A review by librarianryan
Stamped from the Beginning: A Graphic History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi, Joel Christian Gill

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring tense medium-paced

5.0

 

Stamp from the beginning, has been a very important book in our modern society. So important that they made both a young readers addition, and a kid’s edition. Now they have come out with a graphic novel edition to help all readers, understand how racism began at the same time our country did. How from the very beginning of colonialization, the thinking of one race of people is better than other, has been stamped into everything that our country has grown up around. This book does this through looking at five key historical figures, and what they have done to burden or to help society as a whole in this endeavor to be anti-racist. The way this book was turned into a graphic novel is phenomenal. How the artist and the author bring forth the idea of antiracist versus segregationist and that both are a form of racism, had this white reader thinking “maybe I am doing things wrong”. This book starts out with a fantastic comic of a white woman going into a black school to teach all the kids, and now they’ve all passed. And how it’s a good thing. A.k.a. the Dangerous Minds situation also known as white saviorism. It helps people realize that this is a form of assimilation. That by saying things like stop, pull your pants, talk right, etc. is assimilation.  What is talking right? Too many it’s talking “white”. So, lots of fantastic ideas and history in this book that is not taught other places. Whether read in graphic novel, or any of the three other versions, this book should be read, and should be considered part of a curriculum on the history of our country.