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Be Antiracist

Be Antiracist

A Journal for Awareness, Reflection and Action

Summary

Being antiracist is not something you are. It is something we do.

In his global, game-changing bestseller How To Be An Antiracist Ibram X. Kendi, director of the Centre for Antiracist Research at Boston University, showed that when it comes to racism, neutrality is not an option: until we become part of the solution, we can only be part of the problem. Crucially, it requires 'persistent self-awareness, constant self-criticism and regular self-examination'.

In this workbook he uses his extraordinary gifts as a teacher to provide the reader with a series of activities, exercises and reflections to help them do this vital work, to cultivate an instinctive awareness of racism in all its forms and to take the action necessary to promote racial equity in the world around them.

He asks us to reflect on our thinking around race through prompts including 'Describe the most racist moment of your life,', 'Have you ever been hesitant to use the R-word? Why?' and 'What does resistance mean to you?' helping us understand that the heartbeat of anti-racism is confession. It is self-reflection.

The heart of racism is denial. It is refusing to self-reflect.

'Transformative and revolutionary' Robin DiAngelo, bestselling author of White Fragility

'Gives us the tools to make changes in our own life and society' June Sarpong

Reviews

  • One of the US's most respected scholars of race and history... Kendi's argument is brilliantly simple
    Afua Hirsch, Guardian (on How To Be an Antiracist)

About the author

Ibram X. Kendi

Ibram X. Kendi is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, and the founding director of the BU Center for Antiracist Research. He is the author of many books including Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, and three #1 New York Times bestsellers, How to Be an Antiracist, which was also a Sunday Times bestseller; Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, co-authored with Jason Reynolds; and Antiracist Baby, illustrated by Ashley Lukashevsky. In 2020, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
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