In this post: Reasons to stop what you're doing and read this book now. The more digestible (yet dad-joke-filled version) of How to Be An Antiracist.
Category: Black In America
Ramiah Recommended?
Yes!
Let me start out by saying that I thought I have always prided myself on knowing a lot about Black history.
I kid you not: when I was 7, my mother made me memorize multiple pages from Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey (almost as a parlor trick) to show how Black-history-conscious I was. I grew up with framed portraits of Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., John Coltrane, and other historical figures. I didn't think I knew everything there was to know about Black history, but I felt confident that I knew a lot.
Until I read this book.
Ibram X. Kendi takes his content from How To Be An Antiracist and makes it appealing for a young adult audience. I did not know I was not the intended age demographic when I purchased the book, but it made sense as I read it.
Some necessary terminology that should be defined before we dive in, in classic 'You do you' expressionism:
Segregationist: You do you... over there.
Assimilationist: You do you... like me.
Antiracist: You do you, I do me.
Kendi litters jokes (*cough* dad jokes *cough*), pop culture references, and the like signaled that the book was meant for a younger audience. That being said, I am only a few years from when YA books comprised my entire literary preferences, and the content's message still packed a punch, regardless of the reader's age.
Figures that I grew up idolizing as the unapologetic Black leaders of generations past - figures such as Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Martin Luther King - were illustrated with faults. Similarly, fundamental political leaders such as Thomas Jefferson and Bill Clinton were taken off their pedestal as well (more on this a little later).
This is the best way to describe this book. A welcome awakening. A myth buster. Or simply: reality.
This book, this not history book, this present book, is meant to take you on a race journey from then to now, to show why we feel how we feel, why we live how we live, and why this poison, whether recognizable or unrecognizable, whether it's a scream or a whisper, just won't go away. (pg 3)
The 2020 version of this book takes us through historical moments of oppression and racism and guides us to how our country got here today - with arguably no less racial injustice than centuries before.
From this book, I learned:
Thomas Jefferson had grown up with slaves who he considered his friends, but he also supported sending them back to Africa (pg 58);
Frederick Douglass was an assimilationist (pg 96);
Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois believed in Black fault (pgs 120-121);
Stories such as Tarzan (pgs 132-133) and Planet of the Apes (pg 182) have racist origins); and
Bill Clinton supercharged the War on Drugs (pg 217)and popularized the term 'superpredator' (pg 222)
There were positive learnings too! Such as:
Universal Negro Improvement Association x Marcus Garvey's "Back to Africa" movement (pg 141);
Niggerati, a group of young African-American artists and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance (pg 148);
Antiracist socialism (pg 151);
Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (pg 161); and
An extensive Angela Davis profile (pg 188)
I gained a comprehensive list of people, places, and things, I want to research because of this book, it introduced me to another nuance of Black history I had no exposure to.
Stamped From the Beginning: A Remix is a chronicle of racist ideas throughout America's history truly stamping oppression on the Black experience in this country while showing efforts from allies to the Black community, Black individuals, and antiracist organizations and legislation that are actively working to combat that oppression.
Turned out, freedom in America was like quicksand. It looked solid until a Black person tried to stand on it. Then it became clear that it was a sinkhole (pg 108)
America is the home of the Black diaspora as much as it is for other identities. Of course, there are still ways to go before oppression is the thing that is stamped out from the Black experience, but how can we chart our future without first identifying our past?
That's what this book, with (as it says above), with some present sprinkled in.
Ramiah Reflects
My New Favorite Life Quote:
"And without power, all the protesting in the world meant nothing" - Ibram X Kendi
Question to Ask Yourself (and answer!):
Have you ever submitted your actions to thoughts similar to these?
"Make yourself small, make yourself unthreatening, make yourself the same, make yourself safe, make yourself quiet, to make [insert majority group here] comfortable with your existence." (pg 66)
Food for Thought:
The oldest, most prestigious nations in our country (e.g. Harvard University) are examples of institutionalized racism. Although diversity and inclusion efforts have been made, branches of that truth are still felt today - less than 10 percent of Black students in 2017 made up the freshman class at Ivy League universities. I aspire to graduate with my J.D. from an Ivy League institution, and a quote I read in Kendi's book struck a chord with me, I hope it does for you, too: "There's beauty in attending a school that's not meant for me, and using the opportunity to equalize others (left out of the conversation) to improve society" (pg 16).
Ramiah's Re-read When
Re-read when:
You need a deep dive or refresher on Black history
You wish to cite facts of cultural figures that take them off the pedestal society has thrust upon them.
You want to indulge in a dad joke (or five).
See below for my book notes:
Check out my other posts and book notes here.
Until next time!
Montana Houston
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