How to be an Antiracist – Major and Minor Quotes

“[Antiracism] . . . becomes real if we focus on power, [not] people . . . [on] policy, [not] people.” (My Racist Introduction)

— Ibram X. Kendi

Analysis: For Kendi, antiracism is the commitment to overturn the racist policies put in place by racist policy makers. To accomplish this, he says, Black people need to realize and exert their power. Black people and other racial groups must organize to exert the inherent, though limited, power they have in order to influence policy makers to get rid of racist policies and implement antiracist policies. Only then will racism in America begin to fade or disappear. 

Racist policies are almost always underpinned by the racist idea that an entire race of people can be characterized by the actions of individuals belonging to that race. For example, a Black individual who commits a crime is often portrayed as typical of all Black people, who are then identified in the public mind as criminals. Kendi is adamant that individual behavior is not indicative of a race and should not be used to stereotype an entire race. As long as Black people (and antiracist white people) characterize a whole race based on the behavior of certain individuals, they will not be able to locate and focus on the racist policies that enforce the inequities, such as poverty, that influence individual behavior and racist policy makers’ view of a race’s characteristics and identity. 

“Racist idea[s] . . . suggest one racial group is inferior or superior to another in some way.”(Chapter 1)

— Ibram X. Kendi

Analysis: Powerful racist policy makers use racist ideas contained in their racist policies to justify these racist policies. Kendi says that for centuries in the United States, the racist ideas bolstering racist policies have taught Americans that Black people—and other people of color—are inferior to the dominant white race. He explains how white Americans internalize the idea of the inferiority of Black people and the superiority of white people in all spheres of life. Even many Black people have internalized the idea that their race is inferior to the white race. The labeling of the Black race as inferior is then used as a justification for policies that create inequities between Black people and white people.  

If those in power have instilled in Americans the idea that Black people are an inferior race, then policies that oppress Black people can seem reasonable and justified. The inequities that arise from this identification of Black people as inferior are accepted as a natural outgrowth of Black inferiority. Kendi says the characterization of white superiority can also be used to justify policies that force or encourage Black people to emulate the superior white culture or to change their behavior to fit into the dominant white society. 

“Assimilationists believe that [Black people] can be developed, become fully human, just like white people.” (Chapter 2)

— Ibram X. Kendi

Analysis: Kendi views assimilationism as misguided because it rests on what he sees as essentially racist ideas. Assimilationists believe that the best way for Black people to improve themselves and their lives is to strive to become like white people and thereby fit into the dominant white society. Under this belief, to assimilate, Black people should try to mold their behavior and their values by seeking out education in white schools. They should learn the skills and manners that will help them get jobs in the white-dominated society.  

Kendi explains that assimilation is founded on racist ideas because it dismisses or ignores the values, goals, behaviors, beliefs, and normal life experiences of Black people. It dismisses the Black history that has shaped the Black community. It demands that Black people jettison the Black culture that has shaped their thoughts, behavior, and goals. Assimilationists believe that these culturally Black traits should be replaced by thoughts, behavior, and goals amenable to white society. Therefore the assimilationists demean and devalue Black culture, which implies its inferiority, and elevate the dominant white culture, which implies the acceptance of white society as superior to that of Black people. This view is essentially racist because it demands that Black people give up their authentic self and install a white self in its place.  

“Racist power creates racist policies out of self-interest; the policies [are justified by] racist ideas.”(Chapter 3)

— Ibram X. Kendi

Analysis: Kendi asserts that racist policies are enacted by racist policy makers to promote their own self-interest, especially economic self-interest, or the pursuit of wealth and profit. The earliest examples of this racist pursuit of self-interest were the African slave trade and the genocide of the native peoples of the Americas. The powerful men who invaded the Americas told the world that they subjugated the native population in order to convert them to Christianity, but this was a smoke screen to hide the wealth they gleaned from stealing the resources of the Americas. The African slave trade was immensely profitable to the slave traders, but their justification for the commerce in humans generally rested on their characterization of African Black people as subhuman. The atrocities committed in both cases were buried beneath justifications that permitted—or encouraged—the exploitation of people to satisfy the greed and self-interest of white people.  

Later in the book, in Chapter 12, Kendi explains how capitalism is the “conjoined twin” of racism because its limitless pursuit of profit and wealth is based on the self-interest of primarily white businessmen and politicians. White wealth is derived from the exploitation of labor, and because of racist ideas and policies, Black labor is cheaper than white labor and therefore yields more profit. For capitalists, human labor—like everything on Earth—is merely a commodity to be exploited. From the days of the slave trade to the inequities experienced by Black workers today, the impetus behind the exploitation is the self-interested profit motive.

