Anti or Not?
Words matter and how we use them causes confusion. I was struck by how this works after recently finishing the book, How to Be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X Kendi. It made a much deeper impression than Robin Diangelo’s White Fragility. What both deal with at length is denial, something that Canadians as well as Americans must come to terms with, both in their roles as settlers who felt they had the right to steal lands inhabited for thousands of years by first nations people. While slavery is not as large a part of our history as that of our neighbors to the south, we are not innocent in systemic racism in Canada. Kendi’s book helps us cut through our denial.
Kendi, an author, professor, anti-racist activist, and historian of race and discriminatory policy in America, recently assumed the position of director of the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University. His book combines his own upbringing and development as a memoire while also making clear argument about the distinction between “not a racist” and “anti-racist”. It’s not hard to cite the example of a former president, who after delivering unsavory remarks about some citizens of Baltimore then stated he was the least racist person in the world. Our own gut reaction is to say, “Well at least I’m not a racist”. Kendi’ book is a history of his own journey from racist to anti-racist. He says he used to be a racist most of the time. He no longer claims to be “not racist.
What is an anti-racist? He starts with two basic definitions:
Racist: one who is supporting a racist policy through their actions or inactions or expressing a racist idea.
Anti-racist: one who is supporting an anti-racist policy through their actions or expressing an anti-racist idea.
Subsequent chapters take us through historical patterns. Assimilation results when one group suggests that another group is culturally inferior or behaves badly, and thus needs to be improved. Its opposite, segregation, suggests that one group will never improve and therefore should be segregated. An anti-racist idea is that all groups are equal. He characterizes these opposites as dueling consciousnesses.
He calls race a power construct with false historical roots, including differences in biology, In early childhood, his teacher assumed that his behaviour was bad and suggested that he should behave like an adult. The converse is that many black adults have been treated as children unable to reach maturity. The bible starts with the notion that all are equal and then puts a curse on Ham who will forever be a slave. Ethnicity also enters the picture with notions of group characteristics. Some bodies have been characterized as more animal-like or violent. Some group’s cultures are denigrated as not being really sophisticated. A bad individual becomes the poster child for the whole group. Colour has created hierarchies within the groups themselves – including both blacks and whites. We ascribe divisions within class, space, gender and sexuality. Racism is always present and it is subconscious. To support his argument, Kendi relates amazing stories from his own life to illustrate it. The task for all of us is to bring it into consciousness.
The struggle is to be fully human and also to see others as equally fully human. The focus has to be on power – not on groups of people – and on changing policy not on changing groups of people. It has to start with a recognition that we know and admit that such policies are wrong. What are policies that suggest certain groups of people are more dangerous or violent or mentally challenged than others? How can policies that support such ideas be upended? How can pledges for diversity be replaced by policies for diversity? How can stereotypes based on one person – “black angry woman” be demolished as applied to any group?
In a recent talk, Kendi cited the book’s chapter called “Failure” as the most important one in the book. He says that to understand failure to remove racism is related to failed solutions and strategies – and that the cradle of these lies in failed racial ideologies.
These are not social constructs. They are power constructs. Current solutions offered to us when we feel bad or sad include reading a book, donating to a cause or marching a time or two. But as soon as we do that we feel better – oscillating between feeling bad and feeling good means that generally we do nothing at all.
It’s not a sequential march toward progress. It’s a back and forth pattern. It’s not saying “I’m not racist”. It’s admitting, “I am racist and starting to act in a different way”. It’s not hearing stories and feeling sad about miserable mistreatment of others. It’s about attacking policies in any place and at any level where we have agency. Education may help individuals but it may not affect groups.
Resistance does work – it takes a long time, but it has to be constant and focus on ideas and policies. There are two such policies I learned about in the morning paper that require my resistance. An app to promote cheating is being used in a local university. It does not recognize black faces. Whatever its merits in stopping cheating, it has to go. A first nations community in the north is worrying that the vaccine is not on its way to them fast enough because of small population density, even though their caseload of Covid-19 is much too high. I can send an email to a policy maker re both situations. It’s paltry as an action. But I now know about ways to start being an anti-racist – and I can begin. Read this book.
Postscript: I did send an email to the federal director of indigenous services, after finding him on the government website. I was thanked for writing almost immediately and my short request to act was copied to three other persons in the department. No reply from the province on the cheating app yet.