My Goodreads Review of How To Be An Antiracist by Ibrahim X. Kendi

I am always weary of reading library books of non-fiction. It is tricky with ebooks, but because I was already trying to get through an even longer ebook I was going through this book at a very fast pace so I have not been able to give my whole soul over to this book but I have gave it at least half my mind. Consider this more a first impression more than a full review.

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi


"An antiracist idea is any idea that suggests the racial groups are equals in all their apparent differences—that there is nothing right or wrong with any racial group. Antiracist ideas argue that racist policies are the cause of racial inequities."

"The most threatening racist movement is not the alt right’s unlikely drive for a White ethnostate but the regular American’s drive for a 'race-neutral' one. The construct of race neutrality actually feeds White nationalist victimhood by positing the notion that any policy protecting or advancing non-White Americans toward equity is “reverse discrimination.” That is how racist power can call affirmative action policies that succeed in reducing racial inequities “race conscious” and standardized tests that produce racial inequities 'race neutral.'"


I was mildly-interested in this book even before BLM II kicked off this summer of 2020, but my interest in this book was definitely peaked a little. When I recently discovered my library got a digital copy of it I checked it out. This book is a semi-memoir, semi-essay/manual/history. It is modeled in the mold of books like We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates or more aptly Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil by W.E.B. Du Bois. Ibram X. Kendi uses his life to explain the concept in all it's dynamics of antiracism. As well as showing his journey from being a racist to an antiracist he documents this journey in W.E.B. Du Bois. It is an interesting book in seeing his personal stories, but the hype I had heard over the policy is one of those things where I am being told things simply which I had already learned the long way. Had I read this book between 2008-2012, it would've been my bible, my handbook. Unfortunately, I read it in 2020 after discovering a lot of these concepts that are antiracism on my own. If you don't want to spend so many years reading like me, this book is the cheat-sheet.

I agree with pretty-much 90%-95% of what Kendi articulates in this book. Most of it is pretty didactic straight-forward telling you how to be antiracist. I do get annoyed at that very common new-intelligentsia habit of trying to rename certain academic terms ad hoc. I was not totally convinced at his arguments concerning institutional racism, but he makes an interesting argument when he says: "Policymakers and policies make societies and institutions, not the other way around. The United States is a racist nation because its policymakers and policies have been racist from the beginning." Beyond that he tries to give antiracist advice on every conceivable issue and he leaves almost no stone unturned. It is fascinating and I was impressed at how relatively simple he makes it (I wish he could have made it more simple, but this is the best you'll get out of these Gen Xer academics). Towards the end he gives his antiracism credo:

It happens for me in successive steps, these steps to be an antiracist.
I stop using the “I’m not a racist” or “I can’t be racist” defense of denial.
I admit the definition of racist (someone who is supporting racist policies or expressing racist ideas).
I confess the racist policies I support and racist ideas I express.
I accept their source (my upbringing inside a nation making us racist).
I acknowledge the definition of antiracist (someone who is supporting antiracist policies or expressing antiracist ideas).
I struggle for antiracist power and policy in my spaces. (Seizing a policymaking position. Joining an antiracist organization or protest. Publicly donating my time or privately donating my funds to antiracist policymakers, organizations, and protests fixated on changing power and policy.)
I struggle to remain at the antiracist intersections where racism is mixed with other bigotries. (Eliminating racial distinctions in biology and behavior. Equalizing racial distinctions in ethnicities, bodies, cultures, colors, classes, spaces, genders, and sexualities.)
I struggle to think with antiracist ideas. (Seeing racist policy in racial inequity. Leveling group differences. Not being fooled into generalizing individual negativity. Not being fooled by misleading statistics or theories that blame people for racial inequity.)

I had not expected this book becoming available to me as fast as it did so I have rushed through it and have not had time to really sit more with it to give a deeper analysis here. I read this as a library borrow on my Kindle, but because it temporary I have not made my notes and highlights from it public. If I buy the book then I'll give a more thorough breakdown of this book. I can't tell other people how essential this book will be to their development, but it was not as essential to me as I thought it would be. It is a fundamentally idealistic book which may put more realist/pessimistic-leaning people off. In the end, what it teaches is fundamental.

"I represent only myself. If the judges draw conclusions about millions of Black people based on how I act, then they, not I, not Black people, have a problem. They are responsible for their racist ideas; I am not. I am responsible for my racist ideas; they are not. To be antiracist is to let me be me, be myself, be my imperfect self." – Amen Brother Kendi, amen.

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