Review: Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram Kendi
Ibram Kendi’s Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America is a monumental book. It covers over 300 years of racist beliefs about Black people from 1635 to the present day. Kendi tells this history in a smart way by dividing it up into five parts. Each part has a central figure who has expressed through their lifetimes racist, assimilationist and antiracist views (Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. DuBois, and Angela Davis). The five parts are not biographies of these central figures but the author places them in the larger context of where America was on racial issues throughout history.
It’s a prime example that some things change but racist ideas persist.
On a personal note this book challenged and changed me. I began this book in December 2016. A few days after I started reading, Carl Paladino, a NY politician, made some racist remarks about former President Obama and First Lady Obama. It bothered me alot because the specific things he said about Michelle Obama were the exact same things said about black women in the 1600s and 1700s that Kendi highlights in his book. It’s a prime example that some things change but racist ideas persist. As the book progressed through the centuries my own thoughts were challenged. Before I read this book I would consider myself as someone who has both assimilationist and antiracist views. Little did I know that it is not good to be an assimilationist. Kendi states that assimilationists have good intentions but they still have racist views that black people are inferior.
Overall, I would highly recommend this book. It is a very well researched and readable work.
- Review first posted on February 6, 2017.
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