Ibram X. Kendi
...First and foremost, it’s critical for every American to stop saying terms like, “I’m not racist.” And I think it’s critically important for Americans to admit the racist ideas that they have likely been raised to believe. It’s critically important for Americans to admit the racist policies they’ve supported that have led to inequality and injustice and death. And it’s critically important for them to admit the times in which they were being racist because there’s no way they can change themselves if they’re still in that denial.
So to be anti-racist is to admit when we’re being racist. And then not only that admission, but then we challenge those racist ideas. We adopt antiracist ideas that say the problem is power and policy when there is inequity, not people. And then we spend our time, we spend our funds, we spend our energy challenging racist policy and power...
... racism as like a metastatic disease that literally has spread to every part of the body politic. And we can see those, sort of, tumor cells through all of the George Floyds and Breonna Taylors who are dying through all of the injustices and the inequities. And so it’s everywhere and it’s always been widespread in the United States.
And so the question is, will we just believe that it’s always going to be here and then guarantee our death? Or will we basically acknowledge our diagnosis that we had this metastatic racism that we have to treat, that the treatment is going to be painful? And simultaneously believe that we can live...
...you have racial disparities in the United States, in Canada, in other countries. And there’s only two causes of, you know, racial disparities. Either certain groups are better or worse than others and that’s why they have more, or racist policy. Those are the only two options, and antiracists believe that the racial groups are equal, and so they’re trying to change policy. And racists believe that certain groups are better or worse than others. So they are either trying to get rid of people, or segregate people, or civilize people. Indeed, there’s two American racial histories.
There’s the history of racist progress, wherein you’ve had those forces that are constantly seeking to maintain racial inequity in their policies and ideas have become more sophisticated over time. But you’ve also had a history of antiracist progress. Obviously the reasons why racist policies and ideas have had to become more sophisticated over time is because they’ve been constantly challenged. And antiracist activists have constantly, at times, won battles only for them to potentially lose the next battle. And so, you know, that’s how you can have, in the same country, a manifestation of racial progress, as for many people, President Barack Obama was. And a manifestation of racist progress, who for many people is Donald Trump...
... It’s one thing to say that one of the ways in which you should channel your anger is through seeking to vote into power antiracist elected officials. And it’s yet another thing to say that in reaction to people who are protesting or demonstrating against police violence in Atlanta. And instead of Atlanta’s officials immediately making policy changes that have the capacity to reduce police violence against people, instead, those Atlanta officials make immediate policy changes to stem violence against property and police and then simultaneously say to those very people, “Well, you need to channel your energy into electing people like me.” But those very people who are elected officials actually have the power in that moment to make changes. And they’re not doing it. So you can’t simultaneously not use your power to make change and then tell people, “You should be electing people like me and then change will come.”...
... Every individual lives in a neighborhood. And chances are that neighborhood has racial disparities. Every individual operates in an institution, whether that’s their job, whether that’s their church, whether that’s a club. Chances are their job, their institution has racial disparities or is doing nothing in the face of racial disparities. And so I think every individual can look around their own neighborhood, their own institution, and ask the question, ‘Well, who here is challenging the policy that is leading to these racial disparities?’ And they can join with those people, they can join that organization. And if there isn’t an organization, and I suspect there probably is or, you know, an informal group of people, then you create one. Then you become that organizer. Every single individual has the power to do that...
“To be antiracist is to admit when we’re being racist:” Professor Ibram X. Kendi on the protests - Vox
https://www.vox.com/2020/6/1/21277220/george-floyd-protests-ibram-x-kendi-today-explained
Clips from ^^^
important for Americans to admit the racist policies they’ve supported that have led to inequality and injustice and death
https://www.vox.com/2020/6/1/21277220/george-floyd-protests-ibram-x-kendi-today-explained
And it’s critically important for them to admit the times in which they were being racist because there’s no way they can change themselves if they’re still in that denial
https://www.vox.com/2020/6/1/21277220/george-floyd-protests-ibram-x-kendi-today-explained
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How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X Kendi review – a brilliantly simple argument
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/oct/11/how-to-be-an-antiracist-by-ibram-x-kendi-review
We are either racist or antiracist, there is nothing in between, argues this powerful memoir and political guide
If Ibram X Kendi has been a lifelong racist – as he confesses in this book – then we all have. This is the unsettling idea at the heart of How to Be an Antiracist, in which one of the US’s most respected scholars of race and history steps away from documenting the racist sins of others, and turns the lens pointedly, uncomfortably, at himself.
Kendi’s argument is brilliantly simple. An idea, action or policy is either racist – that is, contributing to a history that regards and treats different races as inherently unequal – or it is antiracist, because it is trying to dismantle that history. There is nothing in between. There is no pure state of racism or anti-racism: people of all races and backgrounds can fall into either category depending on their ideas, actions or the policies they support.
