How to Be An Antiracist: An 8-Week Book Study

During the last 8 weeks, I helped to facilitate a book discussion on Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist. While I was preparing for our meetings, I could not find an online chapter-by-chapter discussion guide. (The official discussion guide includes 13 questions that are not necessarily chapter-specific.)

Because How to Be an Antiracist is important, I already had these notes on my laptop, and I hope to encourage others to facilitate similar book discussions, I thought I would share my unofficial chapter-by-chapter discussion guide here:

Reading Schedule & Logistics

We met virtually (over Zoom) for 8 weeks. Each meeting lasted 1 hour. We began our meetings with announcements and an icebreaker, and then we started our discussion, according to the following schedule:

Week 1: June 16 @ 7 PM: My Racist Introduction, Ch. 1 Definitions, and Ch. 2 Dueling Consciousness
Week 2: June 23 @ 7 PM: Ch. 3 Power and Ch. 4 Biology
Week 3: June 30 @ 7 PM: Ch. 5 Ethnicity and Ch. 6 Body
Week 4: July 7 @ 7 PM: Ch. 7 Culture and Ch. 8 Behavior
Week 5: July 14 @ 7 PM: Ch. 9 Color, Ch. 10 White, and Ch. 11 Black
Week 6: July 21 @ 7 PM: Ch. 12 Class and Ch. 13 Space
Week 7: July 28 @ 7 PM: Ch. 14 Gender and Ch. 15 Sexuality
Week 8: August 4 @ 7 PM: Ch. 16 Failure, Ch. 17 Success, and Ch. 18 Survival

Discussion Considerations

Here are a few things to consider:

1. Prepare to facilitate a book club. In preparation for our book club, I read through general library book club guides. I also asked friends for their best tips on leading a weekly book club. One friend responded: “Don’t expect to discuss the book at all. Expect to [fill] up on cheese and wine and talk mostly about what happened that week that made it nearly impossible . . . [to finish the reading].” Given the importance of educating ourselves on antiracism, I opted to give our weekly meetings more structure.
2. Consider your audience. Our group consisted of incoming divinity school students who were predominantly white and Christian. On a couple of occasions, all of the participants were white. The questions in this discussion guide largely reflect our demographics, and they may not be appropriate for all groups or in all contexts. This discussion guide is merely that: a guide. It is not perfect, and it is only meant as a starting point for those who may be preparing to lead a similar book club.
3. Remember your identity. I am a white woman, and in many ways, I was totally unequipped to lead a discussion on antiracism. One of the challenges of preparing to discuss How to Be an Antiracist with a predominantly white group was balancing our goal of learning about antiracism with the reality that many white people — myself included — struggle with identifying and accepting our white privilege. I did my best to navigate this challenge by trying to keep our discussion focused on Kendi’s words, etc. I’m still learning, I don’t have all the answers, and I’m thankful for the ways in which our book club participants challenged me to grow.
4. Read critically. Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist is very popular right now. However, it is important to remember that it is only one book, written from one author’s perspective. Like any other text, we must examine it critically. We must also read other books on antiracism and intersectional justice from additional BIPOC authors. For example, our book club will next read I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown.

Week 1

My Racist Introduction

1. On pages 8 and 9, Kendi describes the racist rhetoric Trump used during his presidential campaign. Despite this rhetoric, Trump also said that he’s “not racist . . . the least racist person that you have ever interviewed.” According to Kendi, “[w]hen racist ideas resound, denials that those ideas are racist typically follow. When racist policies resound, denials that those policies are racist also follow. . . . Denial is the heartbeat of racism, beating across ideologies, races, and nations. It is beating within us. Many of us who strongly call out Trump’s racist ideas will strongly deny our own. How often do we become reflexively defensive when someone calls something we’ve done or said racist?” How is denial the heartbeat of racism? Have you seen similar denials on social media or in the news recently? Do you have any suggestions on how to engage in conversation with someone who claims he is “not racist”? What has worked? Was has not worked? Would you do anything differently?
2. When we talk about racism and white supremacy, I think it’s important to engage in self-reflection. On page 10, Kendi says, “The good news is that racist and antiracist are not fixed identities. We can be a racist one minute and an antiracist the next. What we say about race, what we do about race, in each moment, determines what — not who — we are.” Do you agree or disagree? Why?

