How to Be an Antiracist

Kendi reflects on his adolescent teasing of an African classmate Akeem. Along with other African American classmates, Kendi would make fun of Akeem’s similarity to the character Prince Akeem in the film Coming to America, which follows the journey of a fictional African prince whose fumbling with American culture is the main source of the film’s humor. Looking back, Kendi is shameful of his participation in ethnic racism.

Kendi defines ethnic racism as a “powerful collection of racist policies that lead to inequity between racialized ethnic groups and are substantiated by racist ideas about racialized ethnic groups” (56). Historically, slave traders used ethnic racism to determine the inherent worth of different African groups, characterizing enslaved Black people from certain African countries as better slaves than others. Ethnic racism also produces current friction between African immigrants and African Americans. Whereas West Africans considered African Americans to be “lazy, unambitious, uneducated, unfriendly, welfare-dependent, and lacking in family values” (60), African Americans considered West Africans to be as “selfish, lacking in race awareness, being lackeys of whites” (60). These stereotypes are based in ethnic racist assumptions steered by standards dictated by White, American models of success.

Kendi once found himself challenged by his own ethnic racism when, as a professor, he invited a student from Ghana to speak to his class. The Ghanaian student recited stereotypes about African Americans, inciting the ire of Kendi’s African American students. Kendi tried to challenge the student by naming stereotypes of African immigrants, which only worsened tensions. After class, Kendi asked the student for British stereotypes of Africans and if he believed them to be true. When the student adamantly denied the stereotypes, Kendi asked him to consider from where his ideas about African Americans might have come. Another student responded, “American whites” (65). After witnessing this response, the student finally understood his error.

Throughout its history, the US has used ethnic racism to defend exclusionary immigration policies. The ideas perpetuated by these policies become internalized through different racial ethnic communities who then see themselves as better than others that share their racial identities. Ethnic racism leads to “angrily trashing the racist ideas about one’s own group but happily consuming the racist ideas about other ethnic groups” (65). However, this factionalism only obscures the power of ethnic racism at work.

Kendi considers how Black people are often considered violent and criminal. From his days at John Bowne High School, he recalls a Black boy named Smurf who had these violent tendencies. Smurf once pulled a gun on him. He also initiated a crew of boys to beat up an Indian boy on the bus. In the past, Kendi had also engaged in similarly violent actions, having joined a crew of Black boys who would get into regular fights with others.

Kendi cites a report by the Washington Post stating that Black people are twice as likely to be killed by law enforcement than white people. This is due to the racist policymaking that codes Black bodies as dangerous and criminal. Although White policymakers perpetuate these ideas, the concepts also become internalized by many Black citizens. In 1993, White legislators tried to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act at the same time the Congressional Black Caucus was asking for $2 billion for drug treatments and $3 billion for drug prevention programs. Each of these groups had the notion of violent Black people in mind, what Kendi calls “their fear for my Black body—and of it” (74).

Kendi learned early that as a Black boy, those around him considered him dangerous. This notion played out in U.S. politics; for instance, former President Bill Clinton signed into law the measure permitting 13-year-old youth to be tried as adults in court. These beliefs about dangerous Black youth were further perpetuated by political scientist John J. Dilulio, Jr. who warned that “[a] new generation of street criminals is upon us,” referring to Black youth whom he deemed “super-predators” (75).

Kendi challenges this assumption that Black people are inherently more prone to violence, arguing that economic status has a lot to do with rates of violence more than race. The Urban Institute stated in a recent report on long-term unemployment that “[c]ommunities with a higher share of long-term unemployed workers also tend to have higher rates of crime and violence” (79). Thus, poor Black communities with high unemployment rates experience more violence than middle-class communities because of their economic struggles—not because of their being Black.