“The act of making a cultural standard and hierarchy is what creates cultural racism.” (Chapter 7)

— Ibram X. Kendi

Analysis: Kendi explains that throughout American history, white culture has been the cultural standard that all other racial and ethnic cultures are compared to and are expected to emulate, live up to, or become a part of. Making white culture the dominant standard to which all other cultures must be compared demeans non-white cultures, which are judged based on how closely they align to the white cultural standard.  

The closer to the white cultural standard a racial or ethnic group is, the higher on the cultural hierarchy its culture is situated. Since no non-white culture is judged to be the equal of white culture, all non-white cultures are deemed to be inferior to white culture. Cultural racism is therefore the demeaning and devaluing of all non-white cultures, which are seen as definitionally beneath and unequal to white culture. Antiracists insist that all cultures are of equal value even—or especially—in their differences from white culture.

“Racial group behavior is a figment of the racist’s imagination.” (Chapter 8)

— Ibram X. Kendi

Analysis: Racist policies contain within them the idea that the behavior of a Black individual is representative of the behavior of all Black people, Kendi explains. This insidious notion leads Americans to conclude that there is such a thing as racial group behavior—that all Black people behave in the same way as certain Black individuals that are noticed by white people. On its face, this is simply false and irrational.  

If television news features a story about a crime committed by a Black man, it is profoundly delusional and racist for white American viewers to think that criminal behavior is true for all African Americans. But the same conclusion does not occur if a crime committed by a white man is televised. The racist ideas contained in racist policies inculcate in white people this broad-brush characterization of individual behavior as indicative of the behavior of the entire racial group. As Kendi states, that belief is a figment of the imagination among white people and even some Black people.  

“Antiracists [support] a beauty culture that accentuates instead of erases our natural beauty.” (Chapter 9)

— Ibram X. Kendi

Analysis: This quotation reveals Kendi’s understanding that Black people have internalized white aesthetics from the dominant culture, especially as these aesthetics apply to Black skin color, hair, and facial features. Those who harbor racist ideas—a population that includes many Black people—judge the looks of Black people based on white standards of beauty.  

For Black people who have internalized white standards of beauty, being light-skinned is beautiful, while being dark-skinned is not. Having straight or straighter hair is beautiful, while having tightly curled hair is not. Having a slim nose and lips similar to white people is beautiful, while having more prominent features is not.  

Antiracists reject white looks as the standard of beauty for Black people (and people of other races and ethnicities). Antiracists support a standard of beauty that asserts that having facial and body characteristics indicative of your race is or should be a race’s standard of beauty. The appearance that is natural to a racial group should be accepted, enhanced, and appreciated while the predominant white aesthetic should be rejected. 

“Antiracist[s] . . . never conflate racist people with white people . . . there are antiracist white people and racist non-white people.” (Chapter 10)

— Ibram X. Kendi

Analysis: Kendi shows that racism is not confined to one particular racial group. He shows that although many white people may hold racist views, so too do many Black people. Black people who espouse racist ideas believe that white culture and white values are superior to Black culture and Black values. Racist Black people may try to emulate or assimilate into white culture and white society in an effort to better themselves in the white-dominant society. Similarly, Black people are not the only people who can be antiracist. White people who try to understand how racist policies lead to the inequities experienced by Black people (and other racial and ethnic peoples) are also being antiracist. White people who protest or actively work to overthrow racist policies and the racist ideas that underpin them are being antiracist.  

Antiracists work toward overthrowing racist policies. They do not strive to blame or attack white people (or Black people) who are not antiracist. Antiracists do not confuse the importance of changing the racist policies of racist policy makers with white people who are misguided into supporting these policies. Antiracists recognize that both Black people and white people can be racist. Both Black people and white people can be antiracists. Since the focus of antiracists is racist policy, they never attack or blame all white people as being racist. Antiracists distinguish between racists and antiracists but don’t demonize all white people as racist.

“Racist ideas are constantly produced to cage the power of [Black] people to resist.” (Chapter 11)

— Ibram X. Kendi

Analysis: Antiracists must garner their power in order to overthrow racist policies, Kendi notes. Since racist policy makers do not want their racist policies overthrown, they exert their power to limit or constrain the power of Black people in order to prevent them from challenging racist policies.  