One of the easiest things to relate to in Kendi’s hypothesis, which puts it in line with other contemporary books about racism and inequality, is his withering attack on the idea of being “not racist”. There is no scholarship required to realise intuitively that President Trump declaring that he is not racist while issuing multiple racist slurs, or some of the British press taking great offence at being called “racist” while promoting tropes about ethnic minority communities, reveals the meaninglessness of being “not racist”. Everyone says they are not racist. Few actively self-identity as “antiracist”.
Antiracism takes effort. Kendi has made clear in his previous work that he rejects the idea that racism is born out of ignorance. Racism, history shows, is born out of its profitability and utility. It is rooted in patriarchy and capitalism. To stand against it requires acknowledging what he calls “the metastatic cancer” that has seen “racism spread to nearly every part of the body politic”.
Kendi digs deep to justify these analogies. He charts not just his personal journey through the racist ideas he and his family embraced, but also the advanced-stage cancer that ravaged his body after he completed his last book, the award-winning Stamped from the Beginning. “Racist ideas piled up before me like trash at a landfill,” he writes. “Tens of thousands of pages of Black people being trashed as natural or nurtured beasts, devils, animals, rapists, slaves … More than five hundred years of toxic ideas on the Black body.” At one point Kendi, whose wife also survived cancer shortly before he was diagnosed, apologises for his inability to separate cancer and racism. But there is no need. His honesty in linking his personal struggles to the work he has now undertaken is one of the most powerful elements in this compelling book.
In other ways Kendi raises more questions than he answers. Stories about his parents, who met in the black liberation theology movement, before his mother went off to work as a missionary in Liberia, feel unfinished. He hints that he ultimately rejected the Christian beliefs with which he was raised, but steps away from narrating when and why. His stories of being an uninterested and not particularly compassionate child seem half-told. He does reveal that he changed his middle name from Henry to Xolani once he learned of Prince Henry “the Navigator”, the 15th‑century Portuguese royal, who first pioneered transatlantic slavery. I’m intrigued as to whether those who named him share his sentiments.
Kendi salutes his parents for their passion for justice while gently pointing out that they raised him as “a racist, sexist, homophobe”. This sounds more damning than it is – we are all racist, sexist homophobes in Kendi’s view, unless we are striving not to be in some meaningful way that changes policy.
How to Be an Antiracist is more like a textbook than I would like, but then there is much schooling to be done. Kendi succinctly takes down assimilationist thinking (“Assimilationists typically position White people as the superior standard”) and the glamorising of poverty as “authentic blackness” (with typical honesty, he confesses to having been guilty of this).
Kendi’s honesty in linking his struggle with cancer to his work is a compelling element in this book
He is particularly strong on his critique of “uplift suasian” – the tendency of black people to blame themselves for racial inequity, to “strap the entire Black race on the Black body’s back, shove the burdened Black body into White spaces, order the burdened Black body to always act in an upstanding manner to persuade away White racism”.
Kendi’s is also a welcome intervention into the sensitive subject differences between African Americans and other black groups in the US, especially African and Caribbean immigrants, whose different outcomes and historic mutual suspicions of each other are unsentimentally unpicked.
His analysis travels well. A Wall Street Journal columnist’s cultural racism – “black culture today not only condones delinquency and thuggery but celebrates it to the point where black youths have adopted jail fashion in the form of baggy, low-slung pants and oversize T-shirts” – sounds a lot like David Starkey’s British version of the same: “A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic gangster culture has become the fashion.” These reductive voices, so familiar in all multicultural societies, are channelled by the media and political establishment because they claim, in the same breath, that they are “not racist”. Yet some of the language in the book is problematic. The welcome chapter on how to be anti-colourist crudely divides black society into “Light” and “Dark” – both are terms that others have sought to reject, with mixed success. Kendi’s description of his journey into feminism – about which he is refreshingly honest – still involves some of the awkward tropes about “strong women” that as a black woman I find particularly tired.
This is a dogmatic book, but that should be no surprise given that the title takes the form of a “How To”. Kendi gets away with the instructional tone, both because of the work he has put in, and because of his ability to face up to his own flaws.
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X Kendi review – a brilliantly simple argument - Afua Hirsch
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/oct/11/how-to-be-an-antiracist-by-ibram-x-kendi-review
Clips from ^^^
An idea, action or policy is either racist contributing to a history that regards and treats different races as inherently unequal – or it is antiracist, because it is trying to dismantle that history. There is nothing in between.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/oct/11/how-to-be-an-antiracist-by-ibram-x-kendi-review
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6 ways to be antiracist, because being 'not racist' isn't enough
https://mashable.com/article/how-to-be-antiracist/
1) Understand the definition of racist.
