How to Be an Antiracist

by Ibram X. Kendi

  Dark Filipino men have lower incomes than their lighter peers: Lisa Kiang and David T. Takeuchi, “Phenotypic Bias and Ethnic Identity in Filipino Americans,” Social Science Quarterly 90:2 (2009), 428–45.

  Dark immigrants to the United States…tend to have less wealth and income: Angela R. Dixon and Edward E. Telles, “Skin Color and Colorism: Global Research, Concepts, and Measurement,” Annual Review of Sociology 43 (2017), 405–24.

  Light Latinx people receive higher wages: Maria Cristina Morales, “Ethnic-Controlled Economy or Segregation? Exploring Inequality in Latina/o Co-Ethnic Jobsites,” Sociological Forum 24:3 (September 2009), 589–610.

  Dark Latinx people are more likely to be employed at ethnically homogeneous jobsites: Maria Cristina Morales, “The Ethnic Niche as an Economic Pathway for the Dark Skinned: Labor Market Incorporation of Latina/o Workers,” Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 30:3 (August 2008), 280–98.

  Dark sons and Light daughters receive higher-quality: Antoinette M. Landor et al., “Exploring the Impact of Skin Tone on Family Dynamics and Race-Related Outcomes,” Journal of Family Psychology 27:5 (2013), 817–26.

  Skin color influences perceptions of attractiveness: Mark E. Hill, “Skin Color and the Perception of Attractiveness Among African Americans: Does Gender Make a Difference?,” Social Psychology Quarterly 65:1 (March 2002), 77–91.

  As skin tone lightens, levels of self-esteem among Black women rise: Adams, Kurtz-Costes, and Hoffman, “Skin Tone Bias Among African Americans,” 107.

  Dark African Americans receive the harshest prison sentences: Jill Viglione, Lance Hannon, and Robert DeFina, “The Impact of Light Skin on Prison Time for Black Female Offenders,” The Social Science Journal 48: (2011), 250–58.

  White male offenders with African facial features receive harsher sentences: Ryan D. King and Brian D. Johnson, “A Punishing Look: Skin Tone and Afrocentric Features in the Halls of Justice,” American Journal of Sociology 122:1 (July 2016), 90–124.

  Dark female students are nearly twice as likely to be suspended: Lance Hannon, Robert DeFina, and Sarah Bruch, “The Relationship Between Skin Tone and School Suspension for African Americans,” Race and Social Problems 5:4 (December 2013), 281–95.

  Even Dark gay men heard it: Donovan Thompson, “ ‘I Don’t Normally Date Dark-Skin Men’: Colorism in the Black Gay Community,” Huffington Post, April 9, 2014, available at www.huffingtonpost.com/​entry/​i-dont-normally-date-dark_b_5113166.html.

  “You’re never Black enough”: “Colorism: Light-Skinned African-American Women Explain the Discrimination They Face,” Huffington Post, January 13, 2014, available at www.huffingtonpost.com/​entry/​colorism-discrimination-iyanla-vanzant_n_4588825.html.

  their struggle to integrate with Dark people: “Light-Skinned Black Women on the Pain of Not Feeling ‘Black Enough,’ ” Huffington Post, January 22, 2015, available at www.huffingtonpost.com/​entry/​light-girls-not-black-enough_n_6519488.html.

  “that the Negro’s…do entertain as high thoughts”: Morgan Godwyn, The Negro’s and Indian’s Advocate (London, 1680), 21.

  African people must accept the “correct conception” of beauty: Johann Joachim Winckelmann, History of the Art of Antiquity, trans. Harry Francis Mallgrave (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2006), 192–95.

  slaveholders more often worked Light people in the house: William L. Andrews, Slavery and Class in the American South: A Generation of Slave Narrative Testimony, 1840–1865 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 102.

  “Ferocity and stupidity are the characteristics of those tribes”: John Ramsay McCulloch, A Dictionary, Geographical, Statistical, and Historical of the Various Countries, Places, and Principal Natural Objects in the World, Volume 1 (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1851), 33.

  Smith’s racist light: See Samuel Stanhope Smith, An Essay on the Causes of the Variety of Complexion and Figure in the Human Species (New Brunswick, NJ: J. Simpson and Co, 1810).

  “a degenerate, unnatural offspring, doomed by nature to work out its own destruction”: J. C. Nott, “The Mulatto a Hybrid—Probable Extermination of the Two Races if the Whites and Blacks Are Allowed to Intermarry,” American Journal of Medical Sciences 66 (July 1843), 255.

  private racist ideas, which typically described Light women as smarter: See Walter Johnson, Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001).

