How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
Antiracist: One who is supporting an antiracist policy through their actions or expressing an antiracist idea.
If you want to feel completely judged by a book, but in a good way, this is the book for you.
How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi is a book that forces you to look at your flaws while seamlessly dropping some hard knowledge on your head.
I can’t deny, reading this book was hard. I started this book with the Borderline Millennials Book Club back in the end of June and we JUST finished it! We tackled this book as though it were a course in our semester schedule in college. There’s just SO MUCH information to be absorbed and it’s ALL important. Seriously, you should see everything I highlighted.
After the months of going through every word in this book, at the end of it all, I have to admit that it is worth the hype! Admittedly, we chose this book in reaction to the Black Lives Matter movement taking off and as a response to all of the many injustices and protests which have become very prevalent during this pandemic. We couldn’t have made a better choice for our book club book.
Each chapter of the book is filled with new information or old information expressed in new ways, and each group discussion was filled with constructive conversations. I found myself constantly confronting myself and my own actions, thoughts, and beliefs while reading because that’s what Kendi calls for. He shares his own flaws and triumphs in his experience with racism and antiracism and calls himself out so much so that it actually encouraged us, the readers, to do the same to ourselves.
There were many times where he said something that was harsh to hear and a tough pill to swallow but had to be said. The nuggets of wisdom from the first couple of chapters turned into full-blown meals by the time I got to the final chapter.
I want to go in-depth about this book, but it’s hard to do that in a single blog post, so I will leave you with a call-to-action instead.
I don’t care who you are, how old you are, where you grew up, where you live now, what your race or ethnicity is, what your sexual orientation is, or anything in between. Everyone can benefit from reading this book. Every. Single. Person.
In fact, I think it should be a requirement for everyone to read this book. It should be a requirement for middle schoolers to read this, and then read it again once they are in high school, and again when they’re in college. There is so much knowledge in this book that everyone could benefit from. I know going into this book I thought I wouldn’t learn a whole lot because I’m Black so based on my skin color alone, I’m obviously an antiracist. Boy, was I wrong. If you want to know how I’m wrong, go ahead and read the book and we can have a discussion on it afterward or as you go along. Let’s discuss.