Book Review: How to Be an Antiracist

Image: The cover of the book is a white background with black that looks like it was applied with a paint roller unevenly. In the black area, in large capital letters going down line by line vertically is "how to" in red, "be an," in yellow, "antiracist" underlined and in white, "Ibram X." in pink, and "Kendi" in green. Across the bottom in very small white capital letters is "National book award winning author of" and under that in yellow is "Stamped from the Beginning."

In reviewing How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi, I want to note that I read this book and followed it up by seeing a live discussion of the book with him in person. Seeing and hearing Kendi at the event definitely boosted and added to the book and my understanding of his philosophies. My review of the book alone may have been different.

My introduction to Kendi was through reading his book Stamped from the Beginning. Though that book was "a definitive history of racist ideas in America," I still consider this book to be one of the best overall American history books in existence. As a result, I went into "How to be an Antiracist" with very high expectations. Not all of them were met, but Kendi still left me with a lot to think about. The book jumps around stylistically quite a bit. A good chunk of it is a memoir composed of Kendi meticulously analyzing his own history with internalized racism and racist actions. It sometimes jumps from 101 level information to fairly advanced analyses of racism and white supremacy a bit too quickly. An excellent historian, Kendi peppers the book with well researched history to back up each topic. There is a lot of telling and explaining different kinds of racism and racist ideas. What this book is not, despite its title, is a "how to" guide for being an antiracist. Kendi only really goes so far as to say things like "holding and acting on this idea is racist, holding and acting on this opposite idea is anti-racist," creating a black and white set up for the whole book. At his event, there was much better elaboration on this. But, before that, when I finished the book, I felt like he was saying you jump into being an antiracist and that anti-racists no longer do racist things. This is, of course, untrue and at odds with his claim that all races include racists and are capable of racism- a highly contested point, but we will get to that.

Once I let go of the title, I did find the book held my attention, despite its lack of organizing. The book's target audience can vary from section to section, but one thing is for certain: this book is for all races. Many antiracist texts are specifically for unaware but well intentioned white people or are for those with advanced scholarship. Kendi emphasizes the varied human experiences with racism among different people and I believe this really helps the book stand out in great ways. In the book he focuses on his and other Black people's projections of their internalized racism (bootstrapping for instance) along with the rampant racism of white people against people of color. 

While overall, I really liked this approach, there was one section that had me scratching my head. Kendi devotes an entire chapter to "anti-white racism" whereas no other race has their own chapter. He follows it by a chapter on the "power argument" in which he gives his opinion as to why the assertion that people of color can't exert racism over white people due to poc's lack of power- is false. I disagree with this, but I do understand where he is coming from. I understand that the average person is not going to grasp why hating white people is prejudice rather than  something with the power of anti-poc racism. I also agree that claiming anyone never has power can be, well, dis-empowering. But, it seemed to me that all of the ways Kendi claimed Black and other non-white people had power over white people were of class and other oppression, not race. For instance, a Black cop having more power than non-police, a rich Latinx person having power over poor people including white poor people, etc. I also don't understand why such a large section of the book was dedicated to "anti-white racism," and why it was tackled as if it had the same effect and impact of white supremacy. Then there is something that really baffles me- Kendi capitalizes the "W" in white. It is my understanding that people capitalize the B in Black, the L in Latinx, etc to express proud racial and cultural identities that are often attacked and maligned by racists. What does capitalizing the "W" encourage? White pride?

At Kendi's event, "anti-white racism" did not receive any of this kind of attention, for good reason. Thus, I am wondering if a better editor could have helped convey his intention better in the book. I didn't ask him about these things because I did not want to re-center whiteness. But, in the talk, he stated, "I define being racist as someone who is expressing racist ideas or racist policy through their action or inaction." I suppose with this definition, you could make the argument that, since race and class are inseparable, a person of color with class privilege, internalized racism, and who is espousing and supporting racist policy could have an effect on a white person. But, again, I don't see how "anti-white racism" holds the power here. I just worry that the fragility of white liberals will be supported and ignited by this kind of analysis. It seems to support the crying white woman's tears about having been called, "Becky" after a racist action she took was called out as somehow being the same as a Black person being called the n-word. Do we really need that in a book white people will look to as a "how to" guide?

