How to Be an Antiracist

Had this book been titled Types of Racism or the like, I would have viewed this book more favorably. However, halfway in, I realized it would not give the kind of guidance I was seeking in, well, how to be an antiracist. I found his tale of his journey inspiring but not instructive enough, so it's just not what I was looking for.

This book has been on my read list for quite awhile. I wasn't terribly impressed and it seemed like it devolved into history too much which took away from the main points for me.

Great book, with lots of great ideas. My three stars is less about content, and more about execution. Throughout this book I vacillated between wishing I was reading a straight history text and wishing I was reading a straight autobiography. Something about the merger of the two made it feel a little disjointed.

I'd like to check out Stamped from the Beginning sometime which may be more of a straightforward history.

This was good. The audiobook version felt hard to listen to, but the content itself was very good. I appreciated having a doubling down of key concepts, and an exploration of anti-racism through another lens besides my own cishet white one.

3.5 stars

This is certainly a black and white primer for those new to the fight against racism. However I believe he could've inserted more nuance and explored the idea of whiteness as colonial empire, for it is, the self interests of ‘empire' that keep it going and explain the nuances of how it effects minorities of dif ethnic groups, religions, regions, languages, sexualities, genders, etc.

How to be an Anti-Racist by Ibrahim X. Kendi

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The Post-Modern Mein Kampf.

I was not far along in reading this book when I had the oddest feeling that I had been down this road before. There was something about an author relying on his “lived experience” of oppression by racial enemies as unassailable evidence for his argument that was eerily familiar. Likewise, the endless coining of neologisms beginning with “race,” such as “race-gender,” “race-class,” and “race-sexualities,” put me in mind of terms like “race science” and “race traitors” to the point of nearly inducing nausea. When I got to the end of the book and author Ibrahim X. Kendi was describing “whiteness,” or “whites”- the terms were fairly interchangeable once the reader gets past a formulaic statement that he is not a racist, does not hold whites individually responsible for racism, and does not want his statements against “whiteness” to be considered racist – as a kind of “cancer” – two pages after saying the comparison was inappropriate – I was willing to throw in the towel, replace “white” with “Jew,” and declare “How to be an Anti-Racist” the finest updating of Mein Kampf in recent decades.

I get it. Kendi's wife had beaten off cancer and Kendi has always been obsessed with whites and their everlasting racism, whereas Hitler's mother died of breast cancer and was treated by a Jewish doctor with painful experimental drugs, perhaps kicking off his obsession with Jews. Some parallels are just too on the nose to ignore.

This is as toxic and hateful a book as the original German version. It speaks to the ignorance of our educated elites that they can't see the parallels to the race obsession of Nazi writers. They undoubtedly have never read Mein Kampf or anything by any Nazi. If they had, they would be able to spot the genre and tropes that Hitler pioneered.

Kendi's socialism – or anti-capitalism, which he calls “racial capitalism” in one of those endless, cloying, shallow neologism he favors – does not distinguish him from Hitler. Kendi writes:


Capitalism is essentially racist; racism is essentially capitalist. They were birthed together from the same unnatural causes, and they shall one day die together from unnatural causes. Or racial capitalism will live into another epoch of theft and rapacious inequity, especially if activists naïvely fight the conjoined twins independently, as if they are not the same. (Kendi, Ibram X.. How to Be an Antiracist (p. 163). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

But Hitler got there first. He explained that Marxism was deficient only in ignoring the significance of race:

The racial WELTANSCHAUUNG is fundamentally distinguished from the Marxist by reason of the fact that the former recognizes the significance of race and therefore also personal worth and has made these the pillars of its structure. These are the most important factors of its WELTANSCHAUUNG.(Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf: The Official 1939 Version (The Third Reich from Original Sources) (p. 251). Coda Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.)

It looks like Kendi has solved that problem.

Again, what struck me, as I think it would strike anyone who has read Mein Kampf, is the continuous biographical material. Just as Hitler wanted to say that although he grew into an anti-Semite because of his exposures to Jews in Vienna, he was still able as a precocious Volkisch child to discern something “off” about the only Jewish boy in his school, Kendi goes one better by having him as a third grader interrogate a white teacher about why there weren't more black teachers at his elementary school. All this while his parents stood by without embarrassment that their son was exposing that he had been raised in a race-obsessed household.

