I agree with the book’s subtitle, this is definitely a mammoth overview of racist ideas in America. Starting with the racists ideas of colonial Europe that seeded the founding father, or white-religous-upperclassmen, as is more appropriate, up to Barack Obama, and some of the racist ideas he pondered aloud.
If you want to educate yourself on how poorly Black Americans have been treated by their peers and the policies in their society, look no further. It is a little long, but comes together quite nicely in the end. And it’s on Spotify as an audio book!
My key takeaway
Basically, to talk of a person as being different from the rest of society because of something about their race/sex/gender/age/etc., rather than their environment, is wrong.
I agree with the premise, and it is interesting to catch yourself being X-ist whenever you think thoughts upon a group. No individual should be stamped from the beginning. And, as discussed by Malcom Gladwell in Talking to Strangers, you SHOULD consider an individual’s environment. Think about how their environment has shaped them before concluding what is a reasonable thought, or conducting your behaviour.
A discussion
I’d like to start at the end. Ibram X. Kendi concludes with the following:
“There will come a time when principled anti-racists are in power, and then anti-racist policies become the law of the land, and then anti-racists ideas become the common sense of the people, and the anti-racists common sense of the people hold their anti-racists leaders and policies accountable.”
I wholeheartedly agree. And like to think many people in power have thought themselves anti-racists, but, to this book’s credit, not been. Ibram shows exactly why not:
“Self-interest leads to racist policies, leads to racist ideas, which leads to ignorance and hate.”
Why is it that people elected into positions of power, literally charged to be other-interested, fail so miserably? Ibram claims it is because power is inherently self-interested. Power cannot make decisions that are against its self-interest. Otherwise, the power is lost.
This is true. However, his solutions: i) to educate those without power to band together and grow in strength, and ii) that non-white-religous-upperclassmen who are self-interested should fight for anti-racisms because it is the precursor to humanity for all, are remist. Both of these solutions are principled to the same ideas that lead the founding fathers. Namely, together, we are strong enough to take power from the powerful and only then will there be peace for all.
Don’t get me wrong, I agree that “when we fight for humanity, we are fighting for ourselves.” And that we need principled anti-racists in power. And that we need to educate those without power the most of all. But the largest problem I see is not that education doesn’t work; it’s that our political system has totally fucked up incentives.
Let us posit the job of our politicians to be caring for the entire population under their control, and the earth as a whole. That’s a tall order for any single person, so our politicians will need to work together to get the job done.
Clearly, there are many people involved, and to make progress will require alignment. Alignment of ideas requires, from time to time, the odd mind to be changed. This IS education. However, the problem arises whenever a needed solution is radically different from the accepted culture of the time. It is these moments that the powerful must decide between 2 choices:
- Push through a solution that degrades their influence with a majority of people, thus leading to their removal from power
- Compromise a solution that neither fixes the problem, nor lose too much favor with the public such that they keep power (for now)
This is the balancing act we ask of politicians, who rose to power off the piggy banks of individuals whose influence is yet another factor for the person in charge.
What we need most of all is a new incentive system for our politicians. We need to remove donations from politicians’ bank roles. We need to incentivize quality decisions that positively affect those who are losing the most, as measured by third parties.
We need reform of those who do the reforming.
I believe education does work, we just need the right incentives.
4/5.