Ibram X. Kendi
One World, 320 pages
There is story of a Mennonite farmer who, when asked by a traveling evangelist if he was saved, paused a moment and then replied: “Go ask my neighbor. He will tell you if I’m saved.” Similarly Ibram Kendi believes the question “Am I a racist?” is best answered by the evidence of deeds that overturn policies and practices upholding racism. He calls race a mirage, yet, paradoxically, a mirage that has dangerous power if it is not recognized. This book, that is memoir, history and social analysis, tells the story of Kendi’s own recognition along with his prescription for eradicating it.
Contrary to popular understanding, he argues efforts to end racism do not begin (or end) with changing feelings or ideas. That is a strategy for failure. After years as a college professor, teaching and doing research, he came to the conclusion, “The history of racist ideas is the history of powerful policy-makers erecting racist policies out of self-interest, then producing racist ideas to defend and rationalize the inequitable effects of their policies.” In a remarkable contrarian reversal, he argues that ideas follow policies; they do not create them, but serve to uphold them. Hence, his striking declaration: “Educational and moral suasion is not only a failed strategy. It is a suicidal strategy.”
Through his experience and that of his wife, he learned that one can treat all the symptoms of cancer, but that is useless if the source of the cancer is not removed. Therefore, if racism is ever going to be eradicated, the policies that sustain it must be dismantled. For Kendi, right feelings or words are of little importance. What matters is action that changes the policies holding up the whole house of racism. Are you a racist? In his epistle, James famously writes: Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. Kendi, who grew up in a religious household, would agree.