How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

How to Be an Antiracist

by Ibram X. Kendi

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Society & Culture

Ibram X. Kendi's 2019 framework book on antiracism — distinguishing it from non-racism (passive, ineffective) and arguing that every policy, statement, and idea is either racist (produces or maintains racial inequity) or antiracist (challenges and reduces it), with no neutral middle.

Core ideas
  • The binary framing — racist vs. antiracist, no neutral category — is the book's most-discussed move; Kendi's defense is that "non-racist" is functionally complicit in racist outcomes when those outcomes are the status quo.
  • The policy-outcome focus is operative: Kendi locates racism in policies and the ideas that defend them, rather than primarily in individual hearts and minds, which redirects the work from attitude change to structural intervention.
  • The book is partly memoir — Kendi traces his own evolution through racist beliefs he held at different life stages — and the personal-political-structural integration is the book's argumentative method.
Published2019
Pages305
ISBN9780525509288
ReadJan 2021
structural analysis

Connected to 7 other books

shared themes first
Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families—and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World by Dorothy Roberts Torn Apart Dorothy Roberts Shares Society & Culture Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates Between the World and Me Ta-Nehisi Coates Shares Society & Culture The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person by Frederick Joseph The Black Friend Frederick Joseph Shares Society & Culture White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo White Fragility Robin DiAngelo Shares Society & Culture So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo So You Want to Talk About Race Ijeoma Oluo Shares Society & Culture Undivided: The Quest for Racial Solidarity in an American Church by Hahrie Han Undivided Hahrie Han A cross-theme link The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein The Color of Law Richard Rothstein A cross-theme link

See How to Be an Antiracist in the connection map →

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