Allow me to voice some skepticism about Kendi's precociousness: I don't buy it. I can't imagine a nine-year-old thinking in this kind of cliched racist terms any more than I believe that Adolph Hitler was a burgeoning German nationalist at close to the same age. Obsessed people like to burnish stories about how precocious they were concerning their obsessions.

However, both men's invention/description of their journeys says a lot about where they mentally are at the time of their memoir. In Kendi's case – as in Hitler's – the racist is clearly seen. Kendi offers a lot to support this conclusion. In one of the more bizarre self-revelations, Kendi shares how he got interested in, and took seriously, the Nation of Islam's crazy weltanschauung that white people were a black scientists failed genetic experiment. This sets up a description of his conclusion as a college student based on reading occult race books – the same genre that would have been familiar to Hitler and to his circle - that white people are aliens:

“They are aliens,” I told Clarence, confidently resting on the doorframe, arms crossed. “I just saw this documentary that laid out the evidence. That's why they are so intent on White supremacy. That's why they seem to not have a conscience. They are aliens.” (Kendi, Ibram X.. How to Be an Antiracist (p. 134). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

Thank heaven, his roommate laughed at him, but Kendi went on to write an article for his college paper that included:

Wrapped in this tornado, I could not escape the fallacious idea that “Europeans are simply a different breed of human,” as I wrote, drawing on ideas in The Isis Papers. White people “make up only 10 percent of the world's population” and they “have recessive genes. Therefore they're facing extinction.” That's why they are trying to “destroy my people,” I concluded. “Europeans are trying to survive and I can't hate them for that.”(Kendi, Ibram X.. How to Be an Antiracist (p. 135). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

Kendi now says something about the idea is “fallacious,” but apparently the fallacy is that describing Europeans as a “different breed of human” is too simplistic. Even today, when Kendi is seemingly trying to show that he has moved beyond such simplistic racism, the structure of the relevant sentence indicates that he believes that Europeans are at least a “different bread of human,” but that there is certainly more than that which needs to be said.

This is nutty stuff. We might chalk it up to being a college student, but if, when I was in college, I had known a white student in college who obsessed about reading this kind of nonsense and writing papers like this, I would have considered that person to be a weird, ignorant racist. The fact that Kendi went off to a segregated Black Studies program which involved many of the same ideas wrapped up in academese do not convince me that he “got better.” You can see this in his defense of racial segregation on the grounds that protecting “black spaces” contributes to “racial equity.”

Another, a weird “tell” is how he describes his daughter as “my nearly two-year-old Black girl” (p. 235) It seems that in Kendi's world racial identity – black – most definitely takes precedence over her family relationship to him. He doesn't use the term daughter, which is the most intimate thing he can say about her. Instead, his daughter's blackness is enough. That is psychotically ideological, almost the polar opposite of Whittaker Chamber's rejection of Communism while holding his daughter in his arms and contemplating God's design of her ear.

There is also Kendi's name change. Kendi was born Ibrahim Henry Rogers. Clearly, sometime after college, he dumped the name his beloved parents had given to him for the purpose of being more authentically African. This is only a mild inference. Throughout the book, Kendi confesses his obsession with African authenticity to the extent of confessing his “color-racism” against lighter-skinned black women. This is the guy who white leftists are turning to for advice on how to be an anti-racist?

