You have seen How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi, recommended across social media and on every list of books about racism. In the weeks after George Floyd, it felt like reading Kendi’s book was the action point to start with.

How To Be an Antiracist requires digestion. I would listen to 30 mins. to an hour in the morning, and then sometimes not come back to the book for two or three days as I mulled over what I’d heard.

One of the first things Kendi does is give the reader permission to identify racist thoughts and ideas in our own lives so that we can change our way of thinking. For me, this was very freeing. Most people don’t want to admit to having racist thoughts. But how many of us shy away from the term “racist” without being able to identify what racist thoughts look like?

“Racist? I’m not a racist,” We’re thinking, already defensive. Kendi identifies racist ways of thinking, explains why they are racist, and helps us remove stigma of racism: YOU may not be a “racist,” but some of your ways of thinking use “racist ideas.” The reader can identify these damaging ideas and behaviors in personal inventory, and do better.

We have all been steeped in racist thinking by our society. It’s not something you can escape. Identifying these thought patterns is the first step to change.

Kendi uses stories from his own life to introduce ideas about how racism affects our thinking and behaviors. Each chapter begins with a personal anecdote, moves into a lesson, and then hops back to the anecdote at the end. I got so into the lessons that I often forgot about the anecdote and got whiplash when Kendi circled back to the original illustration.

The examples Kendi uses for his lessons range the full political and ideological spectrum, including policy decisions that have been made by different administrations over the years and their effect on people’s lives.

I won’t lie, some of Kendi’s ideas made me squirm, but the thought exercise of reading the book is an important one. It’s a powerful teaching resource that gets to the heart of the matter. I understand why it made all the lists.

If you click #becomingwoke, you can find other posts on racism and Black History.