Conversations about racism often suffer when participants can't define the meaning of the word. Merriam-Webster defines racism as "a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race." Few people would admit that definition reflects their views but nevertheless consciously or unwittingly believe in or endorse racist ideas.
Kendi goes further, defining the word racist as: "One who is supporting a racist policy through their actions or inaction or expressing a racist idea." This incisive definition forces the reader to hold themselves accountable for their ideas and actions.
An antiracist, writes Kendi, is "One who is supporting an antiracist policy through their actions or expressing an antiracist idea."
2) Stop saying "I'm not racist."
It's not enough to say, "I'm not racist," and often it's a self-serving sentiment. Kendi says people constantly change the definition of what's racist so it doesn't apply to them. If you're a white nationalist who's not violent, says Kendi, then you might see the Ku Klux Klan as racist. If you're a Democrat who thinks there's something culturally wrong with black people, then racists to you might be people who are Republicans.
By reflexively defining yourself as not racist, or beyond racism's firm grip, you're making it impossible to see how your own ideas, thoughts, and actions could be indeed racist. Moreover, being antiracist means moving beyond the "not racist" defense and instead embracing and articulating decidedly antiracist views and beliefs.
So, for example, if you're a white liberal who considers herself "not racist" but you refuse to send your child to a local public school because the population is predominantly African American, that choice is racist. The antiracist position would be to at least consider enrolling your child and/or learning about the disparities and inequities affecting that school in order to fight them.
3) Identify racial inequities and disparities.
Racism yields racial inequities and disparities in every sector of private and public life. That includes in politics, health care, criminal justice, education, income, employment, and home ownership. Being antiracist means learning about and identifying inequities and disparities that give, in particular, white people, or any racial group, material advantages over people of color.
When Social Security was created in 1935, for example, it excluded domestic and agricultural workers, the majority of whom were black. While the Social Security Administration denies racial bias was a factor in that decision, it still meant that black workers had less opportunity over the course of decades to accumulate savings and wealth compared to white workers. Other policies that disproportionately provided "tax-funded wealth-building opportunities" to white Americans produced similar results for black Americans.
"What an anti-racist does first and foremost is identify racial inequities," says Kendi.
So a racist analysis would ascribe poor or worse outcomes for black Americans to the group's behavior or characteristics. An antiracist analysis would make clear that the problem is not the group, but the policies that put racial groups at a distinct disadvantage.
4) Confront the racist ideas you've held or continue to hold.
Once you've begun identifying racial disparities, examine whether your own views, beliefs, or voting patterns have justified racial inequality.
If you're the parent who won't send a child to a predominantly black school, consider how that choice influences your views on discipline policies and charter schools, policy issues that are deeply intertwined with race and racism. Do you vote for school board or city council candidates who don't want to address educational disparities or actually work against local advocates trying to increase educational equity? Do you know that funding policies affect how resources are allocated to schools and why those practices can create racial disparities? To many people, these realities probably seem disconnected from whether or not they're racist, but Kendi argues that remaining ignorant about them, or declining to change policies that produce disparities, is not an option for someone who wants to be antiracist.
Kendi's own journey demonstrates that people can hold racist ideas without realizing they're biased — and while they embrace ideas that are antiracist. If you don't know whether your beliefs or views are racist, listen to frontline racial justice advocates, activists, and organizations that have outlined antiracist positions and policies. Let that listening prompt deeper reflection about why you've believed in certain ideas.
5) Understand how your antiracism needs to be intersectional.
Kendi argues that racist ideas and policies target many different people within racial groups. A policy that creates inequality between white and Native American people, for example, also yields inequality between white men and Native American women. If one believes that black men are superior to black women, then that person won't be able to see how certain ideas and policies disproportionately affect black women in harmful ways.
Because race intersects with multiple aspects of people's identities, including their gender, sexuality, and ethnicity, it's imperative to use an intersectional approach when being antiracist.
6) Champion antiracist ideas and policies.
One cannot strive to be antiracist without action, and Kendi says that one way to act is by supporting organizations in your community that are fighting policies that create racial disparities. You can volunteer for or fund those organizations. Kendi also recommends using one's power or getting into a position of power to change racist policies in any setting where they exist — school, work, government, and so on. The point is to commit to some form of action that has the potential to change racist policies.
Kendi realizes the risk of openly discussing one's own racist ideas or beliefs, and knows that vulnerability can be weaponized against someone. He also has a unique vantage point on this question.
"As someone who studies racist ideas and upwards of 500 years of people weaponizing racist ideas ... no matter what antiracists say or do, racists are going to figure out a way to weaponize their words and their deeds against them," he says.
Given that inevitability, Kendi believes in the power of being vulnerable as an antiracist, because it gives the listener an opportunity to be similarly capable of self-critique.
"There are many Americans who believe sincerely that they're not racist," he says.