Chapter 1: Definitions

1. In Chapter 1, Kendi provides several definitions to frame his discussion of racism and antiracism. Did any of the definitions stand out to you or challenge you?
2. On page 13, Kendi describes his parents’ experience at an evangelical conference in Indiana in 1970. Black students had to persuade the conference organizers to devote the second night of the conference to Black theology. What has your experience been in your faith community? Does your church membership predominantly consist of one race? Has your church taken steps to ensure that people of all races feel safe and welcome?
3. On page 15, Kendi explains that Tom Skinner spoke at the 1970 evangelical conference. Skinner said: “‘The evangelical church . . . supported the status quo. It supported slavery; it supported segregation; it preached against any attempt of the Black man to stand on his own two feet. . . . Skinner shared how he came to worship an elite White Jesus Christ, who cleaned people up through ‘rules and regulations,’ a savior who prefigured Richard Nixon’s vision of law and order. But one day, Skinner realized that he’d gotten Jesus wrong. Jesus wasn’t in the Rotary Club and he wasn’t a policeman. Jesus was a ‘radical revolutionary, with hair on his chest and dirt under his fingernails.’ Skinner’s new idea of Jesus was born of and committed to a new reading of the gospel. ‘Any gospel that does not . . . speak to the issue of enslavement’ and ‘injustice’ and ‘inequality — any gospel that does not want to go where people are hungry and poverty-stricken and set them free in the name of Jesus Christ — is not the gospel. . . . Back in the days of Jesus, ‘there was a system working just like today,’ Skinner declared. But ‘Jesus was dangerous. He was dangerous because he was changing the system.’ The Romans locked up this ‘revolutionary’ and ‘nailed him to a cross’ and killed and buried him. But three days later, Jesus Christ ‘got up out of the grave’ to bear witness to us today. ‘Proclaim liberation to the captives, preach sight to the blind’ and ‘go into the world and tell men who are bound mentally, spiritually, and physically, ‘The liberator has come!’” How have you experienced Jesus through a faith community? Was it a Jesus devoted to order or a Jesus devoted to revolutionary social justice?
4. On page 20, Kendi says that “[t]he most threatening racist movement is not the alt right’s unlikely drive for a White ethnostate but the regular American’s drive for a ‘race-neutral’ one.” Do you have any reactions to that? Does it remind anyone of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”?
5. On pages 21–22, Kendi describes some racist policies that have resulted in environmental racism and healthcare disparities. He also describes racist voting policies, like Voter ID laws and felon disenfranchisement. Were there any general reactions to that information? Did you learn anything new? What are some practical ways that we could challenge these racist policies?

Chapter 2: Dueling Consciousness

1. In Chapter 2, Kendi offers a lot of history on the drug war, mass incarceration, and racist criminal justice policies. Were there any general reactions to what Kendi described? Did you learn anything new?
2. On page 28, Kendi describes the difference between liberation theology and civilizer theology. “Americans have long been trained to see the deficiencies of people rather than policy. It’s a pretty easy mistake to make: People are in our faces. Policies are distant. We are particularly poor at seeing the policies lurking behind the struggles of people. And so my parents turned away from the problems of policy to look at the problems of people — and reverted to striving to save and civilize Black people rather than liberate them.” Does your church engage in civilizer theology or liberation theology?
3. On pages 28–34, Kendi describes how both people of color and White people experience a dueling consciousness. People of color tend to advocate for both antiracist and assimilationist policies, and White people tend to advocate for both segregationist and assimilationist policies. How have you seen these ideas and policies at work in your church, school, community, city, state, nation, world, etc.?

Week 2

Chapter 3: Power

1. On pages 35–36, Kendi discusses segregation in public schools, explaining that “Black New Yorkers . . . were separating their children from poor Black children in poor Black neighborhoods, just like White New Yorkers were separating their children from Black children. . . . White parents did not mind spending more money on housing in order to send their kids to White public schools — and keep them away from purportedly bad schools and bad children.” Similarly, “Black parents did not mind paying for private Black schools to keep their children away from those same public schools and children.” What was your experience in school? Was your school segregated? Did your school discuss Black history? Have you perceived any gaps in your education?
2. On pages 36–37, Kendi describes the point in which he reached “racial puberty.” He was visiting a third-grade classroom for the first time. Even though the student body was majority Black, there was only one Black teacher at the school. Kendi questioned why that was. “At seven years old, I began to feel the encroaching fog of racism overtaking my dark body. It felt big, bigger than me, bigger than my parents or anything in my world, and threatening. What a powerful construction race is — powerful enough to consume us. And it comes for us early.” When did you first become aware of race? What were you taught about your own race or other races?
3. On pages 39–43, Kendi provides a history lesson and explains how race was socially constructed. He talks about how slavery was not initially a racist policy. The idea of “race” was constructed, and racist ideas were used to normalize and rationalize slavery from certain parts of Africa. For example, on page 42, Kendi says that a biographer writing about Prince Henry of Portugal “created racial difference to convince the world that . . . [Portugal] . . . did not slave-trade for money, only to save souls.” The biographer obviously wrote that to “defend the lucrative commerce in human lives, which he did through the construction of a Black race, an invented group upon which he hung racist ideas.” What did you learn from Kendi’s history lesson? What were your general reactions?
4. On pages 42–43, Kendi argues that racist policies cause racist ideas — and not the other way around. He says that self-interest from racist power leads to racist policies: “Powerful and brilliant intellectuals” then “produce[] racist ideas to justify the racist policies of their era, to redirect the blame for their era’s racial inequities away from those policies and onto people.” Do you agree with Kendi that racist policies cause racist ideas? Does anyone disagree or think that racist ideas actually cause racist policies? Does anyone view the problem another way?

