INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

How to Be an Antiracist

From the National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning comes a refreshing approach that will radically reorient America on the urgent issues of race, justice, and equality.

Ibram X. Kendi's concept of antiracism reenergizes and reshapes the conversation about racial justice in America--but even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. Instead of working with the policies and system we have in place, Kendi asks us to think about what an antiracist society might look like, and how we can play an active role in building it. 

In his memoir, Kendi weaves together an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science--including the story of his own awakening to antiracism--bringing it all together in a cogent, accessible form. He begins by helping us rethink our most deeply held, if implicit, beliefs and our most intimate personal relationships (including beliefs about race and IQ and interracial social relations) and reexamines the policies and larger social arrangements we support. How to Be an Antiracist promises to become an essential book for anyone who wants to go beyond an awareness of racism to the next step of contributing to the formation of a truly just and equitable society.

 
 

ORDER NOW



 
 

BE ANTIRACIST JOURNAL

 

BEST BOOKS OF 2019 LISTS

 

Publishers Weekly

The New York Times

Amazon

Time

Washington Post

NPR

Shelf Awareness

Electric Literature

The Root

Library Journal

New York Public Library

Boston Globe

The Root

Entropy

Kirkus

 
 

PRESS

 

REVIEWS

 

PRAISE

A boldly articulated, historically informed explanation of what exactly racist ideas and thinking are . . . [Kendi’s] prose is thoughtful, sincere, and polished. This powerful book will spark many conversations.
— Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
If Kendi is justifiably hard on America, he’s just as hard on himself. . . . This unsparing honesty helps readers, both white and people of color, navigate this difficult intellectual territory. Not an easy read but an essential one.
— Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
What emerges from these insights is the most courageous book to date on the problem of race in the Western mind, a confessional of self-examination that may, in fact, be our best chance to free ourselves from our national nightmare.
— Jeffrey C. Stewart, National Book Award and Pulitzer-Prize winning author of The New Negro (review in The New York Times)
Ibram Kendi is today’s visionary in the enduring struggle for racial justice. In this personal and revelatory new work, he yet again holds up a transformative lens, challenging both mainstream and antiracist orthodoxy. He illuminates the foundations of racism in revolutionary new ways, and I am consistently challenged and inspired by his analysis. How to Be an Antiracist offers us a necessary and critical way forward.
— Robin DiAngelo, New York Times bestselling author of White Fragility
Kendi dissects why in a society where so few people consider themselves to be racist the divisions and inequalities of racism remain so prevalent. How to Be an Antiracist punctures the myths of a post-racial America, examining what racism really is—and what we should do about it.
— TIME
With Stamped from the Beginning, Kendi proved himself a first-rate historian. Here, his willingness to turn the lens on himself marks him as a courageous activist, leading the way to a more equitable society.
— Library Journal (Starred Review)
How to Be an Antiracist gives us a clear and compelling way to approach, as Kendi puts it in his introduction, “the basic struggle we’re all in, the struggle to be fully human and to see that others are fully human.
— Ericka Taylor, DC Working Families Organizing Director (NPR review)
Ibram Kendi’s work, through both his books and the Antiracist Research and Policy Center, is vital in today’s sociopolitical climate. As a society, we need to start treating antiracism as action, not emotion—and Kendi is helping us do that.
— Ijeoma Oluo, New York Times bestselling author of So You Want to Talk About Race
Equal parts memoir, history, and social commentary, Ibram Kendi uses his own life journey to show us why becoming an antiracist is as essential as it is difficult. This book is honest, brave, and most of all, liberating.
— James Forman, Jr., Pulitzer-Prize winning author of Locking Up Our Own
Ibram X. Kendi’s new book, How to Be an Antiracist, couldn’t come at a better time. . . . Kendi has gifted us with a book that is not only an essential instruction manual but also a memoir of the author’s own path from anti-black racism to anti-white racism and, finally, to antiracism. . . . How to Be an Antiracist gives us a clear and compelling way to approach, as Kendi puts it in his introduction, ‘the basic struggle we’re all in, the struggle to be fully human and to see that others are fully human.’
— NPR