A review by leah_alexandra
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

emotional informative reflective fast-paced

3.5

This book was fine. I would say it's definitely on the introductory level in terms of books about racism/American racism, but lots of people are looking for that, and all power to them! This book is best appreciated as Kendi's internal examinations of his own journey grappling with the pervasiveness of racism and its intersections with other kinds of identity-based oppression as opposed to a guidebook for other people. There are two substantive points he makes that I take issue with: I think the chapter discussing racism within non-white groups has a misplaced assumption when it critiques the idea that "Black people can't be racist." It delves into the ways that Black folks (and other non-white folks) can perpetuate anti-Black racism through thoughts and actions, which certainly is a thing that happens. But I feel like that statement is better understood as people saying that POC cannot perpetuate racism against white people, not other POCs, because of how the power dynamics are structured. So I think that argument was a bit disingenuous. I also have been learning from folks in disability activism who critique the comparisons of racism to cancer or other diseases. I understand that Kendi was and is facing cancer in very personal ways, but the analogy of an illness that was not imposed by choice to a societal problem that very much was has its limitations. People do not choose to give others cancer (although there's an argument that racist and classist policies actually have given people cancer or higher rates) but many people make the choice every day to uphold racism. 

Small nit-pick: the definitions that introduce each chapter were a bit too schtick-y for me, and I thought they actually were a bit alienating.
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