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A review by allisoncc
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
challenging
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
5.0
I cannot recommend this book enough. Kendi's writing style makes difficult topics easy access, despite calling everyone from you, himself, his own Momma, to Obama out (not to mention the more obvious offenders).
Each chapter starts with memoir portion of Kendi's own life to explain the topic at hand. He explains how his own racist ideas have impacted his life, and then goes on to explain the ideas from a more academic stand point, backing it up with historical and modern references. There's pages and pages and pages of footnotes at the end (the read is not the 350 page read labeled here because of it). I truly appreciated the honesty in Kendi's work, and that despite the fact that "Racist" has become a slur, if we are not actively working on dismantling racism, being anti-racist, Kendi argues, we are therefore signing off on the status quo, which, you guessed it, is racist. His ideas are not agreed upon by every leader and activist in these spaces, but I think as Kendi continues his research and work we'll come round.
Each chapter is relatively small, but I found myself reading only one and then sitting on it for a few days. While many many chapters were important and noteworthy, I want to especially highlight the chapter on Class. Kendi's imagery of racism and capitalism being conjoined twins really hit home. Capitalism, in the US, was founded on the backs of slaves, how could they not be connected? Our economic systems need far more work to make them equitable for all people than just the removal of slave labor and one could argue that the minimum wage not being a livable wage just simply continues slave labor in a different outfit.
Each chapter starts with memoir portion of Kendi's own life to explain the topic at hand. He explains how his own racist ideas have impacted his life, and then goes on to explain the ideas from a more academic stand point, backing it up with historical and modern references. There's pages and pages and pages of footnotes at the end (the read is not the 350 page read labeled here because of it). I truly appreciated the honesty in Kendi's work, and that despite the fact that "Racist" has become a slur, if we are not actively working on dismantling racism, being anti-racist, Kendi argues, we are therefore signing off on the status quo, which, you guessed it, is racist. His ideas are not agreed upon by every leader and activist in these spaces, but I think as Kendi continues his research and work we'll come round.
Each chapter is relatively small, but I found myself reading only one and then sitting on it for a few days. While many many chapters were important and noteworthy, I want to especially highlight the chapter on Class. Kendi's imagery of racism and capitalism being conjoined twins really hit home. Capitalism, in the US, was founded on the backs of slaves, how could they not be connected? Our economic systems need far more work to make them equitable for all people than just the removal of slave labor and one could argue that the minimum wage not being a livable wage just simply continues slave labor in a different outfit.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cancer