheBeard
The way Dr. Ibram X. Kendi builds the story from early childhood to now telling a narrative of constantly identifying and dismantling the next form of racism in his own life is truly exceptional. I heard negative reviews of this book but bought it on a whim. I’m generally a slow reader but I could put this down finishing it in a week. There are parts of this book I have some questions and maybe disagreements. However, those do not take away from the underlying and driving thought behind this book. I’ve given it to my wife to read and next will be to pass it on to my brother and his wife.
By eiondonnelly
Brilliant book! I always felt like racism was more of a spectrum that everyone was on. But I like how Dr. Kendi breaks down racism into multiple categories of racism.
By WNBIII
If you don’t follow this clowns dogma, you are a racist. Classic oppressed/oppressor mindset rooted in Marxism . This guy is a clown and does a disservice to the black community. It is the white, Chardonnay drinking females and their beta male husbands that eat this garbage up.
By Dano the truth