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moosegurl's review
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
{l listened to the audiobook, so any mistakes in stylistic choices or punctuation are mine. Emphasis also mine.}
"Maybe, if I'd read history then, I'd have learned about the historical significance of the new town my family had moved to from New York City in 1997. I would have learned about all those Confederate memorials surrounding me in Manassas, Virginia, like Robert E. Lee's dead army. I would have learned why so many tourists trek to Manassas National Battlefield Park to relive the glory of Confederate victories at the battles of Bull Run during the Civil War. It was there that General Thomas J. Jackson acquired his nickname "Stonewall," for his stubborn defense of the Confederacy. Northern Virginians kept the Stonewall intact after all these years - did anyone notice the irony? That at this Martin Luther King Jr. Oratorical Contest, my free black life represented Stonewall Jackson High School?"
"Skinner shared how we came to worship an elite white Jesus Christ who cleaned people up through rules and regulations, a savior who prefigured Richard Nixon's vision of law and order. But one day, Skinner realized that he'd gotten Jesus wrong. Jesus wasn't in the Rotary Club, and he wasn't a policeman. Jesus was a radical revolutionary with hair on his chest and dirt under his fingernails. Skinner's new idea of Jesus was worn of and committed to a new reading of the Gospel. Any Gospel that does not speak to the issue of enslavement and injustice and inequality--any Gospel that does not want to go where people are hungry and poverty-stricken and set them free in the name of Jesus Christ--is not the Gospel."
"Assimilationists believe in the postracial myth that talking about race constitutes racism, or that if we stop identifying by race, then racism will miraculously go away. They fail to realize that if we stop using racial categories, then we will not be able to identify racial inequity. If we cannot identify racial inequity, then we will not be able to identify racist policies. If we cannot identify racist policies, then we cannot challenge racist policies. If we cannot challenge racist policies, then racist powers' Final Solution will be achieved: a world of inequity none of us can see, let alone resist. Terminating racial categories is potentially the last, not the first, step in the antiracist struggle."
"I recoiled in fear for days after the election. But not some of my peers at FAMU. They amassed the courage I did not have, that all antiracists must have. Courage is not the absence of fear but the strength to do what is right in the face of it, as the anonymous philosopher tells us. Some of us are restrained by fear of what could happen to us if we resist. In our naivety, we are less fearful of what could happen to us, or is already happening to us, if we don't resist."
"Americans lost trillions during the Great Recession, which was largely triggered by financial crimes of staggering enormity. Estimated losses from white-collar crimes are believed to be between $300 and $600 billion dollars per year, according to the FBI. By comparison, near the height of violent crime in 1995, the FBI reported the combined cost of burglary and robbery to be $4 billion dollars. 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, and they don't even see the daily violence that unfolds on the highways that deliver mostly white suburbanites to their homes."
"The opposite of the gender-racism of the unvirtuous, hypersexual black woman is the virtuous, asexual white woman, a racial construct that has constrained and controlled the white woman sexuality as it nakedly tainted the black woman's sexuality as 'unrapable.' White male interest in lynching black male rapists of white women was as much about controlling the sexuality of white women as it was the sexuality of black men."
"We arrive at demonstrations excited, as if our favorite musician is playing on the speaker stage. We convince ourselves we are doing something to solve the racial problem, when we are really doing something to satisfy our feelings. We go home fulfilled, like we dined at our favorite restaurant, and this fulfillment is fleeting, like a drug high. The problems of inequity and injustice persist. They persistently make us feel bad and guilty. We persistently do something to make ourselves feel better, as we convince ourselves we are making society better, as we never make society better."
"... when in fact if all my words were doing were sounding radical, then those words were not radical at all. What if we measure the radicalism of speech by how radically it transforms open-minded people, by how the speech liberates the anti-racist power within? What if we measure the conservatism of speech by home intensely it keeps people the same, keeps people enslaved by their racist ideas and fears, conserving the inequitable society?"