Chapter 4: Biology

1. Rather than use the term racial “microaggression,” Kendi uses the term “racist abuse.” On pages 46–47, Kendi explains that African American Harvard psychiatrist Chester Pierce first coined the term “microaggression” to “describe the constant verbal and nonverbal abuse racist White people unleash on Black people wherever we go, day after day.” Pierce “identified these individual abuses as microaggressions to distinguish from the macroaggressions of racist violence and policies.” Kendi does not like the term “microaggression” because it only became popular in a post-racial era after the concept “expanded to apply to interpersonal abuses against all marginalized groups, not just Black people.” On page 47, Kendi explains that he uses “racist abuse” because “[a]buse accurately describes the action and its effects on people: distress, anger, worry, depression, anxiety, pain, fatigue, and suicide.” Have you ever witnessed, experienced, or caused this type of racist abuse? How can white people learn to recognize and address racist abuse?
2. On page 50, Kendi talks about how the “same Bible that taught me that all humans descended from the first pair also argued for immutable human difference, the result of a divine curse.” He talks about the Curse of Ham, and how that was used to justify “expanding European enslavement of African people.” On pages 50–51, he said: “Racist power at once made biological racial distinction and biological racial hierarchy the components of biological racism. The curse theory lived prominently on the justifying lips of slave-holders until Black chattel slavery died in Christian countries in the nineteenth century. Proof did not matter when biological racial difference could be created by misreading the Bible.” How has the Bible been used to justify racist policies or ideas? Is God racist or is God inclusive? Does your church reflect a racist God or an antiracist God?

Week 3

Chapter 5: Ethnicity

1. On pages 56-57, Kendi talked about the reaction that many Black people had when O.J. Simpson was found “not guilty.” He said, "I had been listening to what the Black adults around me had been lecturing about for months in 1995. They did not think O.J. was innocent of murder any more than they thought he was innocent of selling out his people. But they knew the criminal-justice system was guilty, too. Guilty for freeing the White cops who beat Rodney King in 1991 and the Korean storekeeper who killed fifteen-year-old Latasha Harlins that same year after falsely accusing her of stealing orange juice. But the O.J. verdict didn’t stop justice from miscarrying when it came to Black bodies—all kinds of Black bodies. New Yorkers saw it two years later, when NYPD officers inside a Brooklyn police station rammed a wooden stick up the rectum of a thirty-year-old Haitian immigrant named Abner Louima, after viciously beating him on the ride to the station. And two years after that, the justice system freed another group of NYPD officers who’d blasted forty-one bullets at the body of Amandou Diallo, an unarmed twenty-three-year-old immigrant from Guinea. It did not matter if Black people breathed first in the United States or abroad. In the end, racist violence did not differentiate." How does the criminal justice system perpetuate racism? How have racism and police brutality made our communities less safe, directly and indirectly? Should we have a police force?
2. On pages 60-62, Kendi discusses immigration policy and how immigration laws have restricted immigration from non-White countries. "Throughout the 1990s, the number of immigrants of color in the United States grew, due to the combined effects of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, the Refugee Act of 1980, and the Immigration Act of 1990. Taken together, these bills encouraged family reunification, immigration from conflict areas, and a diversity visa program that spiked immigration from countries outside Europe. . . . The loosening immigration laws of the 1960s through the 1990s were designed to undo a previous generation of immigration laws that limited non-White immigration to the United States." Kendi quotes former U.S. Senator/former Attorney General Jeff Sessions: "'When the numbers [of the non-native-born population] reached about this high in 1924, the president and Congress changed the policy. And it slowed down significantly,' he told Breitbart’s Steve Bannon in 2015. 'We then assimilated through to 1965 and created really the solid middle class of America with assimilated immigrants. And it was good for America.'" Kendi says: "The current Administration’s throwback to early-twentieth-century immigration policies—built on racist ideas of what constitutes an American—were meant to roll back the years of immigration that saw America dramatically diversify, including new diversity within its Black population, which now included Africans and West Indians in addition to the descendants of American slaves." What are your thoughts on immigration policies that seek to restrict non-White/non-Scandinavian people from entering the US legally?
3. On page 63, Kendi talks about the racial-ethnic hierarchy and conflicts among White ethnic groups and among Black ethnic groups. "This ranking of racialized ethnic groups within the ranking of the races creates a racial-ethnic hierarchy, a ladder of ethnic racism within the larger schema of racism." What were your reactions to Kendi’s description of racial-ethnic hierarchies? How does the U.S. Census ensure that White people remain a majority race?
4. On page 63, Kendi says people assume he could not be a college professor and published writer if also African American. "The face of ethnic racism bares itself in the form of a persistent question: 'Where are you from?'" What were your reactions to this?

Chapter 6: Body

1. On page 71, Kendi says, "When I first picked up a basketball, at around eight years old, I also picked up on my parents’ fears for my Black body. My parents hated when I played ball at nearby parks, worried I’d get shot, and tried to discourage me by warning me of the dangers waiting for me out there. In their constant fearmongering about Black drug dealers, robbers, killers, they nurtured in me a fear of my own Black neighbors.” Did your parents experience these same fears? Why or why not?
2. On page 76, Kendi says: "I had to learn to keep racist police officers from getting nervous. Black people are apparently responsible for calming the fears of violent cops in the way women are supposedly responsible for calming the sexual desires of male rapists. If we don’t then we are blamed for our own assaults, our own deaths." Were there any strong reactions to this passage?