The final weirdness is Kendi's revival of the concept of “racial memory,” something which Nazi Ideologist in Chief called “Race Soul,” which is a neologism that Kendi missed. Kendi calls this “deep structure.” Deep structure seems to be something that is racially preserved somehow which pops out and restructures artificially imposed culture for an authentic African culture. Kendi explains:

“Those surface-sighted eyes have historically looked for traditional African religions, languages, foods, fashion, and customs to appear in the Americas just as they appear in Africa. When they did not find them, they assumed African cultures had been overwhelmed by the “stronger” European cultures. Surface-sighted people have no sense of what psychologist Wade Nobles calls “the deep structure of culture,” the philosophies and values that change outward physical forms. It is this “deep structure” that transforms European Christianity into a new African Christianity, with mounting spirits, calls and responses, and Holy Ghost worship; it changes English into Ebonics, European ingredients into soul food. The cultural African survived in the Americans, created a strong and complex culture with Western “outward” forms “while retaining inner [African] values,” anthropologist Melville Herskovits avowed in 1941. The same cultural African breathed life into the African American culture that raised me. (Kendi, Ibram X.. How to Be an Antiracist (p. 86). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

This discussion comes after Kendi's observations about African American culture:

“I HATED WHAT they called civilization, represented most immediately by school. I loved what they considered dysfunctional—African American culture, which defined my life outside school. My first taste of culture was the Black church. Hearing strangers identify as sister and brother. Listening to sermonic conversations, all those calls from preachers, responses from congregants. Bodies swaying in choirs like branches on a tree, following the winds and twists of a soloist. The Holy Ghost mounting women for wild shouts and basketball sprints up and down aisles. Flying hats covering the new wigs of old ladies who were keeping it fresh for Jee-susss-sa. Funerals livelier than weddings. Watching Ma dust off her African garb and Dad his dashikis for Kwanzaa celebrations livelier than funerals.” (Kendi, Ibram X.. How to Be an Antiracist (p. 85). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

So, dashikis for Kwanzaa and renaming oneself “Kendi” are really about a “deep structure” of black psychology, never mind that Kwanzaa was invented in the early 1970s.

Alfred Rosenberg would have agreed. He was concerned with the authentic Nordic racial soul and not with Catholic/Christian artificiality. Rosenberg wrote:

A racial soul instinct creates works of a gifted, uncaptivated kind. It takes a far reaching hold on its environment, and autocratically alters its lines of power. When Wotan was dying and we sought new forms, Rome appeared on the scene. When the Gothic had ended its lifeline, Roman law and humanist priests of art appeared who sought to cripple us by application of new standards of value. With the rediscovery of Platon and Aristoteles, with the first discoveries of Hellenic works of art, the Nordic spirit, during a time of searching, seized upon the newly found art but with it also its late Roman falsification. (Rosenberg, Alfred. The Myth of the Twentieth Century: The Myth of the 20th Century; Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts; An Evaluation of the Spiritual-Intellectual Confrontations of Our Age . . Kindle Edition.)

As I noted Kendi offers some formulas that white people can grab onto to reassure themselves that Kendi really is not racist. He defines “antiracist” as “One who is expressing the idea that racial groups are equals and none needs developing and is supporting policy that reduces racial inequity.” (Kendi, Ibram X. How to Be an Antiracist (p. 24). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.) The definition of “racial groups” being “equals” does not mean “integrated” or “identical.”

The reader has to be careful with Kendi's use of words. Kendi takes words and twists them in ways that would have done justice to the efforts of Arian Christians trying to pass as Trinitarians without actually being Trinitarian. As with the ancient heretics, it takes some critical thinking to unspool what Kendi is hiding. For example, Kendi writes:

“But generalizing the behavior of racist White individuals to all White people is as perilous as generalizing the individual faults of people of color to entire races. “He acted that way because he is Black. She acted that way because she is Asian.” We often see and remember the race and not the individual. This is racist categorizing, this stuffing of our experiences with individuals into color-marked racial closets. An antiracist treats and remembers individuals as individuals. “She acted that way,” we should say, “because she is racist.” (Kendi, Ibram X. How to Be an Antiracist (p. 44). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

This seems promising but it really isn't. Kendi repeatedly generalizes individual faults to an entire race, so long as the race is white. This is what Kendi is doing when he writes:

“THE DUELING WHITE consciousness has, from its position of relative power, shaped the struggle within Black consciousness. Despite the cold truth that America was founded “by white men for white men,” as segregationist Jefferson Davis said on the floor of the U.S. Senate in 1860, Black people have often expressed a desire to be American and have been encouraged in this by America's undeniable history of antiracist progress, away from chattel slavery and Jim Crow. (Kendi, Ibram X.. How to Be an Antiracist (p. 33). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

It sure looks like Kendi is taking the behavior of an individual white man – Jefferson Davis (who lost a war to determine how American culture would be shaped) - and is attributing that man's statements to the entire white race.

