How to Be an Antiracist Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions

In How to Be an Antiracist, how is racial neutrality harmful?

People who say they are “not racist” are expressing their racial neutrality. Being a non-racist may indicate that a person doesn’t act in an overtly racist way. Yet someone who is “not racist” is not committed to undermining and changing the policies that create the inequities inherent in racism. In the introduction and in Chapter 1 of this book, Kendi explains why being “not racist” is actually supportive of racism. He shows that someone who claims to be “not racist” is, wittingly or not, complicit in the racist belief that they are better than the “inferior” race that is oppressed by racist policy. He sees “not racist” as a type of mask that hides the underlying racism that the “not racist” person allows to persist because they don’t take a stand to overthrow racist policies.

In How to Be an Antiracist, in what ways is racism a form of currency or power?

In How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi explains that it takes power to create a social or governmental policy, so policy makers are powerful people whose policies shape society. The fact that race is an issue in the United States is an outgrowth of policies created by powerful people that target race. As described in Chapter 3, Ibram X. Kendi discusses how policy makers shape the “power identities” of different races of people. For policy makers, race is a power construct—one that is intended to limit or eliminate any power a particular racial group can exert. 

When policy makers enact policies based on the idea that Black people have no power, that notion of powerlessness is often internalized by Black people who then feel they have no currency with which to influence policies that affect their status and their lives. This is an insidious form of racism because, as Kendi shows, Black people as a racial group (and as individuals) do have power. According to Kendi, they can use their admittedly limited power as a form of currency to force policy makers to do away with racist policies and replace them with antiracist policies. This task is not easy, as racist policies arise from the self-interest of powerful economic, political, and cultural groups. If Black people and other racial groups muster the power they have, they have a chance to change policy so that it addresses their self-interest to the greatest extent possible.   

In How to Be an Antiracist, in what ways is racism about fear?

In Chapter 6 of How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi discusses how racist policies and the racist ideas that underpin them have instilled an almost indelible image of the Black man as having a body that is large, strong, and dangerous. Once this fearsome image of the Black body is embedded in the minds of both Black and white Americans, it instills in them a deep fear of the Black body and of Black behavior, as discussed in Chapter 8, where the author asserts that the antisocial or violent behavior of Black individuals is then used to paint all Black people as bad and violent.  

When policies create conditions that force many Black people into poverty, any surge in criminal activity is usually blamed on the behavior of impoverished Black men. The racist ideas that bolster racist policies cause white people to identify all Black men as violent and potential sources of harm and danger. But, as Kendi relates, Black people also learn to fear the Black body and Black behavior. Racist policies promote fearmongering about Black men, and then both Black people and white people learn to fear them. The intensity and ubiquity of this fear further oppresses poor Black people, who are subsequently denied any opportunity to better themselves because people in nearly every sector of society have internalized a fear of them.  

In How to Be an Antiracist, how does intersectionality magnify the oppression of some Black people? How might some white people, too, be affected by the bigotry of certain types of intersectionality?

In How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi describes how, for some Black people, intersectionality increases their oppression when they are subjected to bigotry associated with other socially unacceptable identities. These bigotries include gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and class (e.g., poverty), among others. For example, poor Black women who are also gay suffer three types of oppression that intersect in how white people view and treat them. Such women are disdained by racists who demean them because they are Black. They are oppressed by people (sometimes both white and Black) because they are poor; this is class racism. They are also subjected to misogynistic bigotry (again, sometimes from both white people and Black people) because they are women (gender racism). They suffer as the objects of anti-gay bigotry (queer racism). Racism, gender-racism, queer-racism, and class-racism intersect in poor, gay, Black women, who therefore suffer more magnified oppression than, say, a middle-class straight Black man.  

Racism is a key form of oppression among Black people who suffer from intersectional bigotry. Yet white people might also suffer from intersectional bigotry. Although a white woman isn’t oppressed by racism, she may still be demeaned by misogynists because she’s a woman (gender bigotry) and by those who look down on her and treat her badly because she’s poor (class bigotry). If a white woman is lesbian, anti-gay oppression (queer bigotry) intersects with the above traits to further increase the oppression she may experience.  

In How to Be an Antiracist, how are the ideas at the core of assimilation and integration racist?

In How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi explains that assimilation is based on the racist idea that Black people would be better off if they assimilated into white society. To do this, they would have to either reject their Black culture or suppress it. To successfully assimilate into white culture, they would also have to alter their identity as Black or at least hide aspects of their Black identity. This suppression of Black culture and identity is racist because it supports the idea that white culture is better than Black culture, that fitting into white society and hiding your true self is preferable to being who you really are as an African American.  

Integration entails similar suppression of Blackness. Integrating schools, for example, implies that a Black person gets a better education attending a predominantly white school than attending a majority-Black school. This idea is racist because it elevates white educational ideas above Black educational ideas. It also implies that at a white school, Black students would benefit from being indoctrinated into the white version of history. Here, too, is the implication that Black people would have to suppress their true identity to fit into the white school structure. It’s also the case that white schools too often distort or do not address the history of African Americans. It is true that “separate is not equal” in terms of education. But the inequality in Black educational systems is primarily that of underfunding. If Black schools had resources comparable to white schools, they would be on a more equitable footing with white schools.  

Both assimilation and integration support the concept of a racial hierarchy in which white institutions are placed above Black institutions on the social ladder that judges institutions on the basis of race.