• Author: Ibram X. Kendi
  • Full Title: How to Be an Antiracist
  • Tags: #Inbox #books

Highlights

  • to say something is wrong about a racial group is to say something is inferior about that racial group. I did not realize that to say something is inferior about a racial group is to say a racist idea. (Location 120)
  • This is the consistent function of racist ideas—and of any kind of bigotry more broadly: to manipulate us into seeing people as the problem, instead of the policies that ensnare them. (Location 134)
  • When racist ideas resound, denials that those ideas are racist typically follow. When racist policies resound, denials that those policies are racist also follow. (Location 144)
  • Denial is the heartbeat of racism, beating across ideologies, races, and nations. (Location 146)
  • Many of us who strongly call out Trump’s racist ideas will strongly deny our own. How often do we become reflexively defensive when someone calls something we’ve done or said racist? How many of us would agree with this statement: “ ‘Racist’ isn’t a descriptive word. It’s a pejorative word. It is the equivalent of saying, ‘I don’t like you.’ ” (Location 146)
  • What’s the problem with being “not racist”? It is a claim that signifies neutrality: “I am not a racist, but neither am I aggressively against racism.” But there is no neutrality in the racism struggle. The opposite of “racist” isn’t “not racist.” It is “antiracist.” What’s the difference? One endorses either the idea of a racial hierarchy as a racist, or racial equality as an antiracist. One either believes problems are rooted in groups of people, as a racist, or locates the roots of problems in power and policies, as an antiracist. (Location 151)
  • There is no in-between safe space of “not racist.” The claim of “not racist” neutrality is a mask for racism. (Location 155)
  • “Racist” is not—as Richard Spencer argues—a pejorative. (Location 157)
  • is descriptive, and the only way to undo racism is to consistently identify and describe it—and (Location 158)
  • We can be a racist one minute and an antiracist (Location 169)
  • the next. What we say about race, what we do about race, in each moment, determines what—not who—we are. (Location 169)
  • It can become real if we focus on power instead of people, if we focus on changing policy instead of groups of people. It’s possible if we overcome our cynicism about the permanence of racism. (Location 184)
  • RACIST: One who is supporting a racist policy through their actions or inaction or expressing a racist idea. ANTIRACIST: One who is supporting an antiracist policy through their actions or expressing an antiracist idea. (Location 190)