Reviews

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

sewfrench's review against another edition

4.0

A lot of words.
A lot of statistics.
A lot to ponder.

mermandy's review against another edition

3.0

Though interesting, there were times Dr. Kendi was hard to follow. I did gain a lot of interesting tidbits about racist and antiracist thoughts and behaviors, and the intersections of those thoughts and behaviors with gender, class, sexuality, body type, and even color. One of the biggest a-ha moments for me was when he said that “the source of racist ideas was not ignorance and hate, but self interest.” Wow! What a concept that totally makes sense!

In the end, this was certainly an interesting read with a lot of self-reflective moments, but it was also tough to navigate through at times.

As a side note: He is an amazing speaker, but he was VERY hard to listen to as an audiobook. He was very choppy and lacked an engaging cadence and tone.

kimbongiorno's review against another edition

5.0

Essential reading for your antiracist education.

I listened to the audiobook while filling my physical copy with highlights, notes, things to refer back to, definitions I don’t want to forget.

Impactful, important.

chazzychat's review against another edition

2.0

I really struggled with this one. I wanted to love it because of the hype it’s received lately but it fell flat and short for me. Reading it was tedious, so much so that I purchased it on Audible to listen along to as I read it. That didn’t help much. While this title may not have been right for me — someone else may gather a lot of insightful information from it and connect more with it.

rosiefpb's review against another edition

5.0

Very bleak but interesting. The stats about the 2000 election were appalling.

rosalindpoet's review against another edition

3.0

It happens for me in successive steps, these steps to be an antiracist.

I stop using the “I’m not a racist” or “I can’t be racist” defense of denial.

I admit the definition of racist (someone who is supporting racist policies or expressing racist ideas).

I confess the racist policies I support and racist ideas I express.

I accept their source (my upbringing inside a nation making us racist).

I acknowledge the definition of antiracist (someone who is supporting antiracist policies or expressing antiracist ideas).

I struggle for antiracist power and policy in my spaces. (Seizing a policymaking position. Joining an antiracist organization or protest. Publicly donating my time or privately donating my funds to antiracist policymakers, organizations, and protests fixated on changing power and policy.)

I struggle to remain at the antiracist intersections where racism is mixed with other bigotries. (Eliminating racial distinctions in biology and behavior. Equalizing racial distinctions in ethnicities, bodies, cultures, colors, classes, spaces, genders, and sexualities.)

I struggle to think with antiracist ideas. (Seeing racist policy in racial inequity. Leveling group differences. Not being fooled into generalizing individual negativity. Not being fooled by misleading statistics or theories that blame people for racial inequity.)

let me preface this review by saying that this is, overall, a good book. most of my review is critical, but that’s because it made me think, not because i think it’s horrible or anything. however, i’m not sure i’d call it revolutionary—some of the analysis and terminology gave me pause, and the chapter on sexuality is frankly questionable at best.

i think this is a very ambitious project that fell short of its goals. the combination of personal narrative, historical contextualization, and modern discussion can work, but i think it worked to kendi’s disadvantage in a lot of ways. sometimes it feels like he’s trying to match the timing of his sourcing to his own revelations, and in some of the chapters on gender and sexuality it feels a bit like listening to some dude tell you omg i was so x-ist, see how much i’ve grown? which only really works if you’re using sources later than 1897.

kendi’s basic thesis is that antiracism is an action, rather than an identification. here’s his basic outline from the introduction:

What’s the problem with being “not racist”? It is a claim that signifies neutrality: “I am not a racist, but neither am I aggressively against racism.” But there is no neutrality in the racism struggle. The opposite of “racist” isn’t “not racist.” It is “antiracist.” What’s the difference? One endorses either the idea of a racial hierarchy as a racist, or racial equality as an antiracist. One either believes problems are rooted in groups of people, as a racist, or locates the roots of problems in power and policies, as an antiracist. One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an antiracist. There is no in-between safe space of “not racist.” The claim of “not racist” neutrality is a mask for racism. This may seem harsh, but it’s important at the outset that we apply one of the core principles of antiracism, which is to return the word “racist” itself back to its proper usage. “Racist” is not—as Richard Spencer argues—a pejorative. It is not the worst word in the English language; it is not the equivalent of a slur. It is descriptive, and the only way to undo racism is to consistently identify and describe it—and then dismantle it. The attempt to turn this usefully descriptive term into an almost unusable slur is, of course, designed to do the opposite: to freeze us into inaction.

