48 pages • 1 hour read
Ibram X. KendiHow to Be an Antiracist
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Dire Consequences of Racism
How to Be an Antiracist opens with a discussion of common misperceptions of racism. Many consider racism to be an explicit and often violent form of animosity; however, its myriad forms are less recognized by most people. For Kendi, it is important that readers understand racism exists in multiple forms and none of these ought to be minimized. While “racial microaggressions” has emerged as a term to describe daily encounters with subtle, often implicit forms of racism, Kendi posits, “[w]hat other people call racial microaggressions I call racist abuse” (47). He insists on qualifying racial microaggressions as racist abuse to draw attention to the way racism can be overlooked or even go unseen.
Kendi advocates for this deepened understanding of racism so the reader can comprehend its dire consequences. In the concluding chapters of the book, he describes his personal experience with cancer—which occurred during his research into the history of racism—to provide a tangible analogy. To address racism as a form of alarm, he describes racism as a “metastatic cancer,” a form of cancer that spreads from one region of the body to another and is considered deadly. He is aware that this comparison between racism and cancer may be unseemly to some, and says, “Forgive me. I cannot separate the two, and no longer try. What if humanity connected the two?” (237) According to Kendi, if society can make this connection, addressing racism can have a greater sense of urgency. If racism were to be taken as seriously as cancer is, then there is a chance for social survival—just as Kendi’s rigorous cancer treatment led to his personal survival.
Using Historical Knowledge to Support Contemporary Social Transformation
As a Black History scholar, Kendi incorporates social and historical analysis in his discussion of race and racism. As How to Be an Antiracist is structured according to terms and definitions, its discussion of history is not chronological but topical. By addressing history according to different topics pertaining to the development of concepts of race and racism, Kendi provides a connection between past events and present-day circumstances.
For instance, Kendi discusses the origins of biological racism or eugenics, which had a deep impact throughout history leading to the naturalization of racist ideas and the belief that the different races embody specific attributes of varying values. While Kendi reveals that the presence of biological racism has gradually lost prominence in academic settings, it persists in present-day racist ideas. Kendi writes, “And yet marginalization in academic thought did not mean marginalization in common thought, including the kind of common thinking that surrounded me as a child” (51). Not only did these racist ideas permeate through public imagination, they also impacted how he saw himself as a young Black child.
Kendi’s devotion to detailed historical narratives in this book reveals a commitment to understanding history to best strategize antiracist work. For Kendi, “History duels: the undeniable history of antiracist progress, the undeniable history of racist progress” (33). If history is a duel between racism and antiracism, then history’s connection to the present suggests this duel continues. As this struggle persists, everyone has the responsibility to tilt the fight toward the side of antiracist work.
Rethinking Racist Power as a Function of Policies
Kendi uses the concept of racist power to replace what he identifies as a less effective term—racial discrimination. While racial discrimination limits the understanding of racism to individual actions divorced from racist policies, racist power allows for insight to structures of power that influence racist ideas. Racist structures and ideas are both part of the racist power that policies and policymakers embody.
It is important for Kendi to demonstrate how racist power operates not merely in theory, but in practice. For Kendi, “it’s the powerful light of racist power that makes the mirage [of race]” (37). He describes race as a mirage to argue that while race is socially constructed, it has also come to define people’s lives in tangible and intimate ways. This recognition of racist power allows for insight into the ways power controls definitions of race, and social relations between different racial groups. Race is not a benign identity category, but one which has real consequences. It is this recognition of how racist power works that allows for a clearer path to determine antiracist policies.
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By Ibram X. Kendi