Kendi does this repeatedly. For example:

“But the statue attracted a middle-aged, brown-haired, overweight White guy. Clearly drunk, he climbed onto the tiny stage and started fondling Buddha before his laughing audience of drunk friends at a nearby table. I had learned a long time ago to tune out the antics of drunk White people doing things that could get a Black person arrested. Harmless White fun is Black lawlessness.” (Kendi, Ibram X. How to Be an Antiracist (p. 203). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

Really? Always? Everywhere? And doesn't that look like generalizing the behavior of white individuals to all whites?

Likewise, he writes:

“At Oneonta, Whiteness surrounded me like clouds from a plane's window, which didn't mean I found no White colleagues who were genial and caring.”(Kendi, Ibram X. How to Be an Antiracist (p. 217). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

That seems very similar to what people have traditionally called “stereotyping” or “racial bigotry.”

Here's another one:

“Racist Americans stigmatize entire Black neighborhoods as places of homicide and mortal violence but don't similarly connect White neighborhoods to the disproportionate number of White males who engage in mass shootings.” (Kendi, Ibram X.. How to Be an Antiracist (p. 169). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

This is a lie, incidentally, if you are using the same metric used to argue that “more” blacks are killed by cops than whites, i.e., as compared to their proportion of the population. You can look it up. Black mass shooters make up 21 of 121 mass shooters between 1982 and 2021, which makes the black proportion (17%) more than their percentage of the population (13%.) Whites are underrepresented (52% of the total.) But the fact that it is a lie does not stop Kendi from trading in stereotypes, despite his claims to the contrary.

Kendi's definition of “antiracist” is absurdly question-begging. He actually incorporates the word to be defined into the definition. He writes:

“So let's set some definitions. What is racism? Racism is a marriage of racist policies and racist ideas that produces and normalizes racial inequities. Okay, so what are racist policies and ideas? We have to define them separately to understand why they are married and why they interact so well together. In fact, let's take one step back and consider the definition of another important phrase: racial inequity. (Kendi, Ibram X.. How to Be an Antiracist (p. 17). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)
Racial inequity is when two or more racial groups are not standing on approximately equal footing. Here's an example of racial inequity: 71 percent of White families lived in owner-occupied homes in 2014, compared to 45 percent of Latinx families and 41 percent of Black families. Racial equity is when two or more racial groups are standing on a relatively equal footing. An example of racial equity would be if there were relatively equitable percentages of all three racial groups living in owner-occupied homes in the forties, seventies, or, better, nineties.
A racist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial inequity between racial groups. An antiracist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial equity between racial groups. By policy, I mean written and unwritten laws, rules, procedures, processes, regulations, and guidelines that govern people. There is no such thing as a nonracist or race-neutral policy. Every policy in every institution in every community in every nation is producing or sustaining either racial inequity or equity between racial groups.” (Kendi, Ibram X.. How to Be an Antiracist (p. 18). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

A policy is racist simply because it produces a racially inequitable result. A racist is simply someone who does not object to racially inequitable results. Seriously, what does this mean?

This is inane and suggests that Americans are not getting their money's worth from Black Studies majors. Kendi cannot really be serious about his definition. Let's take the example of professional sports. Blacks are overrepresented in professional football and basketball. If we take Kendi seriously, our silence on this racial inequity makes us racists. In fact, since Kendi is silent on this inequity, he is a racist.

Maybe my expectations were too high because of the publicity this book got.
I liked the book, the antiracist concept and definitions, how Kendi intertwined his personal story with the history of racism. However it didn't feel really tight instead felt a little bouncy.

Feel like it should be titled “What is “ instead of “How to”. I'd probably rate it higher if I read instead of listened to it- there was a lot of info, but I kept getting lost in the cadence of the authors voice. That's my problem, not the book's.