this is a great point, and most of the early chapters are excellent. i agree that this is an important framework; only when white people stop being terrified of being called racist will we be able to be really effective at fighting racism. in general kendi’s commentary on Blackness is very good; it’s just that when he talks about stuff that’s not necessarily based on personal experience, the book goes a bit off the rails.

some of the language and sourcing is very out of date or awkward. kendi discusses internalized racism or interracial violence as “black-on-black” but doesn’t call white violence “white-on-white,” and he discusses “ebonics” rather than “aave,” to give a couple of examples. it’s oddly jarring. in general his sources are out of date; in the “gender racism” chapter he mostly discusses a kimberlé crenshaw text from 1991, and some of the chapters don’t get any more recent than w. e. b. du bois. obviously crenshaw and du bois are invaluable sources, but for a sweeping overview of intersectionality it strikes me as negligent. people have written about all these things in the last 30 years. it feels like he only brings up the modern day when it’s to denounce some right-wing hack, which just strikes me as very strange. is that liberalism or is it some weird affect specific to this book? idk.

i highly recommend skipping the chapter on sexuality, which is just a huge clusterfuck. kendi starts it off with, “Homosexuals are a sexuality. Latinx people are a race. Latinx homosexuals are a race-sexuality,” which, let’s break that down, shall we? first off, “homosexuals” is not a sexuality, it’s a marginalized group. “homosexual” is the word he’s looking for, and it’s a word straight people are Not Allowed to say (which kendi does, 10 times). it medicalizes the hell out of us. secondly, considering that Literal Day 1 of my mexican-american studies class was “latine people are not a race, also ’latinx’ isn’t a universally accepted term and is actually contested by a lot of people bc the x is unpronounceable in spanish,” asserting that “Latinx people are a race” is not a great move either. it’s a nice thought, but this chapter is a vivid demonstration of why making sweeping assertions about racist homophobia and latine studies should be left to qpoc and latine people.

kendi writes [emphasis mine]:

I am a cisgendered Black heterosexual male—“cisgender” meaning my gender identity corresponds to my birth sex, in contrast to transgender people, whose gender identity does not correspond to their birth sex. To be queer antiracist is to understand the privileges of my cisgender, of my masculinity, of my heterosexuality, of their intersections. To be queer antiracist is to serve as an ally to transgender people, to intersex people, to women, to the non-gender-conforming, to homosexuals, to their intersections, meaning listening, learning, and being led by their equalizing ideas, by their equalizing policy campaigns, by their power struggle for equal opportunity.

ok, let’s break this down, bc it’s a whole ass mess.
1. it’s not “cisgendered.” it’s cisgender. a google search will tell you that. “cis” is an adjective. yikes.
2. talking about “birth sex” as something your gender identity corresponds to is still transphobic, and it’s not exactly intersex-friendly, either. julia serano breaks it down here, but basically “biological sex” is a construct too, and using the term “birth sex” to discuss trans issues isn’t progressive in the Year of Our Lord 2019, and hasn’t been for a hot minute. just say “assigned gender” or “assigned sex.”
3. “my cisgender” kendi… dude… what are you even talking about here. just say “being cis.” i am so tired
4. this is more semantic than anything, but separating out “women” from “transgender people” is a little uh. uhhhhhh. also there he goes saying “homosexual” again.

this is a particularly egregious paragraph, but the whole chapter “sexuality” reads like this. kendi’s like “transphobia bad!” and then goes on to still use words like “male” and “female,” which a fair amount of trans people will tell you can be dehumanizing as fuck. i know that he places a lot of emphasis throughout the book on individual action/ideologies and struggles for liberation being about universal equity, but the way it comes across in this chapter is very much “i am definitely No Longer Homophobic because i discovered that gay men will not assault me and these lesbians also hate other gay people.” it’s well-intentioned, but i have to wonder at the fact that it seems like no queer person ever laid a hand on this chapter before its publication. it’s troubling, tbh. there’s a point at which your own personal experiences with a topic don’t measure up, and i think that’s what’s happening here. #cishets

