How to Be an Antiracist

by

Ibram X. Kendi

Race is commonly defined as a group of people who share physical or social characteristics, but Kendi explains that race is actually a contrived idea used to divide and conquer groups of people. Kendi’s definition of race has two major components: first, race is “a power construct […] that lives socially.” It has no real biological basis and was invented by racist conquerors and policymakers. This is why Kendi defines race as a power construct, not a social construct—but society at large does reproduce the power construct of race by repeating racist ideas, which is why Kendi says that race “lives socially.” The second part of Kendi’s definition is that race is made of “collected or merged difference.” This means that imposed racial categories haphazardly combine a diverse variety of people and ethnic groups into a single label.

Race Quotes in How to Be an Antiracist

The How to Be an Antiracist quotes below are all either spoken by Race or refer to Race. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Racism vs. Antiracism Theme Icon
).
Chapter 3: Power Quotes

I do not pity my seven-year-old self for identifying racially as Black. I still identify as Black. Not because I believe Blackness, or race, is a meaningful scientific category but because our societies, our policies, our ideas, our histories, and our cultures have rendered race and made it matter. I am among those who have been degraded by racist ideas, suffered under racist policies, and who have nevertheless endured and built movements and cultures to resist or at least persist through this madness.

Related Characters: Dr. Ibram X. Kendi (speaker)
Page Number: 37-8
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4: Biology Quotes

There is no such thing as racial ancestry. Ethnic ancestry does exist. Camara Jones, a prominent medical researcher of health disparities, explained it this way to bioethics scholar Dorothy Roberts: “People are born with ancestry that comes from their parents but are assigned a race.” People from the same ethnic groups that are native to certain geographic regions typically share the same genetic profile. Geneticists call them “populations.” When geneticists compare these ethnic populations, they find there is more genetic diversity between populations within Africa than between Africa and the rest of the world. Ethnic groups in Western Africa are more genetically similar to ethnic groups in Western Europe than to ethnic groups in Eastern Africa. Race is a genetic mirage.

Related Characters: Dr. Ibram X. Kendi (speaker)
Page Number: 53
Explanation and Analysis:

Terminating racial categories is potentially the last, not the first, step in the antiracist struggle. […] To be antiracist is to also recognize the living, breathing reality of this racial mirage, which makes our skin colors more meaningful than our individuality. To be antiracist is to focus on ending the racism that shapes the mirages, not to ignore the mirages that shape people’s lives.

Related Characters: Dr. Ibram X. Kendi (speaker)
Page Number: 54-5
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8: Behavior Quotes

To be an antiracist is to recognize there is no such thing as racial behavior. To be an antiracist is to recognize there is no such thing as Black behavior, let alone irresponsible Black behavior. Black behavior is as fictitious as Black genes. There is no “Black gene.” No one has ever scientifically established a single “Black behavioral trait.” No evidence has ever been produced, for instance, to prove that Black people are louder, angrier, nicer, funnier, lazier, less punctual, more immoral, religious, or dependent; that Asians are more subservient; that Whites are greedier. All we have are stories of individual behavior. But individual stories are only proof of the behavior of individuals. Just as race doesn’t exist biologically, race doesn’t exist behaviorally.

Related Characters: Dr. Ibram X. Kendi (speaker)
Page Number: 95
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16: Failure Quotes

To understand why racism lives is to understand the history of antiracist failure—why people have failed to create antiracist societies. To understand the racial history of failure is to understand failed solutions and strategies. To understand failed solutions and strategies is to understand their cradles: failed racial ideologies.

Related Characters: Dr. Ibram X. Kendi (speaker)
Page Number: 201-2
Explanation and Analysis:

The problem of race has always been at its core the problem of power, not the problem of immorality or ignorance.

Related Characters: Dr. Ibram X. Kendi (speaker)
Page Number: 208
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18: Survival Quotes

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: Dr. Ibram X. Kendi (speaker)
Related Symbols: Cancer
Page Number: 238
Explanation and Analysis:
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How to Be an Antiracist PDF

