Review
Title: How to be an Antiracist
Author: Ibram X. Kendi
Publisher: One World/Random House, New York
Genre: Non-Fiction
Year Published: 2019
Number of Pages: 305
Binding: Hardback
ISBN: 9780525509288
Price: $27.00
Reviewed by Kevin Folkman for the Association for Mormon Letters
Ibram X. Kendi’s, How to be an Antiracist, is big on definitions. Perhaps the most important definition is that the opposite of racist isn’t non-racist, but instead antiracist. But can this be defined as a Mormon book, as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is never mentioned in the text? Consider the definitions of these terms:
The curse of Cain
The Priesthood/Temple Ban
Indian Placement Program
Descendants of Ham
Lamanites
White and delightsome
I could go on, but I think these emphasize my point. The church arguably continues to suffer from a racist legacy, regardless of the progress we hope we have made. We talk of living in a post-racial society, of becoming colorblind, of moving beyond racist policy. The last few years, however, have shown us that all is not well in Zion, Minneapolis, Portland, or Kenosha. Racist ideas seem to hang on, despite our best intentions and inability to recognize it in all its forms.
Coming of age in the 60s and 70s, I remember all too well the racist ideas and language that permeated every aspect of my young life. I grew up in Ogden, Utah, the city with the largest and most diverse minority populations in Utah. I didn’t know what redlining was until I heard it explained in a high school American Problems class. I immediately recognized the reality. I could take a map and draw the lines that separated the white, middle-class neighborhoods from the areas where lenders and realtors steered Black and Latinx renters and homeowners. Most of the minority students in Ogden attended a handful of elementary schools, a single junior high, and one high school. I began to see other manifestations of racism, some overt, others less obvious.
Reading How to be an Antiracist was an often painful experience as I was reminded of so many of the racist ideas that I absorbed as a child and teenager, some of which I still struggle with. Kendi catalogs all of the various ways that racism has become entrenched in our conceptions of class, color, gender, culture, and society. Racism, he asserts, “…creates new forms of power; the power to categorize and judge, elevate and downgrade, include and exclude.” [p38] Every page seemed to remind me of an unfinished task bound up in some aspect of my thinking or actions.
Kendi begins each chapter with definitions of keywords and concepts. He makes the point early on that the word “racist” should be understood as a descriptive word, rather than a pejorative. One does not need to be overtly racist to harbor racist thoughts and misconceptions, nor does pointing out racist ideas in others make them bad people. Racism is primarily about concepts that are then established in policy that are enforced by elements of power. Similarly, Kendi explains, terms such as post-racial, colorblind, and nonracist are in fact blind to the reality of race and the consequences of centuries of enslavement, dehumanizing, and devaluing people of color.
This is a radical approach but should be recognizable to members of the LDS church, where we are taught about doctrines, which establish principles, and are then committed to policy. The enemies we face in antiracism are not primarily people, but policy. Anyone with experience working in a business or organization will recognize that effective policies promote appropriate behavior. Labeling someone as incompetent isn’t productive if the issue is based on bad policy. When applied to the church’s temple/priesthood ban, it is easier to understand its origins in misunderstandings about race, rather than trying to justify doctrines that didn’t make sense after President Kimball’s 1978 revelation reversed the policy.
What was startling to me is how Kendi, founding director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University, also struggled with so many of the same racist ideas in himself. Can a Black man categorize Black neighborhoods as sources of crime, or misrepresent the acts of individual Blacks as representative of the entire race? Kendi admits to some of these problematic beliefs and behaviors as he matured and gained an education. Some were rooted in insecurities he felt as a young Black man growing up in Queens, New York, and others he absorbed from family and friends. This book is part social commentary, part history, and part personal memoir. He frames the battle for antiracism in his own development as a young Black man, scholar, husband, and father. His personal journey serves as a potent metaphor for recognizing and rejecting our own racist thoughts and behavior.
