“How to be an Antiracist” by Ibram X. Kendi

 Similar to how all white people are reading White Fragility, this book has also seen a resurgence due to the Black Lives Matter movement gaining traction. Having just finished, let me just say: this book is powerful. Kendi combines anecdotes from his life with principles about racism versus antiracist, and narrates the story of how he has grown as an antiracist while influencing our growth and introducing the reader to similar ideas. It is a really compelling way to lead us all to the same conclusion while also meeting the reader where they are at and not talking down to them.

I think the most powerful story in this book comes at the end, when Kendi discusses his family’s struggles with cancer. How his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, and his mother then had a similar diagnosis. How he went on to develop colon cancer and battled that while writing this book. This text is far from a cancer memoir, but his use of interweaving cancer as a physical disease with racism as a mental disease in America is incredibly powerful. What was particularly interesting to me is that earlier in the book he questions another academic using the metaphor of racism as a disease. And here he has changed his mind and now actively describes it as a cancer.

Activists tend to shy away from times when they might have been wrong or have had to change their minds about a topic. Not Kendi. He actively embraces his younger self who unknowingly harbored racist ideas. In showing how his thoughts have changed over time, it causes the reader to also look inward and examine their past or current racist thoughts. The reality is that we have all had them. We all live in a racist society and we have been marinating in these ideas for our entire lives. There is no need to try and hide it from ourselves, instead we should be more like Kendi and examine why we thought this and why it is incorrect. Only then can we work towards creating an anti-racist society.

This book has been a resounding success, and it is known as that for a reason. Kendi gently takes the reader’s hand and guides them through both his journey and their own to becoming an anti-racist. It makes this book ideal for individuals who want to get started examining the racism in their lives, as well as those who have been fighting it for years. We all fall somewhere within Kendi’s life and can learn from his story. Now more than ever it is important that we understand and make use of these learning opportunities and fight to make the world a more anti-racist place.