How to Be an Antiracist

While racism is the “marriage of racist ideas and racist policies that produces and normalizes racial inequities” (17-18), antiracism fights racist ideas and policies. Kendi’s definition of antiracism counters the popular perception that racism exists solely in the imagination of individuals. He also challenges the definition as a system or structure as this enables the belief that racism is abstract, and that antiracist work is unobtainable.

Kendi defines an antiracist as “[o]ne who is supporting an antiracist policy through their actions or expressing an antiracist idea” (13). For Kendi, the definition of an antiracist or antiracism must be foregrounded by the support of antiracist policy and not simply the transformation of racist ideas. He states “Changing minds is not a movement” (208) and that antiracist work constitutes a “power and policy change, not a mental change” (208).

Kendi lays out the steps for antiracist work, beginning with addressing “denial” (226) of racism. Next, he shares that one must “admit the definition of racist” (226) before “confess[ing] the racist policies” (226) they support. Once one “accept[s] the source” (226) of their racism, which is when antiracist work actualizes. One learns the definition of antiracism then works to incorporate antiracist practices in all spaces of which they are a part. Antiracist work also includes thinking through “intersections” (226) of identities: how other forms of identities can be marginalized alongside race. Finally, one must continue to “struggle to think with antiracist ideas” (226) or critique naturalized assumptions about race and racism in all spaces.