In each chapter of How to be an Antiracist, Kendi tackles a specific aspect of racism and ties it to experiences and stages in his own life as a Black man. Do we have racialized spaces? Yes, Kendi argues and addresses the reality that crime rates of unemployed Black men and unemployed White men are strikingly similar and that so-called Black neighborhoods with high unemployment are no more dangerous and crime-ridden than similar areas of White unemployment. Can racism apply to sexism, culture, biology, and language? Myths about gender and perceived gender roles affect Black and Latinx individuals as much as they do Whites. Different cultural affectations do not represent inferiority, and White Eurocentric norms are not by nature superior.
Early on in How to be an Antiracist, Kendi addresses how racist government policy, especially as it relates to Black crime, has destabilized and targeted Black neighborhoods. Studies have shown that young White people use illegal drugs in about the same ratio as young Black people, yet Black men and women are more often arrested and convicted than Whites and suffer harsher penalties and longer jail sentences. This has happened despite advances in civil rights and is reflected in a prison population that is disproportionately Black.
Does capitalism exploit Black lives? Here, Kendi argues that capitalism and slavery became conjoined twins in the 15th century and that capitalism has never really disavowed the view of people of color as inferior to Whites. As evidence, he argues that the disparity between rates of homeownership and generational wealth between Blacks and Whites is a direct result of policies, such as an inequitable justice system that overwhelmingly incarcerates Black men at a much higher rate than White men convicted of the same crimes. Using the same logic as he does in defining racist and antiracist as opposites, Kendi calls himself an anti-capitalist rather than a socialist.
Just as important as the redefinition of antiracist as the opposite of racist, Kendi also points out what he views as a problematic desire for people to be post-racial or colorblind, that individuals should ignore race and view everyone as equal. This, he explains, ignores the history and the reality of the lives of racial minorities, in favor of an assimilative view that everyone should adopt White, Euro-centric views of civilization, race, and color. To do so, he argues, is to ignore the contributions of non-Europeans to modern civilization. At its roots, Kendi claims racism is about building and maintaining power wielded by Whites, whether that is political, financial, or cultural. Too often, power becomes exclusionary. To grant power to others is to diminish the power wielded by those who already have it.
Not everyone will agree with Kendi’s definitions or conclusions. For example, he takes little notice of resurgent White supremacist movements or the factors that continue to fuel them. Racial abuses in police practices also are given much less attention than the abuses of legislative and judicial power.
For me as an LDS reader, this was an uncomfortable book to read. So often, I found myself struggling with the mirror Kendi holds up to us as readers. Am I non-racist? I try to be, but am I an antiracist? The answer is doubtful at best. Do we still see and hear racist language in our Church? I would hope not, but I still hear echoes of the old justifications from time to time.
There is a need to revisit church history in regards to race, despite valuable contributions by Armand Mauss, Paul Reeve, and many others. What can be learned through a reexamination of Lamanite doctrines in light of the history of the Indian Placement Program? What does the growth of the church in Africa mean for the future of the church worldwide? What lens should we apply when we look at such scriptures as 2nd Nephi 26:33: “ and he inviteth them all to come unto him…black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembreth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile.”
There is also the historical note in 4th Nephi that following the visit of Christ to the Nephites, where there were no more “ites,” but all were of the Church of God. Perhaps a post-racial society can only come about when we no longer see the goal as assimilation of minorities into White European culture, but into a truly equitable pan-racial society. It is a difficult concept to envision outside of the Gospel of Christ, especially as so much racist thought still lingers in American culture and religion. How much has really changed since Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, charged that Sunday mornings were the most segregated hours of the week and that churches were the taillights, not the headlights, of the civil rights movement?
Kendi outlines some of his conclusions in How to be Antiracist:
“Admit racial inequity is a problem of bad policy, not bad people.
Identify racial inequity in all its intersections and manifestations.
Investigate and uncover racist policies causing racial inequity.
Figure out who or what group has the power to institute antiracial policy.”
[p232]
There are more suggestions, but How to be an Antiracist is one of many possible starting points for national discussions about the reality of race in America in 2020. Perhaps that discussion ought to include the topic “How to be an Antiracist at Church.”