How to Be an Antiracist

Any book that people are afraid of is a book that I intend to read. Especially if the people who are afraid of it are the people who threatened my family and drove us out of our neighborhood because of our religious beliefs. Even if I don't practice that (or any) religion anymore.But that's not the only reason I bought this book. I bought this book because I want to do better by the black people in my life, as a voter, a member of the community, and as a friend. I bought this book because I wanted to understand a racist black teacher I had in school who punished her black students for using AAVE in her classroom and drilled into her poor students that they would never escape the hate they received unless they went to college. I bought this book because I wanted to understand how the words inequality and racist became weaponized against the very injustices they were created to repair. I bought this book because I refuse to believe that empathy and consideration are negative behaviors. I bought this book because I feel like I need to do more, but I don't know what the next thing to do is.I still don't know what the next thing to do is.I recommend buying the paperback and the audiobook and reading them together.

I'm learning from this book things I didn't know I needed to learn. Recommend!

Oversimplification-you can’t not be a racist in this paradigm. It seemed to be just a passion project built to scold people and sell books to self-conscious whites seeking to assuage feelings of guilt toward the people that they would never let their kids date. But again, it seems as though the reason that this book is making the rounds is a performative act of prostration to keep up appearances.Kendi says "There is no such thing as a nonracist or race-neutral policy. Every policy in every institution in every community in every nation is producing or sustaining either racial inequity or equity, racial injustice or justice."Right now I am involved professionally in an organization that works with shelter dogs and cats and has reached zero percent euthanasia for healthy and treatable animals for a decade. I am a member of this organization-And we have endorsed three bills in the California State House.These bills are aimed at prohibiting the importation of dogs into the State of California without a vet check and certification to inhibit the trafficking of dogs from puppy mills into the Golden State. Additionally, they alter the language of animal welfare policy to forbid the position of "broker" in the commerce of dogs, cats, and rabbits. Essentially these bills are set to abate the presence and commerce of puppy mills.I would like an explanation of the impact to racial justice and equity by causing the ruin of puppy mills.Additionally, let's say that we have a policy impacting sanctuary cities where we place more resources toward deflecting the prosecution of brutal USCIS sweeps that incarcerate visa-holding residents, or as Tom Homan has described "There will be collateral damage."What occurs when limited funding might be redirected from programs that might benefit working class Black neighborhoods to prevent family separation in Latino families?Is there a gradient for anti-racist policies? Or is this in the realm of some people get screwed over when we are pushing to be antiracist that might otherwise benefit should fiduciary policy not experience picking and choosing?The structure of each chapter was: What I saw my parents do, things that I've noticed, some name dropping, and then conjecture and hyperbole to tie it all together.In the end this is a book about equity-even prestigious Black intellectuals in the US can write oversimplified narcissism just like the white folk.

The topic is important. The information good. I agree with others that he seems to write more to the initiated than the uninitiated, but given the latter is far less likely to read the book anyway despite needing to read it most, I guess maybe I can see why he chose to write in that manner. The main reason I take a star away is because Mr. Kendi chose to read the book himself for the audiobook, and he chose to do so in a tone that one would expect from a dramatic reading or slam poetry.It was kinda cool the first chapter or so, and given it's subject matter, it would be appropriate and clever were the material being read a short essay. For an entire book though, it becomes distracting and annoying. I really wish Kendi would've chosen to read it in a more natural manner. I appreciate a lack of monotone, but the overly dramatic tone is actual a bit worse after a few hours. Still, a good book, and an important one, so I still give it a well-deserved 4 stars, even if it's a chore to listen to at times.

I read the first edition a few years ago. After reading a recent article in which Dr Kendi spoke to his revised edition, I was curious.I loved reading the book the first time. Especially the author's candor and vulnerability in reflecting upon his own teen angst, and his own journey with racism. The revised edition only builds on that; and with all the courage behind Kendi's thinking, magnified by his willingness to be vulnerable to not having all the answers.Also: Never before have I seen annotations in an updated edition so prominently called out, or so simply/personally spoken to. The usual attempt at sterility that I see in too much non-fiction is abandoned, and some annotations ask more questions than they provide answers.I also appreciate that the publisher allowed (or asked?) its designer, to not be so discreet about the annotations. It reminds me of how GitHub shows code diffs, or how GDocs shows changes; in context. No sterility, just honesty.Insightful and worth the time to read, whether or not you read the first edition—and a brilliant meditation on hope and possibility, grounded in the hard realities of thorough, attentive, and honest scholarship.