Week 4

Chapter 7: Culture

1. On pages 82-83, Kendi explains that, in 1996, "the Oakland school board recognized Black people like me as bilingual, and in an act of cultural antiracism recognized 'the legitimacy and richness' of Ebonics as a language. . . . It helps to dig back into the origins of Ebonics. Enslaved Africans formulated new languages in nearly every European colony in the Americas, including African American Ebonics, Jamaican Patois, Haitian Creole, Brazilian Calunga, and Cubano. In every one of these countries, racist power—those in control of government, academia, education, and media—has demeaned these African languages as dialects, as 'broken' or 'improper' or 'nonstandard' French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, or English. Assimilationists have always urged Africans in the Americas to forget the 'broken' languages of our ancestors and master the apparently 'fixed' languages of Europeans—to speak 'properly.' But what was the difference between Ebonics and so-called ‘standard’ English? Ebonics had grown from the roots of African languages and modern English just as modern English had grown from Latin, Greek, and Germanic roots. Why is Ebonics broken English but English is not broken German? Why is Ebonics a dialect of English if English is not a dialect of Latin? The idea that Black languages outside Africa are broken is as culturally racist as the idea that languages inside Europe are fixed." What is the difference between a dialect and a language? Do all languages have different dialects or should we view all dialects as their own language? What are the practical implications of what Kendi is saying for an America where those in power generally expect us to speak English? Should we treat Ebonics as its own language and expect African Americans to speak English in professional settings? Or should we welcome Ebonics in professional settings where English is spoken?
2. On pages 86-87, Kendi says, "I loved being in the midst of a culture created by my ancestors, who found ways to re-create the ideas and practices of their ancestors with what was available to them in the Americas, through what psychologist Linda James Myers calls the 'outward physical manifestations of culture.' These outward physical manifestations our ancestors encountered included Christianity, the English language, and popular European food, instruments, fashion, and customs." He then explains that "[c]ulturally racist scholars have assumed" that African Americans and African American culture is "'essentially European.'" However, that is not the case. It is important to consider the "'deep structure of culture,' the philosophies and values that change outward physical forms." This "'deep structure of culture'" "transforms European Christianity into a new African Christianity, with mounting spirits, calls and responses, and Holy Ghost worship; it changes English into Ebonics, European ingredients into soul food." Thus, "[t]he cultural African survived in the Americans, created a strong and complex culture with Western 'outward' forms 'while retaining inner [African] values.'" How can we distinguish what Kendi is describing from harmful forms of cultural misappropriation? Can we distinguish between (on the one hand) African Americans appropriating aspects of European culture (e.g., religion, language, food, fashion, customs) and (on the other hand) White Americans misappropriating African American culture (e.g., music, fashion)? What is the significance of each group's relative power? Why didn't Kendi discuss relative power and cultural misappropriation? Is there another framework we should use?

Chapter 8: Behavior

1. On pages 93-94, Kendi says, "I was irresponsible in high school. It makes antiracist sense to talk about the personal irresponsibility of individuals like me of all races. I screwed up. I could have studied harder. But some of my White friends could have studied harder, too, and their failures and irresponsibility didn’t somehow tarnish their race. . . . My problems with personal irresponsibility were exacerbated—or perhaps even caused—by the additional struggles that racism added to my school life, from a history of disinterested, racist teachers, to overcrowded schools, to the daily racist attacks that fell on young Black boys and girls. There’s no question that I could have hurdled that racism and kept on running. But asking every nonathletic Black person to become an Olympic hurdler, and blaming them when they can’t keep up, is racist. One of racism’s harms is the way it falls on the unexceptional Black person who is asked to be extraordinary just to survive—and, even worse, the Black screwup who faces the abyss after one error, while the White screwup is handed second chances and empathy. This shouldn’t be surprising: One of the fundamental values of racism to White people is that it makes success attainable for even unexceptional Whites, while success, even moderate success, is usually reserved for extraordinary Black people." What were your reactions to this passage? Did anyone else screw up in high school? What were the consequences? At the time, did you consider how your race may have affected the consequences of your actions? Why or why not?
2. On pages 100-03, Kendi describes the racist history of standardized testing. He concludes by saying that "[t]he use of standardized tests to measure aptitude and intelligence is one of the most effective racist policies ever devised to degrade Black minds and legally exclude Black bodies." How do race and economic status affect college admissions decisions? How can colleges address inequities in students' resources? As people who will be attending graduate school and may have the opportunity to shape the narratives that academia values, what can we do to ensure that minority voices are heard and amplified?

Week 5

Chapter 9: Color

1. On pages 113-114, Kendi says, “To be an antiracist is to eliminate any beauty standard based on skin and eye color, hair texture, facial and bodily features shared by groups. To be an antiracist is to diversify our standards of beauty like our standards of culture or intelligence, to see beauty equally in all skin colors, broad and thin noses, kinky and straight hair, light and dark eyes. To be an antiracist is to build and live in a beauty culture that accentuates instead of erases our natural beauty.” How can we work to broaden society’s understanding of beauty? What does it mean to “build . . . a beauty culture that accentuates instead of erases our natural beauty”?
2. On page 116, Kendi says: “White communities built higher walls of segregation to keep Black people out. Light communities, too, built higher walls of segregation to keep Dark people out. To maintain Light privilege, the segregated Light people further segregated their Dark brothers and sisters, preserving prewar racial disparities between Light and Dark people. After slavery, Light people were wealthier than Dark people and more likely to have good-paying jobs and schooling.” How can we ensure that our antiracism work addresses colorism? How does colorism reduce pressure for antiracist policies, enable racial hierarchies, and ensure White supremacy?
3. On page 119, Kendi compares skin lightening to tanning: “Today, skin lighteners are used by 70 percent of women in Nigeria; 35 percent in South Africa; 59 percent in Togo; and 40 percent in China, Malaysia, the Philippines, and South Korea.” Similarly, “[s]ome White people have their own skin-care ‘addiction’ to reach a post-racial ideal: tanning. . . . Paradoxically, some tanning White people look down on bleaching Black people, as if there’s a difference. Surveys show that people consider tanned skin—the replica color of Light people—more attractive than naturally pale skin and Dark skin.” Do White people tan for the same reason people of color use skin lighteners? Is everyone trying to replicate something they are not? If we are all made in God’s image, why are people so obsessed with their appearance/altering appearance (even when it can be dangerous)?

