On the Coffee Table: Ibram X. Kendi

Title: How to Be an Antiracist

Author: Ibram X. Kendi

via Amazon

This book has been banned in some school districts which, of course, means everyone should read it.

How to Be an Antiracist is as much memoir as treatise.  Ibram X. Kendi leads us through a personal history or his own racial attitudes.  Kendi grew up in New York City, then spent most of high school in Virginia.  He was raised by veterans of the civil rights movements.  He was educated first at Florida A&M, an historically black university, then Temple University where he earned an MA and a PhD in African American Studies.  We get an intimate view of his own philosophical evolution, some of it surprising.  His vulnerability in admitting his own shortcomings along the way lends more credence to his ultimate conclusions.  

Kendi's definition of an antiracist has spread wide since the book's publication: "One who is expressing the idea that racial groups are equals and none needs developing, and is supporting policy that reduces racial inequity."  The goal is not to change attitudes but to change the policies, systems and structures that prevent equality - redlining, for instance - and boost the ones that encourage it - affirmative action, for one.  He acknowledges that the racial attitudes of white people have changed over recent decades.  But he points out, rather importantly, that attitudes tend to change after the policy changes, not the other way around.  

I hope no one is surprised to know that I am fully on board with this line of thinking.  Conversations about race are rarely easy.  Here in Vermont - still 92% white - the challenge is often convincing people that we have any responsibility at all.  8% non-white is small but it's a lot more than zero.  I work in education.  Our students of color are few and, complicating the statistics, quite a lot of them have been academically successful.  But that doesn't mean we're doing everything we can and should to ensure they're thriving fully as members of our school community.  What is their experience walking down the hallways?  Do they have the same access to extra-curriculars as their schoolmates or are some teams and clubs more inclusive than others, even unintentionally?

And folks, we hold enormous responsibility for teaching our white students about race.  I agree with Kendi that attitudes aren't everything but they do matter.  If I were to ask most of my white students to define their own culture, many - if not most - would say they don't have one.  They see their own experience as the default - "normal."  They have no concept of their own foreignness to others, indeed to most of the world.  I don't know how we fix that but I know we must find a way.

I have responsibilities as a blogger, too.  Star Trek, in particular, is worthy of scrutiny.  From the beginning, the franchise has been about changing our approach to "the other."  Trek deserves a lot of credit for diverse representation but the racial rhetoric is still often problematic.  I'll do my best to call them on it when I see it.

I'm definitely up for reading more of Kendi's work.  I hope you will, too.  More importantly, I hope you'll take up the antiracist cause yourself.