How to Be an Antiracist

Summary, part 3

Chapters 9–12

Chapter 9: Colors

Colorism: A powerful collection fo racist policies that lead to inequities between Light people and Dark people, supported by racist ideas about Light and Dark people

Color antiracism: A powerful collection of antiracist policies that lead to equity between Light people and Dark people, supported by antiracist ideas about Light and Dark people

When entering college, Kendi wore hazelnut contact lenses. He was proud to be Black, but he also wanted to assimilate and look lighter–yet another example of dueling consciousness at play. 

The term colorism was first coined by Alice Walker in 1983. It articulated Light skin people (those who can pass for white) and Dark skin people (those who have kinky hair, broad noses) as different groups (a grouping that exists in all non-white cultures, such as Latinx and Asian communities). 

Examples of colorism can be found in the slave trade, where slaveowners would favor Light skin people after emancipation when Light communities tried to keep out Dark communities, and the casting call for extras in the movie Straight Outta Compton: “A GIRLS: … Must have real hair … B GIRLS: … You should be light-skinned … C GIRLS: These are African American girls, medium to light skinned with a weave … D GIRLS: These are African American girls … medium to dark skin tone. Character types.”

Chapter 10: White

Anti-White racist: One who is classifying people of European descent as biologically, culturally, or behaviorally inferior or conflating the entire race of White people with racist power

In college, Kendi was an anti-White racist. He, like many, confused marching against White racism with marching against the ordinary White person. The ordinary White person may benefit from racism but is not a source of racist power.

Kendi acknowledges that “Racist power manipulates ordinary White people into resisting equalizing policies by drilling them on what they are losing with equalizing policies and how those equalizing policies are anti-White” (p. 130). He also acknowledges that racist power benefits from anti-White racism because more hatred gives White people more power.

Chapter 11: Black

Powerless defense: The illusory, concealing, disempowering, and racist idea that Black people can’t be racist because Black people don’t have power

In his peak anti-White racist phase, Kendi had written an anti-White racist opinion piece that landed him in trouble with his editor at the Tallahassee Democrat. In a meeting with the Black editor, the editor said, "You know, I have a nice car … and I hate it when I get pulled over and I'm treated like I am one of them n-----rs" (p. 136). The idea of separating oneself from ‘them n-----rs’ (an idea popularized by comedian Chris Rock, who poked fun at Black people who make Black people look bad by, for example, being too loud) racializes bad behavior and is therefore racist.

Kendi says that the powerless defense is a farce because Black people do hold power, albeit limited power. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas delivered his anti-Black judgments. Ohio's Secretary of State Ken Blackwell suppressed the Black vote by lying to former prisoners saying they could not vote and making voting lines in Black areas three times longer than those in White areas, which turned away 174,000 potential voters. The powerless defense lets Black on Black criminals get away with their racism.

Kendi points out that 40% of Black people in 2003 and 37% of Black people in 2013 thought racism could explain why the majority of Black people faced plights like unemployment. It took a long list of Black people being murdered by police, the Black Lives Matter movement, and Donald Trump becoming president for that number to rise to 59% in 2017.

Chapter 12: Class

Class racist: One who is racializing the classes, supporting policies of racial capitalism against those race-classes, and justifying them by racist ideas about those race-classes

Antiracist anticapitalist: One who is opposing racial capitalism

After graduating from Florida A&M University (FAMU), Kendi attended Temple University for graduate school in Philadelphia, PA. There, he lived in a ghetto–an example of the race-class intersection.

Kendi describes the intersection of racism and capitalism as conjoined twins birthed by Prince Henry of Portugal when he first began the Atlantic slave trade. The slave trade is now struggling to survive because of its own offspring: war, inequality, and climate change. Modern American examples of inequality include the wide wage gap between White and Black workers, the larger poverty rate for Black families, and the fact that Black people's median income will redline to $0 in 2053.

To be antiracist, we must also be anticapitalist, but anticapitalist policies are not automatically antiracist. For example, White Cubans were racist towards Dark Cubans, and the Socialist Party of America would not adopt an anti-lynching bill in 1901. Kendi, however, points out that Karl Marx did acknowledge the conjoined nature of racism and capitalism in his writings.

Kendi uses the term anticapitalist instead of communist or socialist for two reasons. First, because not all anticapitalists associate with communism or socialism. Second, because pro-capitalists use the terms socialist and communist when describing someone who is against capitalism. When a pro-capitalist defines an anticapitalist as someone who is, for example, anti-monopoly and pro-union, they are also defining capitalism as the freedom to exploit people into economic ruin.

Kendi also criticizes economic approaches like those of Senator Elizabeth Warren. While it is commendable that she leads efforts to establish and enforce rules that level the playing field, these are not antiracist policies. Warren's economic approach looks at capitalism only pertaining to market rules and competition, not as something that comes from and has bred racism, sexism, and imperialism. Markets and competition have existed before capitalism. What makes capitalism unique, Kendi says, is how it was racialized and how it created uneven playing fields. To love capitalism is to love racism.