Chapter 10: White

1. On pages 123-25, Kendi discusses the aftermath of the 2000 Bush vs. Gore election. George W. Bush won Florida by a narrow margin, and his brother, Jeb Bush, oversaw the counting of votes. Many Black people, including FAMU students, were prevented from voting: "Complaints from Black citizens who’d registered but never received their registration cards. Or their voting location had been changed. Or they were unlawfully denied a ballot without a registration card or ordered to leave the long line when polls closed. Or they were told that as convicted felons they could not vote." A disproportionate number of Black voters were purged from voting rolls. "Blacks were ten times more likely than Whites to have their ballots rejected. The racial inequity could not be explained by income or educational levels or bad ballot design. . . . That left one explanation, one that at first I could not readily admit: racism. A total of 179,855 ballots were invalidated by Florida election officials in a race ultimately won by 537 votes." What were your reactions to Kendi’s discussion of the Florida election? How can we work to promote antiracist voting and election policies when our elected officials may not support those policies and may even have an incentive to oppose them? What can we do about the self-interest of racist power?
2. As Kendi notes on pages 124-25, “all antiracists” must have “courage”: “‘Courage is not the absence of fear, but the strength to do what is right in the face of it,’ as the anonymous philosopher tells us. Some of us are restrained by fear of what could happen to us if we resist. In our naïveté, we are less fearful of what could happen to us—or is already happening to us—if we don’t resist.” How can white people who strive to be antiracist take courageous actions without adopting a white savior complex?
3. On pages 125-26, Kendi describes the Nation of Islam, which believed that White people were a “devil race.” Elijah Muhammad's history of White people described the creation of this new race, “these blond, pale-skinned, cold-blue-eyed devils—savages,” who invaded the earth and caused "hell." Moses lifted this “‘devil white race . . . up out of the caves of Europe, teaching them civilization’ to rule for the next six thousand years.” What were your reactions to this passage? Have you heard anyone describe white people as a "devil race" before? Did anyone feel surprised? Uncomfortable? Why do you think you reacted that way?
4. On pages 127-28, Kendi describes Malcolm X’s journey with the Nation of Islam. While Malcolm X was in prison, he came to see the “white man” as the “devil.” “He saw White people lynching his activist father, committing his activist mother to an insane asylum, splitting up his siblings, telling him being a lawyer was ‘no realist goal for a [n word],’ degrading him on eastern railroads, trapping him for the police, sentencing him to eight to ten years for robbery because his girlfriend was White. His brothers and sisters, clutching their sore necks from a similar rope of White racism, had already converted to the Nation of Islam.” After leaving prison in 1952, Malcolm X helped to "grow Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam." However, “[i]n 1964, after leaving the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X . . . converted to orthodox Islam” while on a pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. “‘Never have I witnessed such’ an ‘overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood as is practiced by people of all colors and races here in this Ancient Holy Land,’ he wrote home on April 20. Days later, he began to ‘toss aside some of my previous conclusions [about white people] . . . You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But . . . I have always been a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it.'" How can our faith communities facilitate this same type of transformative experience for people who hold hateful views of other races? Has your faith community represented a “brotherhood . . . of all colors and races” or is it mostly segregated? What can we learn from Malcolm X, who humbly explained his willingness to "'face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it'"?
5. In Chapter 10, Kendi argues that Black people can be racist toward White people. For example, on page 129, he says, “To be antiracist is to never conflate racist people with White people, knowing there are antiracist Whites and racist non-Whites.” He also qualifies this statement, saying, “Of course, ordinary White people benefit from racist policies, though not nearly as much as racist power and not nearly as much as they could from an equitable society, one where the average White voter could have as much power as superrich White men to decide elections and shape policy.” Do you agree or disagree? Does it matter that White people benefit from systems that oppress Black people? Does it matter how much power White people hold relative to Black people? Do you think Kendi conflates economic inequality and racism? Do you think Kendi missed anything in his analysis?
6. Back in Chapter 1, Kendi explained that he prefers to use the term “racist policies” instead of “systemic racism.” Are “racist policies” and “systemic racism” the same? How might “racist policies” differ from our understanding of “systemic racism,” which causes White people to benefit from systems of oppression while Black people are disadvantaged by those same systems? Are all racist systems the product of racist policies? What about norms or other systems that are not as tangible?

