"How To Be An Antiracist" by Ibram X. Kendi

Since the death of George Floyd sparked a global outcry, building to what will hopefully continue to grow into a movement, lots of people (particularly White) have been asking what they can do to help. As part of my commitment to being part of this movement, I've been reading into what it means not just to be "not racist" but "anti-racist", denoting action rather than the passivity of being "not racist".

Ibram X. Kendi has written a powerful book with just that title. The main thing I've learned from this book is that being an anti-racist is a choice that we must make every day, requiring continual reflection on our thoughts and perceptions of people of other racialised groups. Separating his book into different themes, such as sexuality, gender, and culture, Kendi has researched and explored what racism means at each of these different levels rather than just a macro, nationwide or global level. He explains the history of racism - that it, how it was created by the Portuguese in order to begin the transatlantic slave trade - and how it has seeped into every part of society.

Each chapter begins with what it means to be a racist and an anti-racist for that particular area. For example, ethnic racism is about racist policies that lead to inequalities between racialised ethnic groups (e.g. mixed-race or biracial people vs Black people with darker skin) vs ethnic antiracism which is about antiracist policies that lead to equity between racialised ethnic groups. By dividing the book this way, and using his own experiences and beliefs growing up, Kendi creates a roadmap of definitions and intersections that are vital for one to think about. For example, we can't just think about the experience of Black people vs White people. We need to think about the experience of the poor Black people vs the poor White people, or White women compared to Black women.

One of the biggest realisations that Kendi comes to in the book is that changing people's minds will not necessarily lead to policy change. Policy change, however, will lead to changing people's minds. This is because that racism was not created because of ideology and moral values. It was created for economic self-interest, and the ideology followed as a way of justifying it.

Racism is far more than just calling someone the n-word. Racism is believing that Black communities are poor because of their own faults rather than the policies which make those communities poor. Racism is having a bias to Black people with lighter skin rather than dark skin. Racism is calling Black women "welfare queens" when the biggest recipients of welfare in the United States are White people.

We need to remember that we are not living in a post-racial society because of the election of Obama. (The Trump administration has done away with that fantasy). We are not going to solve racism overnight, because the Western world was built on it. However, we all have the power to demand change from our elected representatives, in order to pursue policy change that leads to not just equality but equity between different racialised groups. We should not see just treatment of Black and ethnic minority people as a threat to our White privilege. That is a fear created by powerful elites in order to preserve their own power. Racism was created by the elites, for the elites. It's up to us to demand its dismantling.