Review: Dr. Ibram Kendi’s “How To Be An Antiracist”

Dr. Ibram Kendi’s “How to Be an Antiracist” is intended to be a relatively simple and straightforward book, which is both its strength and weakness. The book begins with a number of definitions: “antiracism”: ideas, policies, and practices that counteract racist ideas, policies, and practices; and racism: ideas, policies, and practices that create or maintain disparities between races. A nuance that Kendi brings, is the important addition to the analysis of part of the reason people who appear to be of 100% European descent continue to be in a position to have an undue impact on our lives as Black people, i.e. racism, is that racism creates these disparities by expressing itself in two different forms: segregationist racism and assimilationist racism.