Chapter 11: Black

1. In Chapter 11, Kendi explains that some Black people have constructed a lesser group of Black people—"n words." For example, on page 138, Kendi says, "[w]e were not seeing and treating Black people as individuals, some of whom do bad things: We created a group identity, [n words], that in turn created a hierarchy, as all race making does. We added the hypocritical audacity of raging when White people called all of us [n words]. . . . And after all that, we self-identified as ‘not-racist.'" What was your reaction to this passage? Why do you think human beings have a need to feel superior to other human beings? How was this behavior learned?
2. On pages 140-41, Kendi argues that Black people have power and can therefore be racist. He says that the "powerless defense shields people of color from charges of racism even when they are reproducing racist policies and justifying them with the same racist ideas as the White people they call racist. . . . Like every other racist idea, the powerless defense underestimates Black people and overestimates White people. It erases the small amount of Black power and expands the already expansive reach of White power.” Do you agree or disagree with Kendi? Can Black people be racist against White people or only against people of color, including Black people?
3. On pages 145-146, Kendi seems to imply that even a slave could have the power to be racist: “Even when he was a slave, [one particular] Black man had no desire to get rid of his master. He used his power to spoil one of the most well-organized slave revolts in American history. He used his power to fully take on the qualities of his master, to become him: slaves, racist ideas, and all.” Do you think Kendi takes his argument too far? Why or why not?

Week 6

Chapter 12: Class

1. On page 154, Kendi describes the oppression-inferiority thesis. According to one version of this thesis, “[f]irst slavery, then segregation, and now poverty and life in the ‘ghetto’ made Black people inferior.” According to U.S. Senator Goldwater, welfare was "making poor people poor." However, “Goldwater and his ideological descendants said little to nothing about rich White people who depended on the welfare of inheritances, tax cuts, government contracts, hookups, and bailouts. They said little to nothing about the White middle class depending on the welfare of the New Deal, the GI Bill, subsidized suburbs, and exclusive White networks. Welfare for middle- and upper-income people remained out of the discourse on ‘handouts,’ as welfare for the Black poor became the true oppressor in the conservative version of the oppression-inferiority thesis.” What do you think about the oppression-inferiority thesis? Have you seen this idea—that welfare makes poor people poor—in your own contexts or ministries (e.g., a free store asking customers to pay a quarter for clothing items instead of giving these items away for free, homeless shelter requiring residents to be present at the shelter to clean on certain days)? How are policies rooted in this idea harmful to low-income people? Is there dignity in work? Is there anything wrong with welfare? Which policies make welfare necessary? Why don’t we focus on welfare for the wealthy?
2. On page 156, Kendi quotes Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who said in 1967 that "'the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated.'" Are racism, economic exploitation, and war still tied together? If so, how? If not, why not?
3. On pages 161-62, Kendi contrasts conservative capitalism and liberal capitalism. Are they both capitalism? Why or why not?
4. On pages 162-63, Kendi discusses wealth extraction from, e.g., mineral-rich countries. “The top 1 percent now own around half of the world’s wealth, up from 42.5 percent at the height of the Great Recession in 2008. The world’s 3.5 billion poorest adults, comprising 70 percent of the world’s working-age population, own 2.7 percent of global wealth. Most of these poor adults live in non-White countries that were subjected to centuries of slave trading and colonizing and resource dispossessing, which created the modern wealth of the West. The wealth extraction continues today via foreign companies that own or control key natural resources in the global south, taken through force with the threat of ‘economic sanctions’ or granted by ‘elected’ politicians. Racial capitalism makes countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo one of the richest countries in the world belowground and one of the poorest countries in the world aboveground.” How can we address income inequality? What is our responsibility as consumers? How can we pressure corporations to be more responsible? How we can learn about the origins of our food, clothing, electronics, etc.?

Chapter 13: Space

1. Kendi has talked about perceptions of White and Black neighborhoods a few times. He has also discussed housing segregation and the need for resources to be shared equitably. Should White people move to historically Black neighborhoods to promote equity? Or would this result in gentrification and push/price Black people out of their neighborhoods?
2. In discussing the aftermath of Brown v. Board (overturning Plessy v. Ferguson's separate but equal decision and integrating schools) on pages 177-78, Kendi said: “The court rightly undermined the legitimacy of segregated White spaces that hoard public resources, exclude all non-Whites, and are wholly dominated by White peoples and cultures. But the court also reinforced the legitimacy of integrated White spaces that hoard public resources, include some non-Whites, and are generally, though not wholly, dominated by White peoples and cultures. White majorities, White power, and White culture dominate both the segregated and the integrated, making both White. . . . After Brown, the integrated White space came to define the ideal integrated space where inferior non-White bodies could be developed. The integrated Black space became a de facto segregated space where inferior Black bodies were left behind. . . . Integration (into Whiteness) became racial progress.” (emphasis added) How can we make traditionally White spaces open to all racial groups? How can we integrate non-White spaces without turning them into White spaces? How can predominantly White churches create spaces where all racial groups are welcome? How can we create multicultural worship (e.g., how can we prevent worship spaces from being dominated by White culture and racism)?