kendi seems to be doing his damndest to stay away from anything even resembling a leftist mode, which makes some of this a bit contrived. like, i understand what he's trying to do in the chapter on whiteness, but i think most of the stuff he addresses is also still... just racialized classism? like, this book is making a case that bc of intersectionality, racism amplifies different kinds of marginalization. but I don't feel like you have to call it "class racism" to get that across? it feels like a lot of this book rejects more contemporary language and terminology to try to define everything as racism, which is useful in some ways, but in others feels like a bit of a snub to the really important work we've done in the last three decades. i understand how and why academic language and terminology can be alienating, but i think some parts of this book might have benefited from engaging with it, if only to refute it. a lot of the internal self-correction that kendi laments the absence of happens within theory, in my experience. yeah, it can be alienating—but i think you can make the argument that if judith butler hadn’t gone totally hogwild with gender trouble, we wouldn’t be able to talk about gender performativity so simply today. etcetera.

i had this problem with stamped from the beginning too, where it seems like his analysis is basically materialist but doesn’t go all the way there, probably due to the general liberal terror of actually reading marx. he calls classism “elitism” too, which is just… i dunno. it’s not the most progressive argument in the world. i would be more interested in a book that talks about different intersectionalities in a way that isn't so dedicated to keeping it within the very specific framework of "x racism.” some of the discussions try so hard to fit into the racism/antiracism binary that kendi’s posited that i think sometimes he neglects to just call antiblackness antiblackness. again in the “gender racism” chapter, a lot of the subject matter specifically addresses misogynoir, but the binary says he has to keep calling it “gender racism,” even when he addresses issues that specifically affect Black women.

overall stamped from the beginning was better; this book is doing a lot of important work, but it's work that you probably don't need to engage with if you already understand what intersectionality is and read about racism and activism on your own time. also, fair warning that it gets repetitive in terms of style/sentence structure/overall layout. i understand why kendi does that, formally, but it makes for a very dry read.

at the end of the day, though, kendi does tell you—as the title claims—how to be an antiracist, or at least how to try. support equitable policy; view people as individuals; be critical, patient, and kind. it’s a good lesson, even if he takes some odd roads to get there. i think that this is once again a case of me just not being a book’s target audience—i need to stop reading intro books and start reading theory. kendi’s proposed actionable moves (wrt politics) pretty much boil down to “put people in power who care about stuff and will change policy.” while antiracist policymaking is revolutionary in the sense that it makes the world better, it’s not revolutionary in the sense of revolt. it’s action within a system, which is just liberalism. progressive liberalism, but still liberalism. i guess it’s just frustrating to me to give in to the idea that the most helpful actions possible still involve begging a centralized state authority not to kill people. it feels like… the us government is literally mass murdering migrants, and there’s nothing i can do now to change that? it’s a really unsatisfying answer.

tl;dr this is a good, if dated, overview of intersectionality wrt racism that suffers from the general liberal inability to engage with materialism (and contemporary theory in general) head-on. i can see this being useful as a reference text or an introductory material. skip the chapter on sexuality.

eta 220820, since this review has blown up in a small way: i am no longer claiming this book is “good” overall. “fine,” perhaps. the more stuff kendi publishes and the general tone of his twitter make it clear that he’s in it for the grift as much as anything else. if you’re looking for an introduction to racism, i recommend starting with [b:the autobiography of malcolm x|92057|The Autobiography of Malcolm X|Malcolm X|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1434682864l/92057._SY75_.jpg|47400]. ✌️

calla91's review against another edition

challenging informative

3.5

chriszook's review against another edition

5.0

I had actually started reading this book about a week before the tragic murder of George Floyd, and my continued slow reading and processing of How to Be an Antiracist ran in parallel to the historic protests that ensued and continue today. The changes we already see happening as a result are a testament to one of the primary themes of this book: the importance and possibility of changing racist policy (while recognizing the underlying self-interest that drives racist policy); and how we must all be agents for that change as we take a long hard look at how we support and enable racist policy and ideas.

chrobin's review against another edition

challenging hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

The best book I’ve read on antiracism. Kendi goes much deeper than others writing on the topic. This book gently and firmly challenged me to rethink a lot of the ways I see the world, racism, & US politics.

stuff2424's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5

This book has helped me realize things I’ve never thought about. Now, I also want to strive towards being Antiracist. Shoutout to my sociology professor who made us read this.