Kendi's hope is that they'll be open to recognizing the ways in which they're racist if others around them show them what that looks like.
6 ways to be antiracist, because being 'not racist' isn't enough
https://mashable.com/article/how-to-be-antiracist/
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...it’s not enough to simply be “not racist.” “The opposite of ‘racist’ isn’t ‘not racist,’” he writes. “It is ‘antiracist.’”...
...“One endorses either the idea of a racial hierarchy as a racist, or racial equality as an antiracist,” ...“One either believes problems are rooted in groups of people, as a racist, or locates the roots of problems in power and policies, as an antiracist. One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an antiracist.”...
... “There is no in-between safe space of ‘not racist,’” Kendi continues. “The claim of ‘not racist’ neutrality is a mask for racism.”
To be an anti-racist ...an understanding that racial disparities in America have their roots, not in some failing by people of color but in policies that serve to prop up white supremacy. The coronavirus pandemic, during which black and Latinx people in many communities have been disproportionately likely to become ill and die, is just one example. As Kendi writes at the Atlantic, “Why are black (and Latino) people during this pandemic less likely to be working from home; less likely to be insured; more likely to live in trauma-care deserts, lacking access to advanced emergency care; and more likely to live in polluted neighborhoods?”
The answer, he writes, is simple: racism.
Specifically, redlining and other forms of housing discrimination have made black Americans more likely to live in neighborhoods affected by environmental contamination that federal and state officials have been slow to respond to, which increases the rates of chronic illness. Those high rates of chronic illness, in turn, make people more vulnerable to Covid-19. In Flint, Michigan, for example, where much of the majority-black population has been affected by lead-contaminated drinking water, the pandemic is “a crisis on top of a crisis with a side of crisis,” Mayor Sheldon Neeley told Vox’s Khushbu Shah.
Anti-racism is understanding how years of federal, state, and local policies have placed communities of color in the crises they face today, and calling those policies out for what they are: racist.
It also requires an understanding of one’s own position in a racist society, many say, an acknowledgment that you can’t simply opt out of living in white supremacy by saying you’re “not a racist” — you have to actively fight against it. “Anti-racism is an acknowledgment of privilege in a way that, I think, simply disavowing racism is not,” Ranganathan said. “It takes seriously that we all are situated into different matrices of power and privilege, and the first step is to take stock of that and not to disavow it or invisibilize it.”
Asked to define anti-racism, writer and middle-school teacher Christina Torres cited Beverly Daniel Tatum’s conception of racism as a moving walkway. “We’re all on the moving walkway,” Torres said. “If you’re not racist, you’re kind of just standing still on the moving walkway, but you’re still complicit in societal racism because you’re part of society.”
“The only way to be anti-racist is to walk in the other direction,” Torres said.
The practice of anti-racism: As for how to actually walk against the tide of racism, experts say one key step is educating yourself. White people “need [to] listen to the things that people of color have been telling them for years,” Cornelius Minor, told Vox. “One of white folks’ favorite things to do is to claim that they didn’t know.”
But it’s not the job of people of color to educate white people about racism or anti-racism. “I’m the victim of racism, and now you want me to try to solve the problem,” Simmons says she recently told colleagues. “The problem does not lie within me, it lies within the system that you benefit from.”
Instead, people can seek out the many resources already available on anti-racism. In recent days, many publications, including the Guardian, USA Today, and Time, have posted anti-racist reading lists. Many people have also shared resources on social media.
Once you’ve educated yourself, the next step is “to actually take action that benefits the members of your community,” Minor said...
How to be an antiracist: Antiracism, explained - Vox
https://www.vox.com/2020/6/3/21278245/antiracist-racism-race-books-resources-antiracism
Clips from ^^^
...it’s not enough to simply be “not racist.” “The opposite of ‘racist’ isn’t ‘not racist,’” he writes. “It is ‘antiracist.’”...
...“One endorses either the idea of a racial hierarchy as a racist, or racial equality as an antiracist,” ...“One either believes problems are rooted in groups of people, as a racist, or locates the roots of problems in power and policies, as an antiracist. One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an antiracist.”...
... “There is no in-between safe space of ‘not racist,’” Kendi continues. “The claim of ‘not racist’ neutrality is a mask for racism.”
https://www.vox.com/2020/6/3/21278245/antiracist-racism-race-books-resources-antiracism
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How to Be an Antiracist Summary & Study Guide
http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-how-to-be-an-antiracist/
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Review and Notes for How to be an AntiRacist by Kendi. — Stories by Wei
https://www.storiesbywei.com/reviews/2020/1/2/kendi-how-to-be-an-antiracist
Read How to Be an Antiracist(8) Online by Ibram X. Kendi - ePub Online free
http://www.reads2020.com/romance/134/134_8.html