"I had been thinking all week about denial. Before the diagnosis, after the diagnosis, I still could not separate racism and cancer. I sat in the waiting rooms between medical meetings, tests, and procedures, writing an essay arguing that the heartbeat of racism is denial. The heartbeat of anti-racism is confession."
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Racial slurs, Cancer, and Xenophobia
gagne's review
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racial slurs and Racism
Minor: Cancer, Police brutality, Xenophobia, Transphobia, Slavery, Sexism, and Religious bigotry
nytephoenyx's review
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
This book is dense and filled with history, sociology, psychology, and politics. It's a personal narrative as well as a social narrative. It's good, really good, and I completely understand why it's on so many must-read lists, especially this year.
At the same time, though, I personally struggled with How To Be An Antiracist. This book is a very slow read because of how packed full of information and formal studies and explanations it is. Kendi's choice to include relatable stories and a personal narrative alongside this mountain of information was a good one - it picked up the flow enough to urge me forward when I felt like I was drowning.
The weight and quantity of information isn't bad, mind you. It's necessary. But it is heavy and reading this book was a very slow process for me as I tried to catalogue everything and reflect on it. How To Be An Antiracist challenges its readers to look at the information and reflect on their own beliefs and reactions. This is best read by someone who really does want to be an antiracist, not someone who is picking up the book because they think they should.
Depending on where you are in your personal journey, some of the chapters may feel redundant or unhelpful. Everyone starts from a different place, and we all have different daily struggles. If you've been working on antiracism for a while, maybe chapters like "Definitions", "Biology", and "Ethnicity" don't offer much to you (other than reiterating practices you have already put in place). I personally resonated more with the latter half of the book. Every once in a while, I would come across a statement or sentiment that would stick with me - like the idea that we aren't one-or-the-other, but constantly striving to make antiracist choices in every decision. Like the comparison of racism to cancer.
If the early chapters don't hook you in, I encourage folks to keep reading. Each chapter is an individual essay to be mulled on and processed. And we are, none of us, perfect. There is no person who had finished the journey and achieved excellence - sometimes, we all falter. We will inevitably fail, and when we do, it's important to get back up and brush ourself off, make amends, and be better next time.
For more reviews and bookish content, come visit The Literary Phoenix.
At the same time, though, I personally struggled with How To Be An Antiracist. This book is a very slow read because of how packed full of information and formal studies and explanations it is. Kendi's choice to include relatable stories and a personal narrative alongside this mountain of information was a good one - it picked up the flow enough to urge me forward when I felt like I was drowning.
The weight and quantity of information isn't bad, mind you. It's necessary. But it is heavy and reading this book was a very slow process for me as I tried to catalogue everything and reflect on it. How To Be An Antiracist challenges its readers to look at the information and reflect on their own beliefs and reactions. This is best read by someone who really does want to be an antiracist, not someone who is picking up the book because they think they should.
Depending on where you are in your personal journey, some of the chapters may feel redundant or unhelpful. Everyone starts from a different place, and we all have different daily struggles. If you've been working on antiracism for a while, maybe chapters like "Definitions", "Biology", and "Ethnicity" don't offer much to you (other than reiterating practices you have already put in place). I personally resonated more with the latter half of the book. Every once in a while, I would come across a statement or sentiment that would stick with me - like the idea that we aren't one-or-the-other, but constantly striving to make antiracist choices in every decision. Like the comparison of racism to cancer.
If the early chapters don't hook you in, I encourage folks to keep reading. Each chapter is an individual essay to be mulled on and processed. And we are, none of us, perfect. There is no person who had finished the journey and achieved excellence - sometimes, we all falter. We will inevitably fail, and when we do, it's important to get back up and brush ourself off, make amends, and be better next time.
For more reviews and bookish content, come visit The Literary Phoenix.
Content Warnings
Minor: Cancer, Hate crime, Gun violence, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Racism, Slavery, Violence, and Xenophobia
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