Kenddi How To Be An Antiracist Sparknotes

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In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi stresses that racism is more than just verbal confession. He tells us that silence is very much in favor of racism, and that this allows injustice to continue. He asks for an action that is not only an ignoring of the racist actions, but he also encourages the people to take action and fight their own biases that make them racist. He says, “A racist power creates racist policies out of raw self-interest; racist policies then necessitate racist ideas to justify them. [This cause-and-effect] lingers over the life of racism” (42) which he talks about a lot. He insists that people should be mindful of today’s normalities and criticize racism by challenging hidden, but also obvious patterns that can lead to major …show more content…

Nevertheless, Kendi's straightforward description of racism and antiracism as opposite to each other strongly draws attention to the vital role taken by each person of a proactive nature in the fight against systemic injustice, but, at the same time, not necessarily that within the human behavior there should not be a careful observation of the complexity and multifaceted nature of it. The dichotomy of racism and antiracism polarized each other without any middle ground as the divide between innocent and guilty became rigid, Kendi's framework missed the complexity involved in individual opinions and behavior. Hence, even those who demonstrate these biases may be completely unconscious of the workings of the underlying feeding or perpetuating them quietly, and this thus creates a gray crossline between racism and anti-racism. Kendi says in another article “One endorses either the idea of a racial hierarchy as a racist, or racial equality as an antiracist. One either believes problems are rooted in groups of people, as a racist, or locates the roots of problems in power and policies, as an

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