How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi (Book #9)

Title: How to Be an Antiracist

Author: Ibram X. Kendi

Dates Read: Dec. 16 - Jan. 28

Format: Audiobook/Physical Book

Rating: ★★★★★

Description: Ibram X. Kendi's concept of antiracism reenergizes and reshapes the conversation about racial justice in America--but even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. In How to be an Antiracist, Kendi asks us to think about what an antiracist society might look like, and how we can play an active role in building it.

Review: This is such an important book and one I think should be required reading in high schools and/or colleges. It addresses some of the series race issues we have in America and argues not only that the opposite of racist is not "not racist" but instead "antiracist" but that racism roots in policy not people.

Final Note: Some of my favorite quotes from How to Be an Antiracist:

(1) “What’s the problem with being “not racist”? It is a claim that signifies neutrality: “I am not a racist, but neither am I aggressively against racism.” But there is no neutrality in the racism struggle. The opposite of “racist” isn’t “not racist.” It is “antiracist.”

(2) “The good news is that racist and antiracist are not fixed identities. We can be a racist one minute and an antiracist the next. What we say about race, what we do about race, in each moment, determines what -- not who -- we are.”

(3) “Americans have long been trained to see the deficiencies of people rather than policy. It's a pretty easy mistake to make: People are in our faces. Policies are distant. We are particularly poor at seeing the policies lurking behind the struggles of people.”

(4) “Racist ideas love believers, not thinkers.”

(5) “My research kept pointing me to the same answer: The source of racist ideas was not ignorance and hate, but self-interest.”