Race Term Timeline in How to Be an Antiracist

The timeline below shows where the term Race appears in How to Be an Antiracist. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Racist Introduction
Racism vs. Antiracism Theme Icon
Activism and Social Transformation Theme Icon
The History of Racist Ideas and Policies Theme Icon
...ways of thinking and acting. Similarly, when people claim to be “color-blind” or not see race, they are really saying that they want to ignore racial inequities and allow them to... (full context)
Racism vs. Antiracism Theme Icon
Activism and Social Transformation Theme Icon
...are capable of transformation—Kendi was often very racist in the past. He claimed to be race-neutral, and he blamed racial groups themselves for racial inequities. Expecting white people to view him... (full context)
Chapter 1: Definitions
Racism vs. Antiracism Theme Icon
Activism and Social Transformation Theme Icon
The History of Racist Ideas and Policies Theme Icon
Another popular term is “racial discrimination,” which just means treating people differently based on race. However, focusing on individual acts of discrimination often distracts from the real source of racial... (full context)
Chapter 3: Power
Racism vs. Antiracism Theme Icon
Kendi defines race as “a power construct of collected or merged difference that lives socially.” (full context)
Racism vs. Antiracism Theme Icon
Activism and Social Transformation Theme Icon
...and cultural leaders and was already going through “racial puberty,” or becoming aware of how race and racism shape society. (full context)
Racism vs. Antiracism Theme Icon
Race is a very powerful force, but it’s also “a mirage.” When Kendi calls himself Black,... (full context)
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The History of Racist Ideas and Policies Theme Icon
The construct of race first emerged in 15th-century in Portugal. Until that point, anyone could be enslaved in Europe—but... (full context)
The History of Racist Ideas and Policies Theme Icon
The word “race” came into common usage about a century later, as a way to create a ranked... (full context)
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The History of Racist Ideas and Policies Theme Icon
Gomes de Zurara used the concept of race to argue that Prince Henry was civilizing African people by enslaving them, not just exploiting... (full context)
Chapter 4: Biology
Racism vs. Antiracism Theme Icon
Activism and Social Transformation Theme Icon
The History of Racist Ideas and Policies Theme Icon
...the hallmark of biological racism. Biological racists believe that there are meaningful biological differences among races and that there is a “hierarchy of value” based on these differences. Many people casually... (full context)
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The History of Racist Ideas and Policies Theme Icon
After 19th-century biologist Charles Darwin showed that humans do share a common ancestor, race became a question of science rather than religion. Still, Europeans argued that they were the... (full context)
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Activism and Social Transformation Theme Icon
The History of Racist Ideas and Policies Theme Icon
...who believe in genetic racial differences are segregationists, people who use biology to justify ignoring race are assimilationists. Even though race is an illusion, the world is still organized around it,... (full context)
Chapter 5: Ethnicity
Intersectionality Theme Icon
The History of Racist Ideas and Policies Theme Icon
...antiracism, which involve policies and ideas that create inequities among “racialized ethnic groups,” not just races. (full context)
Intersectionality Theme Icon
The History of Racist Ideas and Policies Theme Icon
...this animosity is based on the modern idea that all Africans belong to the same race, whereas during the slave trade, Africans had no concept of race: they defined themselves by... (full context)
Chapter 6: Body
Racism vs. Antiracism Theme Icon
The History of Racist Ideas and Policies Theme Icon
...peaceful. He knew which blocks were dangerous, but it had nothing to do with the race of the people who lived there. (full context)
Chapter 8: Behavior
The History of Racist Ideas and Policies Theme Icon
Growing up, Black adults saw Kendi’s failures as failures for the whole race. His mom and dad pushed him to try harder in school, but when he struggled... (full context)
Chapter 9: Color
Racism vs. Antiracism Theme Icon
Activism and Social Transformation Theme Icon
...hierarchy around: dark-skinned people often say that light-skinned people aren’t “Black enough.” But just like race, lightness and darkness have no biological basis. Real antiracism isn’t about flipping beauty standards around,... (full context)
Racism vs. Antiracism Theme Icon
The History of Racist Ideas and Policies Theme Icon
...organizations. W.E.B. Du Bois initially denied that there was a color line within the Black race, until he noticed the NAACP ignoring the problems faced by dark-skinned people and heard its... (full context)
Chapter 10: White
The History of Racist Ideas and Policies Theme Icon
...created white people through eugenics thousands of years ago, before Moses civilized the white “devil race” and they managed to conquer Europe. Kendi notes that this story is exactly like the... (full context)
...organization to national fame. But later, upon traveling to Mecca and seeing Muslims of all races praying together, Malcolm X quit the NOI and disavowed Elijah Muhammad’s philosophy. He also took... (full context)
Chapter 12: Class
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“Black poor” is what Kendi calls a race-class, defined by both racialization (Black) and economic class (poor). Class racism combines elitist ideas about... (full context)
Racism vs. Antiracism Theme Icon
The History of Racist Ideas and Policies Theme Icon
...never been fair under it. Capitalism only began when Europeans started using power constructs like race to divide and conquer people around the globe. Western countries  only built wealth because of... (full context)
Chapter 14: Gender
Activism and Social Transformation Theme Icon
Intersectionality Theme Icon
...quotes Kimberlé Crenshaw’s call for feminism and antiracism to address the intersections of gender and race. Black women built an activist movement around intersectionality and made it possible for everyone belonging... (full context)
Chapter 16: Failure
Racism vs. Antiracism Theme Icon
Activism and Social Transformation Theme Icon
Intersectionality Theme Icon
The History of Racist Ideas and Policies Theme Icon
...the past. He’s tried to do this throughout the book, like by pointing out that race is a power construct, not a social construct, and by rejecting the idea that it’s... (full context)