Much-needed in today's society

This book is much-needed. I'm a scholarly, but also easy to understand way, explains what causes racist policies and keeps racism alive. Not only that, it teaches how to get past all this. It's not merely a gloom and doom “we're a racist society” book. While acknowledging that this is a racist society, it provides hope that we can get over it. I cannot recommend this book highly enough to everyone, and I mean everyone.

I learned a lot more theory and left questioning what I thought I knew about antiracism.

Author Ibram X. Kendi tells the story of his journey in life alongside the development of his ideas about antiracism. Kendi comes across as deeply honest, even sharing the times in his life when he felt racist toward white people, toward poor black people. I was struck with how his ideas changed as his life experiences changed.

Kendi is a careful writer, speaking thoughtfully about ideas, drawing upon his years of research into racism in America to come to his conclusions. It is painful to read about the injustices done to black people, but I'm glad to hear his story from his point of view. I feel like I haven't heard the stories of enough black people, and I think we need to hear many, many more.

From the book, I was most intrigued with what Kendi offers as the steps to becoming an antiracist:

Learn what racism is and how it evolved.Become aware of subtle racist ideas you might have been unknowingly supporting and weaken them.
*Start supporting antiracist rather than racist policies.

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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.

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.

The problem of race has always been at its core the problem of power, not the problem of immorality or ignorance.

3.5 ⭐️
This review can also be found on my blog.

This book is part memoir, part instruction manual for how to be antiracist, as the title states. The personalized pieces of Kendi's life help to provide context for the concepts he shares and demonstrates how racism functions in the lived world.

As a White person, there was a lot for me to learn here. While I was familiar with some of the concepts and histories, others were new to me. The experiences Kendi had as well as his internal struggle as a Black man were obviously things I could not relate to and were often things I was not aware of. It was helpful to have this all shown to me so I could better understand what Black people in the US have been dealing with for years.

My only complaint was that it could get pretty repetitive at times. I understand repetition can be helpful in learning new ideas, but it felt more like filler in some parts. I think shortening it a bit, or expanding more on his personal experiences, could have made it a more engaging read and more accessible for some folks. I did also disagree with his assertion that Black people can be racist against White people, but also acknowledge it's not really my place to speak. I still definitely recommend this and am quite excited to pick up [b:Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America|25898216|Stamped from the Beginning The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America|Ibram X. Kendi|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1440457523l/25898216.SY75.jpg|45781103] sometime soon.

I am a White woman and my review is written through that lens. If you are an ownvoices reviewer who would like your review linked here, please let me know!

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A beautifully compassionate and introspective work. I timely read for anyone who wants to dismantle racism.

So you've dipped your toe in the anti-racist syllabus with Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility and now you're ready for some meatier fare. Ibram X Kendi is arguably the most recognized name in the growing anti-racist awakening that is gripping the West right now. But he wasn't always its greatest champion. Here he reflects on his own past, buying into racist ideas of laziness and lack of effort keeping Black people down in an inflamed and righteous sounding speech he made in high school. His own colorism and acceptance of White notions of beauty. His eyes being opened to his own homophobia and struggle to embrace intersectionality.

It's clear to him that no one is completely immune to the cancer that is racism when it is so embedded in our culture and such an integral part of our systems. And it is in this environment that simply calling yourself not-racist is no longer enough. You are either complicit in allowing racist ideas to proliferate or your are antiracist and expose and eradicate these ideas wherever you encounter them. Which is to say an activist produces power and policy change, not mental change. Changing minds is not a movement. Critiquing racism is not activism. If a person has no record of power or policy change, then that person is not an activist.

Time to step up your game.

Whew. This is one of those books that, if you come to it with an open mind, can change your entire outlook. If you let it, it can deeply impact how you see yourself, our culture and society, and what the former should do for the latter. It is expansive yet accessible. It addresses blind spots and inconsistencies you didn't realize were nagging at you. It shows how regardless of skin color, all of us have skin in the game. It's stirring.