The ideas bolstering racist policies instill in Black people the notion that all power resides with white people. Kendi explains that this leads to Black people believing that they have no power and therefore cannot aspire to eliminate or change racist policies. This is a state of affairs that racist policy makers want to maintain. As long as Black people confer all power to white people—and especially white policy makers—and none to themselves, Kendi says there is little likelihood that Black people will recognize that they do have some limited power. And if Black people do not realize that they have power, Kendi argues, they will never try to use it to challenge racist policy. The power that Black people have is “caged” and rendered powerless (or nonexistent) by white racist policies. If current racist policies do not sufficiently cage Black power, new racist policies are enacted to strengthen the cage that more closely traps Black power to make it even more ineffective.

“A queer antiracist . . . sees queer racism—not the queer person—as the problem, as unnatural.” (Chapter 15)

— Ibram X. Kendi

Analysis: This quotation reflects the issue of intersectionality , which describes the different forms of inequities that burden groups with more than one attribute that society deems problematic and inferior. Here, Kendi uses the double-whammy of policy-based inequities for Black people who suffer from inequities because they are Black and policy-based inequities because they are homosexual. Race intersects with sexual orientation to doubly oppress Black people who are gay.  

However, intersectionality is not limited to oppression of gay people of color. Intersectionality affects all non-white races and ethnicities. These groups are oppressed and suffer inequities because they are not white. They also suffer oppression and inequities because they are culturally (ethnically) different from white people, come from a nation other than the United States, look different from white people, have darker skin than white people, speak a language other than the dominant white language (English), or simply are female and suffer the inequities imposed on all women, even white women, in a male-dominated society. Each characteristic brings its own type of oppression and inequity. The more a person’s identity includes these characteristics, the more inequity they endure. So an Asian gay woman suffers oppression arising from four of her attributes: ethnicity, being non-white, being a woman, and being gay.

“To be antiracist is to let me . . . be myself . . . my imperfect self.” (Chapter 16)

— Ibram X. Kendi

Analysis: In this quotation, Kendi critiques the notion of “uplift suasion,” an idea that states that Black people will be uplifted (toward acceptance by white society) if they act white and their behavior is unimpeachable. The concept of uplift suasion enables white people to criticize any Black behavior that does not seem acceptable to white people. The concept encourages Black people to criticize other Black people who do not try to emulate white behavior. This is also a concept that tends to view the behavior of a Black individual as tarnishing the entire race of African Americans. It puts a terrible burden on Black people to repress their personality and natural behavior in order to uplift themselves to a standard acceptable to white people.  

Kendi rejects uplift suasion as racist because it elevates white behavior as the ultimate standard for everyone’s behavior. It makes normal Black behavior invalid and unacceptable. Kendi adamantly rejects uplift suasion, asserting that he will always be his authentic self even if that self includes imperfect behaviors. All humans are imperfect, so uplift suasion’s goal of perfect emulation of white people is not only racist but also impossible to achieve. Kendi points out that antiracists let Black people be their own imperfect selves.  

“An activist produces power and policy change, not mental change.” (Chapter 16)

— Ibram X. Kendi

Analysis: This quotation makes an important point about the goal of antiracists. Here, Kendi emphasizes that to effect change the antiracist must focus on changing racist policy. Kendi shows how pointless it is for antiracists to focus on changing the minds of racists to somehow turn them into antiracists.  

Kendi explains why a tactic of trying to use moral suasion to abolish racism is fruitless. He asserts that the mental state of a racist cannot be changed before racist policies are changed. Once racist policies are replaced with antiracist policies, white people (and other racists) may experience the beneficial effects of antiracist policies. This recognition might make them more amenable to changing their minds about race. This is why antiracists must maintain a clear focus on changing racist policies and not on changing “hearts and minds” first.

“All . . . racism [is] overt if . . . antiracists . . . are open to seeing racist policy in racial inequity.” (Chapter 17)

— Ibram X. Kendi

Analysis: Here, Kendi discusses what has been called “institutional racism,” which he’s renamed “institutionally racist policy.” Institutionally racist policies are hard to see because they’re almost always buried within the bureaucracy of the institution, be it a government agency or a corporation. These covert, or subtle and invisible, racist policies are far more difficult to find and understand than the more overt, or visible, racist actions of individuals. 

To combat institutionally racist policy, the antiracist must first separate the overt racism of individual actors from the hidden, covert policies buried within the institutional bureaucracy. Kendi suggests that focusing on how the institution’s actions create racial inequities in the real world and then tracing those inequities back to the bureaucratic action that most likely led to these inequities may serve to reveal the covert racist policies at the heart of the institution. Antiracists can then target these institutionally racist policies—and the policy makers who put them in place—to excise the racism at the core of so many American institutions.