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hollyd19 's review for:
challenging
informative
sad
medium-paced
Ibram X. Kendi took on the daunting task of chronicling and making accessible the deep, twisted, long history of racist ideas. The book is structured around five “tour guides,” or people along the way who in some way embody a piece of the trajectory, starting in the fifteenth century and stretching to Obama’s election in 2008.
I was floored by just how packed this book is with information. Nearly every sentence taught me something. Two of my major takeaways were that the antiracist struggle faces down two types of racists (segregationists and assimilationists), and that media has a huge role to play in public perception and socially acceptable ideas (see: Tarzan, King Kong, The Cosby Show, etc). What Kendi achieved with this book is remarkable. Everyone should read it, particularly Americans.
My two criticisms are that I wish the subtitle had used “anti-Black” instead of “racist” because while Kendi does an incredibly thorough job talking about anti-Black racism (which, I acknowledge, is the root of other variants), he does not talk much about other branches of racism outside a cursory mention. Relatedly, I wish more attention had been paid to the Native American experiences that coincided with slavery and the experiences of women throughout. That said, it’s already a hefty and dense 500 pages, so maybe that just wasn’t feasible.
I was floored by just how packed this book is with information. Nearly every sentence taught me something. Two of my major takeaways were that the antiracist struggle faces down two types of racists (segregationists and assimilationists), and that media has a huge role to play in public perception and socially acceptable ideas (see: Tarzan, King Kong, The Cosby Show, etc). What Kendi achieved with this book is remarkable. Everyone should read it, particularly Americans.
My two criticisms are that I wish the subtitle had used “anti-Black” instead of “racist” because while Kendi does an incredibly thorough job talking about anti-Black racism (which, I acknowledge, is the root of other variants), he does not talk much about other branches of racism outside a cursory mention. Relatedly, I wish more attention had been paid to the Native American experiences that coincided with slavery and the experiences of women throughout. That said, it’s already a hefty and dense 500 pages, so maybe that just wasn’t feasible.