One of the most interesting aspects of How to Be An Antiracist is its tone. Somehow while making a case for how pernicious, deep-rooted, and widespread oppression truly is, Kendi remains not just determined, but optimistic. He acknowledges the mammoth effort and time it will take to undo racism, even likening it to metastatic cancer. But he also acknowledges that humanity has existed far longer than racism. It was created, and it can be uncreated. The moment we decide there's no reason to hope is the moment we guarantee our defeat.

How to Be An Antiracist upends many things I've believed for years. That ignorance and hatred lead to racist policies, whereas Kendi argues the reverse. That black people can never be perpetrators of racism, and white people can never be victims of racism; he pushes back against both of these notions.

By including different phases of his life in every chapter, Kendi shows how critical ongoing self-reflection is to antiracism. We can't hold policymakers accountable if we don't hold ourselves accountable. Antiracism is not a box you check, but a decision you make once, then again, over and over throughout your life. It's a continual commitment, riddled with mistakes and setbacks, as any fight for the betterment of humanity is.

How to Be An Antiracist is timely and inclusive. Ibram Kendi adds nuance and clarity to a vital topic. It's challenging without being alienating. It's an invitation to take responsibility, and then action.

If you want to have an understanding of racism, power, and intersectionality in the US, don't read that trash “White Fragility,” read this.

Highly recommended.

Update: OK, I finished it. The last ten pages, his analogy and vision, those were good. The rest, I stand by what I wrote earlier (below) with one addition: I think I have a better sense for what bothers me. He comes off as a hothead and a bully. I'm not going to rate this book, because I don't want to skew ratings and besides, what the heck do I know anyway? People I trust rave about it. So make up your own mind - take my copy, please.————So much for my cred as an ally: I can't read this. I tried once, months ago, and abandoned it silently. This week I picked it up again, gritted my teeth, and set a goal of 100 pages. I made it – to 103! – then put it down to start on [b:The Hate U Give 32075671 The Hate U Give (The Hate U Give, #1) Angie Thomas https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1476284759l/32075671.SY75.jpg 49638190] instead.Not all books reach everyone; each of us is attuned to different voices. Kendi's debate-team background influences his writing: I found it pedantic and tiresome. “The dictionary defines X as Y”; “So-and-so once wrote”. I grew up with someone whose only way of engaging was to lecture - I don't need more speeches in my life.But screw my opinion. This is an important book, many people love it, so give it a try. My hope in writing this is to remind you that, should it not speak to you, it's OK to try other sources.

If I had to write about something, I would like least to write about tornadoes because I believe the research for that would be terrifying. But second up on that list would certainly be race in America. Not that I've read many on the subject, but Kendi does something I've never seen in a book about race in America. He writes not as if his readers are already grad students studying African American studies, nor does he write as if the reader is an active lawn cross arsonist. He writes as though the reader tries to be a good person in life but may not totally grasp the scale or complexities of racist policies. This tone is immediately refreshing. Additionally he takes the time to fully define terms we may even overuse, like “racist”. It's an extremely important maneuver because Kendi discusses policy solutions requiring racial equity rather than racial equality, in turn requiring definitions based on equality to be re-defined for equity. While the equity preference is not unique among racial scholars, or even liberal-arts students, the argument posited in the books is the best and only one adequately explaining why equality of opportunity is not enough and why, under Kendi's definitions, those are racist.

To be frank, the book did not flip my stance on what is right for black people and other minorities in America. Going to the same university as where professor Kendi teaches already introduced me to similar ideas. But those ideas are held up by mountains of source and support in quotes, statistics, studies, and even anecdotes. And although there are small gaps in that argument, Dr. Kendi does the best job I can imagine given the topic he grapples with.

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

There are parts of this that are very academic, but it is so accessible. He seamlessly weaves in his personal history with a larger history of racism. He tells you all the definitions, thoughts, and ideas, then puts a face on them by telling about people that have faced down these issues. There are so many moments of hope and change and learning. There is a personal responsibility, but also the call to be a part of the systematic change. The problem of racism is big and scary, but by the end of this book, I am left with hope.

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.

3.5 While this work is entwined with numbing repetition, Kendi brings forward vital ideas in defining and repositioning antiracist consciousness.