How to Be an Antiracist
Racist ideas position Black men as the penultimate verbal and physical assaulters, as danger embodied. When a person who happens to be a Black man does verbally or physically assault someone, racist ideas say it is not due to his individuality, but his being a Black man. Apparently, that’s what Black men do; that’s why we should be killed at the highest rates by the state; that’s why we should be caged more than any other group. What Black men call pain, racist society calls protection.
When we as Black men are verbally or physically assaulted, racist ideas lead people to blame us, or to argue no one is to blame. It was the Tourette Syndrome, they say, as if people with involuntary vocal tics invariably sound the N-word whenever they see Black men.
As Black men, we are taught to respond to assaults as if we feel no pain. We are taught to keep going as if nothing happened. We are taught we inflict pain, we don’t feel it.
Racist society can’t handle the pain of Black men.
By Ibram X. Kendi from How to be an Antiracist chapter, Black Male (2022).
Invitation: “We are taught…”
Ibram X. Kendi is a historian and bestselling author who studies how racist ideas are created and how they can be dismantled through policy, education, and personal action. He has written many important books, especially Stamped from the Beginning and How to Be an Antiracist, invite readers to move beyond neutrality and to consider what active antiracism looks like in daily life. For example, he encourages parents and teachers, “Just as we tell kids to look both ways before crossing the street, we must tell them to notice racist ideas… Children don’t have the emotional and conceptual baggage that we do. It is easier for children to learn the language of antiracism, just as it is easier for children to learn spoken languages. Deconstructing an ingrained racist identity is much harder than constructing a fresh antiracist identity.”
Through his scholarship and public work, he has helped shape contemporary conversations about race, history, and equity in the United States. You can find more about Ibram X. Kendi at his website, where his books are also available: https://www.ibramxkendi.com/books. Published essays are available here: https://www.ibramxkendi.com/essays
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March Courageous Citizen
Becci Ingram was born in 1972, doctors told her parents that, because she had Down syndrome, she would be unlikely to develop physically or intellectually and that many ordinary life experiences would be out of reach. Her growth did come more slowly, but she went on to attend school in England, where she was part of early inclusion classes that brought general-education and special-education students together.
Ibram X. Kendi 's voice and writing is essential to the anti-racist work that I must be mindful of in the midst of my human rights activist. This except on the Black male -- "As Black men, we are taught to respond to assaults as if we feel no pain. We are taught to keep going as if nothing happened. We are taught we inflict pain, we don’t feel it" -- must be challenged and rooted out from the persistence racism in US society and around the world. There is much to be unlearned -- and learned.