Kendi's attempts at tackling intersectionality were less messy, but still struggled at times. I definitely appreciate the importance that Kendi placed on tackling all oppression and that being indivisible from tackling racism. But, he does things like create terms like "Queer Racist" and "Queer Anti-Racist." Just reading those without the book, one would think he is talking about Queer people who are being racist or anti-racist. But, his intention is to call out racialized homophobia of heterosexual people and so on.

These issues have a lot to do with semantics though and arguably don't dismantle the meat of the text itself. Kendi did a ton of things right. Along with the aforementioned original ways of tackling a book like this as well as tons of the interesting history, Kendi has an ability to be direct and firm while also being gentle. Something from his talk that exemplified how he does this in the book was when he said something to the tune of, "admitting you've done something racist is an antiracist action." Basically, being an antiracist is a constant practice of confronting, learning from, and dismantling racism. Kendi's focus on racist policy as the center of this. I don't entirely agree as I believe racist and colorist othering and prejudice existed before government and likely will after it. But, I do agree that the policy, government, and corporate levels are where most of the power lies. Kendi speaks regularly of the reality that it is not only direct racist actions that are racist, but the failure to take action against racism. At his event, he aptly stated, "The heartbeat of racism is denial." This leads into another thing I believe Kendi did well that is often shied away from by self-professed anti-racists.

Something many people reading this book may be reluctant to accept is that there is a very real problem with racism in liberal, progressive, and radical thought. Kendi explained this both in the book and at the event. The book details many instances of harm caused by mildly (if that) left of center (democrat/liberal) politicians with heavy emphasis on the damaging words and actions of the Clintons. I believe Kendi did an excellent job encouraging liberals to look in the mirror instead of always pointing the finger at republicans and did so in a way that will leave them open to accepting it. 

The end of the book ends up being a gut punch. We discover that Kendi has been surrounded by cancer for some time now. His mother and wife battled with severe cancers. Following that, he was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer- one of the most dangerous, having approximately an 80% death rate. Kendi is now in remission. I found myself crying while reading this part of the book and when he spoke of this during the talk. I recently had a second cancer surgery for a far less dangerous (but still not fun, of course) cancer and thought maybe that was why. But, really, I couldn't stop thinking about how this great mind could have been taken from us so early. The emotional impact of him sharing these experiences actually went quite well with his analogy that racism is like cancer. I often am put off by any comparison of an oppression to an illness or especially a healthy disabled person's life. They often dance on the line of ableism at best. But, I have yet to meet someone that celebrates cancer. I found that the way Kendi tackled this discussion was quite beautiful. He took something that had plagued his family and turned it into a way to better understand and strategize how to eliminate racism. He encouraged us to tackle racism as we do cancer- relentlessly, in both targeted (like surgery) and widespread (like chemo and radiation) ways, with consistent monitoring (like follow up visits and testing) after these treatments, and repeating treatments when necessary. For instance, simply killing a racist bill or policy in Congress is not where the fight ends, you have to monitor the entire system to make sure another doesn't show up and detect it as early as possible. It is true that many won't make it and many will be left struggling. It is also true that many can survive. He encouraged us to see calling someone or something racist as an invitation to "begin the painful process of healing" from the infection of racism (spoken at event.)

Seeing Kendi in person definitely warmed me to many aspects of the book I was confused about and added a face and voice to the parts I really enjoyed. The book is definitely worth reading for anyone out there who needs to understand the different ways that racism manifests in our world. I also definitely encourage going to see him speak or discuss the book in person if that is available in your area.

This was also posted to my goodreads.