Week 7

Chapter 14: Gender

1. On pages 182-183, Kendi describes how his parents’ views on sexuality and gender norms affected his own views: “My ideas of gender and sexuality reflected those of my parents. They did not raise me not to be a homophobe. They rarely talked about gay and lesbian people. Ideas often dance a cappella. Their silence erased queer existence as thoroughly as integrationists erased the reality of integrated White spaces. . . . Dad often joked at church about Ma being the CFO of the family. While other patriarchal men laughed, Dad was serious. She was. At other times, Dad’s sexist ideas demanded he lead and Ma’s sexist ideas submitted. . . . I became a Black patriarch because my parents and the world around me did not strictly raise me to be a Black feminist.” Would anyone be willing to share about their experiences growing up? What were you taught about race, gender, and sexuality?
2. On pages 183-84, Kendi describes how “[r]acist patriarchs, from White social scientists to Black husbands, demanded the submission of Black women to uplift the race.” Essentially, society blamed Black women for not being submissive enough, claiming that this was the root of all Black problems. What were your reactions to this racist idea?
3. On page 186, Kendi talks about his parents rehearsing their wedding vows. Their pastor said, "'Husbands, love your wives, and wives, obey your husbands.'" Kendi’s mother said, "'I’m not obeying him . . . The only man I obeyed was my father, when I was a child . . . You are not my father and I’m not a child!” What are your thoughts on gender roles and the Bible?
4. On page 189, Kendi describes the pay gap, etc.: “Gender racism produced the current situation of Black women with some collegiate education making less than White women with only high school degrees; Black women having to earn advanced degrees before they earn more than White women with bachelor’s degrees; and the median wealth of single White women being $42,000 compared to $100 for single Black women. Native women and Black women experience poverty at a higher rate than any other race-gender group. Black and Latinx women still earn the least, while White and Asian men earn the most. Black women are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than are White women. A Black woman with an advanced degree is more likely to lose her baby than a White woman with less than an eighth-grade education. Black women remain twice as likely to be incarcerated as White women.” What are your thoughts on the inequalities that Kendi describes? How can white women ensure that we advocate for all women—not only white women?
5. On pages 189-90, Kendi argues that gender racism harms White women: “Gender racism impacts White women and male groups of color, whether they see it or not. White women’s resistance to Black feminism and intersectional theory has been self-destructive, preventing resisters from understanding their own oppression. The intersection of racism and sexism, in some cases, oppresses White women. For example, sexist notions of ‘real women’ as weak and racist notions of White women as the idealized woman intersect to produce the gender-racist idea that the pinnacle of womanhood is the weak White woman. This is the gender racism that caused millions of men and women to hate the strong White woman running for president in 2016, Hillary Clinton.” (189-90) Do you agree or disagree? Is Kendi's argument helpful to achieving antiracist goals?
6. On page 191, Kendi says: “[W]hen humanity becomes serious about the freedom of Black women, humanity becomes serious about the freedom of humanity." "Intersectional theory now gives all of humanity the ability to understand the intersectional oppression of their identities, from poor Latinx to Black men to White women to Native lesbians to transgender Asians. A theory for Black women is a theory for humanity.” How can we advocate for the freedom of Black women and intersectional justice?

Chapter 15: Sexuality

1. In Chapter 15, Kendi describes his experiences unlearning and relearning about LGBTQ+ people. Has anyone had a similar experience that you would be willing to share?
2. On pages 198-99, Kendi discusses his relationship with two friends who challenged gender racism and queer racism, transforming Kendi’s beliefs and causing him to want to learn more: “These women were everything they were not supposed to be, in my patriarchal and homophobic mind. Queer people are run by sex, not ideas. Queer people are abnormal. Feminists hate men. Feminists want female supremacy. But these Black feminists obviously liked me, a male. They were as ideological as they were sexual as they were normal. They did not speak of women ruling men. They spoke of gender and queer equity and freedom and mutuality and complementarity and power. Their jokes and attacks knew no gender or sexuality. If anything, they were harder on women.” Have you ever had a friend challenge and transform you in a similar way? How can we learn from our friends while also respecting their boundaries and taking responsibility for our own education?

Week 8

Chapter 16: Failure

1. On page 208, Kendi affirms his previous claim that "[t]he problem of race has always been at its core the problem of power, not the problem of immorality or ignorance.” Does culture shape policy or does policy shape culture?
2. On page 210, Kendi draws a distinction between feelings advocacy and outcome advocacy: “We arrive at demonstrations excited, as if our favorite musician is playing on the speakers’ stage. We convince ourselves we are doing something to solve the racial problem when we are really doing something to satisfy our feelings. We go home fulfilled, like we dined at our favorite restaurant. And this fulfillment is fleeting, like a drug high. The problems of inequity and injustice persist. They persistently make us feel bad and guilty. We persistently do something to make ourselves feel better as we convince ourselves we are making society better, as we never make society better.” “What if instead of a feelings advocacy we had an outcome advocacy that put equitable outcomes before our guilt and anguish? What if we focused our human and fiscal resources on changing power and policy to actually make society, not just our feelings, better?” (emphasis added).
3. On pages 213-14, Kendi says: “When we fail to open the closed-minded consumers of racist ideas, we blame their closed-mindedness instead of our foolish decision to waste time reviving closed minds from the dead. When our vicious attacks on open-minded consumers of racist ideas fail to transform them, we blame their hate rather than our impatient and alienating hate of them. When people fail to consume our convoluted antiracist ideas, we blame their stupidity rather than our stupid lack of clarity. When we transform people and do not show them an avenue of support, we blame their lack of commitment rather than our lack of guidance. When the politician we supported does not change racist policy, we blame the intractability of racism rather than our support of the wrong politician. When we fail to gain support for a protest, we blame the fearful rather than our alienating presentation. When the protest fails, we blame racist power rather than our flawed protest. When our policy does not produce racial equity, we blame the people for not taking advantage of the new opportunity, not our flawed policy solution. The failure doctrine avoids the mirror of self-blame. The failure doctrine begets failure. The failure doctrine begets racism.” As Christians, is it our responsibility to try to educate people and change people’s hearts and minds? How can we learn to recognize and accept blame for our own failures? Would it be more productive to blame policymakers/racist power?
4. On page 215, Kendi explains the difference between “protests” and “demonstrations": "A protest is organizing people for a prolonged campaign that forces racist power to change a policy. A demonstration is mobilizing people momentarily to publicize a problem." What can we take away from Kendi's explanation? How does it relate to who we want to be as a group?

