Well, this was sure a book to be in the middle of reading when our country once again elected a racist president.
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi teaches the reader about antiracism by taking us through Kendi’s own journey to confront his internalized racism, sexism, homophobia, and classism, to become an antiracist who is aware of the importance of bringing everyone along on the journey to equity.
The book interweaves memoir and theory as we follow Kendi from his parents meeting to basically the present day, and all the prejudices he had to unlearn. The story is mainly told through the lens of the different schools he attended, which dovetails with the belief he long held (as many do) that education was the key to overcoming racism.
I’m going to spoil a central tenet of this book, because I think it’s really important to keep in mind in the wake of last week’s election: Kendi, and some other scholars, have come to believe that it is not ignorance that leads to racism, sexism, homophobia, etc, it is self-interest. Many of the people who choose to oppress others are actually very well-educated, they just don’t care. They only care about the ability to maximize their own gain by keeping other people down.
I think we can see this in all of the people who certainly had access to all of the information they needed to know that Trump will be bad for this country; they just heard him promising to put more money in their pockets, and that’s how they voted. Go ahead and throw marginalized people under the bus in the belief that it’ll save you a few dollars at the gas pump and the grocery store, I guess.
I’m way too angry, sad, and tired to be diplomatic about this.
Anyway, back to the book review. I appreciate how Kendi really illustrates the passionately held beliefs he was wrong about in his youth, and how he overcame those. I read the paperback edition released in 2023, which is full of updates and footnotes about how he changed his language both to make things clearer, but also to clear up ableist wording and other linguistic missteps. It’s great to see someone modeling how to admit when you were wrong, and that even experts who write books on antiracism still have things to learn.
A more accurate title for this book might have been How I Became an Antiracist, because I feel like the reader doesn’t really get a clear how-to until the end. Kendi models how to examine and change your own beliefs, but there’s not a lot on what actions to take until the last chapter or two. Changing our beliefs is all well and good, but actions are necessary to change policy and advance equity.
I was interested to notice that while Kendi had removed ableist language, there wasn’t really a lot of discussion of ableism in the main body of the book. There are chapters about the intersection of race and class, race and space, race and gender, race and sexuality… and while there are discussions of the body, there’s not really anything about disability.
This feels like a weird oversight, because Kendi does talk a bit about things like the increased likelihood of a Black person dying in/shortly after childbirth, and infant mortality, versus outcomes for White people. But despite illness coming up as a major event for him and his family later in the book, there’s not as much about, for instance, the increased risk of certain health problems for Black people and other minorities whose neighborhoods are more likely to be near sources of pollution or other health risks, nor about any of the unique challenges facing disabled people of color.
This show that you can’t count on one book to tell you everything you need to know. How to Be an Antiracist should just be one resource in your journey to being an anti-racist and fighting for equity for all. Luckily there are many books out there by disability rights activists that can help you fill in the gaps that Kendi has left. Disability Visibility is a good starting point, as it features essays by people from many walks of life, which can help you identify what you’re interested in learning more about and what causes you might want to get involved in.
My other big complain with the book is that while Kendi claims that we don’t need education to fight racism, we need policy change… his stories aren’t about a policy change changing his mind, it’s about learning things in school or from encounters with individuals from different walks of life (also he’s writing a book to educate people…). Any time someone says “We don’t need X, we need Y” the truth is probably that we need a combination of X, Y, Z, and also Q. There is no one size fits all solution.
The truth is that of course education alone won’t dismantle racism and other forms of hatred; we do need to enact policy changes that create more equity. But people can’t create those policies without some level of education, whether formal or informal. We need to know how to ask for and participate in the creation of policy. We need to know what’s been tried before. We need to know who is currently doing the work, so we’re not out here duplicating effort, but rather joining forces.
Over all despite my complaints, I’m glad I read this book. It challenged some of my own conceptions about racism. It’s given me a lot of food for thought as I think about what actions I want to take in the days and years to come as we all will have to fight even harder to advance the cause of equity. This was a good reminder that my own intersectional equity journey can’t begin and end at reading books; I have to find ways to take meaningful and deliberate action. If you haven’t read How to Be an Antiracist yet, definitely make sure you get your hands on this updated 2023 edition!
CWs and TWs: Discussions of racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, illness, violence… also includes one or two chapters with frequent use of the n-word.
Source and Format: I purchased this paperback copy at The Neverending Bookshop shortly before they closed.
Book Bingo Prompts
Nook & Cranny (Card 1): Banned & Challenged Books. Of course this book has been banned and challenged; it calls out racism, capitalism, and all sorts of inequality. The more I read, the more I see why conservatives want to ban books. Kendi makes an argument that education alone isn’t what stops racism, but books don’t just educate us. They help us build empathy. Books give us knowledge, but they also give us understanding. Every non-fiction book that I read (and some of the fiction, too), encourages me to reconsider my worldview, to look for ways to be a better citizen of this earth and a better ally and accomplice to those around me.
Book Bingo Progress
Nook & Cranny (Card 1): 23 out of 25 prompts complete. 8 bingos.
Nook & Cranny (Card 2): 19 out of 25 prompts complete. 4 bingos.
Donation for Palestine: Since I bought this book from a bookstore which closed last year, it definitely counts for the Physical TBR Challenge and thus also another $50 donation to a family in Palestine. For this book, I chose to donate to Khaled, a man with muscular dystrophy who was separated from the rest of his family when they evacuated to Egypt. Visit this post for a full write-up on my challenge and links to all of the families I have donated to so far. I am now at 9 books out of my 12 book goal and reading furiously to catch up now that I’ve unpacked most of my physical books!