How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

#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.

A liked that Ibram X. Kendi emphasized that changing policies from racist to anti-racist allows for people to viscerally understand the benefits and in turn be more open-minded to changing their anti-racist beliefs.

Discomfiting and intentionally antagonizing to the status quo, though sometimes overly academic

Read so slowly because I was taking so many notes. Will be returning to this genius work again and again. Incredibly well researched and organized, but also very personal, so it should be highly accessible to any reader. Can't recommend enough, a crucial must-read for everyone.

I've been working through Dr. Kendi's work backwards starting with his coauthored book with Jason Reynolds, Stamped which was brilliant and then proceeding to this one. But it all started when I got the opportunity to listen to him speak about this book in an event last fall and it was such an emotional experience even though I'm not Black. And listening to this book through audio narrated by him felt very similar.

I expected this one to read more like an academic work like Stamped and it is that, but in equal terms, it is also the author's part memoir. While each chapter talks about a different intersection of racism/antiracism, it's also told through a progression of his own life beginning with his parents' life and as an evolution of his own ideas from racist to antiracist. And that is one major reason this book clicks - the author uses his own experiences and how he had to confront his own wrong beliefs and actions to start antiracist work as the basis for the book - which allows us a reader also to be able to question ourselves, without feeling defensive, and challenging ourselves to be better and act better. And I really appreciated how the book discusses lots of intersections of racist policies, including but not limited to ethnicity, colorism, gender, sexuality, class, culture etc. It really shows how we can embody antiracist ideas across one spectrum but be racist across another, and how it is our duty to introspect and get rid of our racist ideas across the board and start working towards antiracism.

Other than the author's framing of the importance of action and the immense need for the repealing of racist policies, what I also took away was the importance of defining clearly what we are talking about. In this day and age of social media and trolling, where the difference between who gets to speak their opinions without critique and who doesn't is even more stark - it's a necessity that we have the right vocabulary to talk about and defend our policies and positions, because there are too many people who would question us and engage in bad faith. And giving any unjust action the right word gives it a weight that helps us in understanding and explaining its significance as well as its impact. One such example that really resonated with me was the author's explanation that “microagressions” as a word might sometimes feel minimizing because of the usage of “micro” in it and how the affect of facing microaggressions on the daily by Black people is in no way micro in the way it traumatizes them; and so it should be called what it is - “racial abuse”. There are many such examples and it's this personal touch that really ensures that we can't forget the ideas in the book easily.

To conclude, I think this is a great work to help us realize what kind of racist ideas we have been believing knowingly or unknowingly, and what should we do to dispel them and start on the path to do actual antiracist work and confront the racist policies that are deeply entrenched in our society. And the fact that the author wrote this book when he was undergoing treatment for stage 4 colon cancer and confronting his own mortality gives more heft to the anger and urgency that we feel seeped through its pages. We have to do the antiracist work, and we have to do it now, and waiting for someone else to come save us will only be a detriment for our society and country.