How To Be an Antiracist
The global million-copy bestseller
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4.5 • 8 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Not being racist is not enough. We have to be antiracist.
*THE GLOBAL MILLION-COPY BESTSELLER - NOW REVISED AND UPDATED*
In HOW TO BE AN ANTIRACIST Ibram X. Kendi, one of the world's most influential scholars on racism, demolishes the idea of a post-racial society, punctures the myths and taboos that cloud our understanding of racism and presents a radically new approach to tackling it.
He shows how everyone is, at times, complicit in maintaining the structure of racism though we rarely realise it, and gives us the tools to identify and change those behaviours.
Uncompromising but essential, HOW TO BE AN ANTIRACIST sparked a new conversation about being antiracist around the world, showing that until we become part of the solution, we can only be part of the problem.
'Transformative and revolutionary' ROBIN DIANGELO, author of White Fragility
'So vital' IJEOMA OLUO, author of So You Want to Talk About Race
'It feels like a light switch being flicked on' OWEN JONES
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kendi follows his National Book Award winning Stamped from the Beginning with a boldly articulated, historically informed explanation of what exactly racist ideas and thinking are, and what their antiracist antithesis looks like both systemically and at the level of individual action. He weaves together cultural criticism, theory (starting each chapter with epigraph-like definitions of terms), stories from his own life and philosophical development (he describes his younger self as a "racist, sexist homophobe"), and episodes from history (including the 17th-century European debate about "polygenesis," the idea that different races of people were actually separate species with distinct origins). He delves into typical racist ideas (e.g. that biology and behavior differ between racial groups) and problems (such as colorism), as well as the intersections between race and gender, race and class, and race and sexuality. Kendi puts forth some distinctive arguments: he posits that "internalized racism is the true Black-on-Black crime," critiquing powerful black people who disparage other black people and racializing behaviors they disapprove of, and argues that black people can be racist in their views of white people (when they make negative generalizations about white people as a group, thereby espousing the racist idea that ethnicity determines behavior). His prose is thoughtful, sincere, and polished. This powerful book will spark many conversations.)
