I'm having problems finding time to read and finish books lately. One of the problems is that my transit time is so brief . In the past, I used to while away my time on buses and trains reading. Now I reach my destination before I've even finished a chapter. Another problem is being drawn into TV news at home. There's so much going on that's really important, but I don't discuss current events in my reviews unless they're relevant to the book. So let's get on to the review. I received a copy of How To Raise An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi from the publisher via Net Galley.
I had never read a book by this critically acclaimed author though I did read an essay by him in The 1619 Project which I reviewed here . Kendi intended this book for parents. I need to tell readers that I'm not a parent, but I am interested in antiracism.
Kendi points out that to do nothing about racism means that you are upholding it. I haven't done nothing, but I can't say I've done very much. The publisher sent this book to me because I reviewed The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee here back in February of 2021. I've also taken an anti-racist perspective in a couple of reviews I've written since then. Yet I am not an activist. I don't feel I can pat myself on the back for writing reviews. I should do more.
In some ways this was too personal a book for me to review. My book journal notes contain many specific references to my upbringing in response to Kendi's discussion of raising childen. I don't feel it's appropriate to include such comments in a published review.
Kendi's mention of his high school, John Bowne High School in Queens, caused me to research 17th century Quaker, John Bowne. I drew on Wikipedia and a Quaker site called A History of Flushing Meeting.
John Bowne was arrested by Peter Stuysvesant in 1662 for allowing Quaker meetings in his home. The Dutch Reformed Church was the established religion in what was then Dutch ruled New Amsterdam. It didn't become New York until the English took over in 1664.
John Bowne appealed to the Dutch West India Company which was the ultimate authority in the colony. He asked them to overrule Stuyvesant and enforce the 1645 Flushing Charter of Religious Freedom. Quakers had complained in 1645 that they should have freedom of conscience. This was called the Flushing Remonstrance which resulted in the Flushing Charter of Religious Freedom. The Dutch West India Company responded that "the consciences of men at least ought ever to remain free and unshackled".
The last few paragraphs represent a detour from the primary theme of How To Raise an Antiracist. Readers need to realize that John Bowne owned slaves. He was not the only Quaker who did own slaves. See my review of Slavery and the Meetinghouse, a book dealing with 19th century Quakers and slavery here. Caring about your own religious freedom doesn't mean that you necessarily care about whether other human beings are enslaved.
So Kendi mentions that when his parents moved to Virginia, he ended up attending Stonewall Jackson High School. Kendi said that it was named as "a middle finger to the civil rights movement".
At that point, I wanted to know when the civil rights movement really began. I wasn't taught anything about the civil rights movement until the 7th grade, and then it was about beliefs and principles rather than events. I found a Civil Rights Movement Timeline and was astonished to find that the first event listed was in 1948. Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9981 to end segregation in the U.S. military.
Kendi cites research that says that people who grow up in White neighborhoods and attend White schools, are apt to think that when things go missing, someone Black must have stolen them. There was an incident of theft in my junior high school which was a Jewish day school. There were no Black people to suspect, so no one thought that someone Black was guilty of the theft. I discovered that the missing items were in my school bag and immediately reported it. I thought that someone was trying to cause me to be considered a thief. I never discovered who had put the items in my bag.
I want to tell you about a discovery of racism's impact that I made as an adult. I moved into a neighborhood that I was told had been redlined. I knew that redlining meant that property there was considered a poor investment. I also knew that it was a Black neighborhood. It was a neighborhood of well maintained private homes, but it was redlined. I didn't know that it was redlined because it was a Black neighborhood. Since I was renting a room, the house's value didn't impact me. Yet when I found out the truth about redlining, I was angry that racism was the reason why my friends, who bought the house, owned a property with less value. I considered this injustice. It occurs to me now that redlining discourages integration. If White people knew that buying a house in an integrated neighborhood would mean that their home would have less value, they might prefer a Whites only neighborhood even if they themselves weren't racist.
Kendi mentions parent Elana Yaron Fishbein's complaint about current education being indoctrination. Kendi thinks that education has always been indoctrination. It bothered him that Fishbein went on Tucker Carlson's show complaining about being "lynched". Kendi pointed out that if she actually had been lynched, she wouldn't be alive to complain about it. Of course Fishbein was using "lynching" as a metaphor. Kendi is sensitive to that metaphor because of all the Black men who have actually been lynched. I'm sensitive to the use of the word "holocaust" as a metaphor for historical erasure. That's because I had relatives who were killed by the Nazis.
Use metaphors wisely. Everyone has their sensitivities. It's better to be considerate than inconsiderate.
I had the experience of witnessing an assault on someone I knew for reasons of prejudice. This wasn't racial prejudice. I was involved in an amateur summer theater group. All the performers in the group were White. A local gang attacked one of the stars in the show. The members of this gang were White, but they didn't like outsiders in their neighborhood. The theater had brought all these outsiders and they wanted it gone. The victim of the attack was badly injured and had to go to a hospital. If I had not already believed that prejudice was wrong, I would certainly have been convinced by this incident. My feeling was that attacking someone who had never done anything to you is unjust. I had been brought up to believe in justice. A just society should be an antiracist society.
Imani, Kendi's daughter, wanted to wear bandages when Kendi came back from the hospital wearing bandages. I figured that this was Imani's approach to empathy. Imani must have realized that feeling badly for Daddy because he was wearing bandages, wasn't enough. She was right about that, but wearing bandages when she wasn't hurt, isn't a useful response. It's cute, but it isn't useful. A better response would be asking what Daddy would need help with. That would have been the way my brother, who grew up to be a physician, would have responded to a parent coming home from the hospital. My approach is to help people when they ask for help. In my experience, people don't always want help with things.
This discussion is relevant because Kendi believes that antiracism is based in empathy. It's like the Jewish dictum "Do not do unto others as you would not have others do unto you." Note that it's phrased in the negative. It's about avoiding harm. It's a statement that you would be able to identify harm by having a sense of empathy. Yet empathy isn't the only factor in avoiding harm. People have differences. You need to know these differences. They may want things that you don't, and stay away from things that you actively pursue. If avoiding harm is your standard for action, then antiracism isn't sufficient as a guiding principle. I suspect that antiracism is only a beginning in avoiding harm to people of races other than your own.
Kendi mentions that Black immigrant children were often diagnosed with learning disabilities when what they really needed was an English as a Second Language class. That must be very frustrating. In fact, I've seen non-English speaking immigrants being treated as if they were hard of hearing. Those who speak English exclusively sometimes seem to think that if they repeat what they said in English louder, they will be understood. Maybe they don't know what else to do. Well, you can always start by pointing at things and saying what it's called in English. You might then learn what it's called in another language. That would be a start in communication. Yet you probably won't even try to communicate unless you are antiracist, recognizing the humanity of someone of another race. So antiracism is a prerequisite to opening a doorway to the world of a person of color. You might be surprised to find that you also have common ground.
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