Previous
Symbols
Kendi compares his battle against stage-four cancer to America’s fight against racism to represent the kind of mindset that antiracist activists should adopt. When Kendi first heard another scholar compare racism to a disease at a conference, he loudly objected. Diseases are curable, he said, whereas racism is permanent, “like an organ” that the United States needs to function. But Kendi later realized that viewing racism as permanent means viewing ourselves as incapable of solving it. This makes the organ metaphor ineffective: it’s the flipside of people assuming that solving racism is as easy as attending a demonstration and then quitting activism when they realize it’s more complicated. In reality, beating racism requires the much more difficult work of fighting racist policies with antiracist ones. This is why it’s like defeating stage-four cancer: it’s a bitter fight, and the odds are overwhelmingly on racism’s side. But it’s also winnable, and it’s impossible to win unless activists maintain a hope and vision for a better future.
Cancer Quotes in How to Be an Antiracist
The How to Be an Antiracist quotes below all refer to the symbol of Cancer. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 18: Survival
Quotes
Over time, the source of racist ideas became obvious, but I had trouble acknowledging it. The source did not fit my conception of racism, my racial ideology, my racial identity. I became a college professor to educate away racist ideas, seeing ignorance as the source of racist ideas, seeing racist ideas as the source of racist policies, seeing mental change as the principal solution, seeing myself, an educator, as the primary solver.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Racism is one of the fastest-spreading and most fatal cancers humanity has ever known. It is hard to find a place where its cancer cells are not dividing and multiplying. There is nothing I see in our world today, in our history giving me hope that one day antiracists will win the fight, that one day the flag of antiracism will fly over a world of equity. What gives me hope is a simple truism. Once we lose hope, we are guaranteed to lose. But if we ignore the odds and fight to create an antiracist world, then we give humanity a chance to one day survive, a chance to live in communion, a chance to be forever free.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire How to Be an Antiracist LitChart as a printable PDF.
Cancer Symbol Timeline in How to Be an Antiracist
The timeline below shows where the symbol Cancer appears in How to Be an Antiracist. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1: Definitions
...which reminds him that African American people live shorter lives, suffer more infant mortality and cancer, and disproportionately lack health insurance. Meanwhile, racist policy has always ensured that people of color...
(full context)
Chapter 17: Success
When another scholar compared racism to a disease at a conference, Kendi raised his hand to contest this metaphor. He was in the...
(full context)
At the conference, Kendi asked the lecturer, Boyce Watkins, why he viewed racism as a disease. Kendi saw racism as “more like an organ,” an essential part of American society. But...
(full context)
Chapter 18: Survival
...spectacular honeymoon, and moved into their new house. Then, Sadiqa learned that she had breast cancer. She and Kendi were devastated. Sadiqa spent a year in treatment but recovered. However, Kendi’s...
(full context)
The whole time Sadiqa and Kendi’s mom were fighting cancer, Kendi was working on Stamped from the Beginning, which meant sifting through an endless pile...
(full context)
...he was too sick to keep working, and he learned that he had late-stage colon cancer. When Sadiqa, Kendi’s mom, and Kendi’s dad fought cancer, Kendi always wondered why they had...
(full context)
Kendi sees racism as society’s equivalent of stage-four metastatic cancer. It multiplies bigotries and inequities, threatening democracy and human society as a whole. After centuries,...
(full context)
...can survive racism too. If we could save countless lives by diverting public resources towards cancer research and prevention, then we can address racial inequities by dedicating public resources and time...
(full context)