Chapter 17: Success

1. On page 219, Kendi says that “[a]sking antiracists to change their perspective on racism can be as destabilizing as asking racists to change their perspective on the races. Antiracists can be as doctrinaire in their view of racism as racists can be in their view of not-racism. How can antiracists ask racists to open their minds and change when we are closed-minded and unwilling to change? . . . Giving up my conception of racism meant giving up my view of the world and myself. I would not without a fight. I would lash out at anyone who ‘attacked’ me with new ideas. . . .” How has How to Be an Antiracist challenged your conceptions of racism?
2. On page 221, Kendi says: “The construct of covert institutional racism opens American ideas to racism and, ironically, closes them, too. Separating the overt individual from the covert institutional veils the specific policy choices that cause racial inequities, policies made by specific people. Covering up the specific policies and policymakers prevents us from identifying and replacing the specific policies and policymakers. We become unconscious to racist policymakers and policies as we lash out angrily at the abstract bogeyman of ‘the system.’” Do you agree or disagree? Why?
3. On pages 221-22, Kendi also says that "[a] similar bond exists between implicit bias and post-racialism. They bond on the idea that racist ideas are buried in the mind. Because they are implicit and unconscious, implicit bias says. Because they are dead, post-racialism says.” Do you agree or disagree? How are implicit bias and post-racialism the same or different?
4. On page 226, Kendi finally reveals a list on how we can be antiracist: “A mission to uncover and critique America’s life of racist ideas turned into a mission to uncover and critique my life of racist ideas, which turned into a lifelong mission to be antiracist. . . . It happened for me in successive steps, these steps to be an antiracist.
   “I stopped using the ‘I’m not racist’ or ‘I can’t be racist’ defense of denial.
   “I admit the definition of racist (someone who is supporting racist policies or expressing racist ideas).
   “I confess the racist policies I support and racist ideas I express.
   “I accept their source (my upbringing inside a nation making us racist).
   “I acknowledge the definition of antiracist (someone who is supporting antiracist policies or expressing antiracist ideas).
   “I struggle for antiracist power and policy in my spaces. (Seizing a policymaking position. Joining an antiracist organization or protest. Publicly donating my time or privately donating my funds to antiracist policymakers, organizations, and protests fixated on changing power and policy.)
   “I struggle to remain at the antiracist intersections where racism is mixed with other bigotries. (Eliminating racial distinctions in biology and behavior. Equalizing racial distinctions in ethnicities, bodies, cultures, colors, classes, spaces, genders, and sexualities.)
   “I struggle to think with antiracist ideas. (Seeing racist policy in racial inequity. Leveling group differences. Not being fooled into generalizing individual negativity. Not being fooled by misleading statistics or theories that blame people for racial inequity.)” Would you add to this list or change it in any way? How can we apply this list to our group? What steps have you taken to be antiracist? How have you failed? Where do you still struggle? What steps will you take to be antiracist?

Chapter 18: Survival

1. In Chapter 18, Kendi uses cancer as a metaphor for racism. What were your reactions to his use of that metaphor?
2. On page 231, Kendi talks about how he reoriented himself to antiracist research and education: “I did not need to forsake antiracist research and education. I needed to forsake my orientation to antiracist research and education. I had to forsake the suasionist bred into me, of researching and educating for the sake of changing minds. I had to start researching and educating to change policy. The former strategy produces a public scholar. The latter produces public scholarship.” What can we learn from this? How can we shift the focus of our book club to education for the purpose of changing policy—not only hearts and minds? Is self-education also important? Why or why not?
3. On page 232, Kendi shares some "steps we can all take to eliminate racial inequity in our spaces":
   “Admit racial inequity is a problem of bad policy, not bad people.
   “Identify racial inequity in all its intersections and manifestations.
   “Investigate and uncover the racist policies causing racial inequity.
   “Invent or find antiracist policy that can eliminate racial inequity.
   “Figure out who or what group has the power to institute antiracist policy.
   “Disseminate and educate about the uncovered racist policy and antiracist policy correctives.
   “Work with sympathetic antiracist policymakers to institute the antiracist policy.
   “Deploy antiracist power to compel or drive from power the unsympathetic racist policymakers in order to institute the antiracist policy.
   “Monitor closely to ensure the antiracist policy reduces and eliminates racial inequity.
   “When policies fail, do not blame the people. Start over and seek out new and more effective antiracist treatments until they work.
   “Monitor closely to prevent new racist policies from being instituted.”
   How can we implement these steps in our own book club? In our school? In our community? In our world? How can we hold ourselves, each other, and racist power accountable?