  Slaveholders paid much more for enslaved Light females: Ibid.

  White men cast these “yaller gals” and “Jezebels”: See Melissa Harris-Perry, Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011).

  “more likely to enlist themselves under the banners of the whites”: A Refutation of the Calumnies Circulated Against the Southern and Western States Respecting the Institution and Existence of Slavery Among Them (Charleston, SC: A. E. Miller, 1822), 84.

  Maybe Holland had the Brown Fellowship Society in mind: Thomas C. Holt, Black over White: Negro Political Leadership in South Carolina During Reconstruction (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1977), 65–67.

  White and Light only barbershops: See Hayes Johnson, Dusk at the Mountain (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963); and Chris Myers Asch and George Derek Musgrove, Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation’s Capital (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2017).

  After slavery, Light people were wealthier: See Johnson, Soul by Soul.

  dozens of cities had “Blue Vein” societies: Willard B. Gatewood, Aristocrats of Color: The Black Elite, 1880–1920 (Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press, 2000), 163.

  “not white enough to show blue veins”: Charles W. Chesnutt, “The Wife of His Youth,” The Atlantic Monthly, July 1898, 55.

  Light people reproduced the paper-bag test, pencil test, door test, and comb test: Kathy Russell, Midge Wilson, and Ronald Hall, The Color Complex: The Politics of Skin Color Among African Americans (New York: Anchor Books, 1992), 27.

  Carroll considered the interracial intercourse: See Charles Carroll, “The Negro a Beast”; Or, “In the Image of God” (St. Louis: American Book and Bible House, 1900).

  framing Dark people as committing “more horrible crimes”: George T. Winston, “The Relation of the Whites to the Negroes,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 18 (July 1901), 108–9.

  biracial people were responsible for all Black achievements: Edward B. Reuter, The Mulatto in the United States (Boston: R. G. Badger, 1918).

  Marcus Garvey and his fast-growing Universal Negro Improvement Association: See Tony Martin, Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (Dover, MA: Greenwood Press, 1976).

  “American Negroes recognize no color line in or out of the race”: W.E.B. Du Bois, “Marcus Garvey,” The Crisis, January 1921.

  “If you’re white, you’re right”: Daryl Cumber Dance, ed., From My People: 400 Years of African American Folklore (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003), 484.

  his own “Talented Tenth” essay in 1903: See W.E.B. Du Bois, “The Talented Tenth,” in The Negro Problem: A Series of Articles by Representative American Negroes of Today (New York: James Pott & Company, 1903), 31–76.

  the Dark masses needed “proper grooming”: See Charlotte Hawkins Brown, “Clipping,” Charlotte Hawkins Brown Papers, Reel 2, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, MA; and Constance Hill Mareena, Lengthening Shadow of a Woman: A Biography of Charlotte Hawkins Brown (Hicksville, NY: Exposition Press, 1977).

  John McWhorter’s avowal of a post-racial America: John McWhorter, “Racism in American Is Over,” Forbes, December 30, 2008, available at www.forbes.com/​2008/​12/​30/​end-of-racism-oped-cx_jm_1230mcwhorter.html#50939eb949f
8.

  shied away from defending the dark and poor Scottsboro Boys: “Why the Communist Party Defended the Scottsboro Boys,” History Stories, May 1, 2018, available at www.history.com/​news/​scottsboro-boys-naacp-communist-party.

  “unmixed” Negroes were “inferior, infinitely inferior now”: David Levering Lewis, W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919–1963 (New York: Macmillan, 2000), 341.

  “Walter White is white”: W.E.B. Du Bois, “Segregation in the North,” The Crisis, April 1934.

  “I had joined that multitude of Negro men and women in America”: Malcolm X recalled in Malcolm X and Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (New York: Random House, 2015), 64.

  Skin-lightening products received a boost: Ayana D. Byrd and Lori L. Tharps, Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2002), 44–47.

  Some Dark people took too much pride in Darkness: For example, see George Napper, Blacker Than Thou: The Struggle for Campus Unity (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1973).

  Light children were adopted first: Russell-Cole, Wilson, and Hall, The Color Complex, 37–39, 51–53, 90–91; Byrd and Tharps, Hair Story, 112.

  “The lighter the skin, the lighter the sentence”: Russell-Cole, Wilson, and Hall, The Color Complex, 38.

  Imus compared Rutgers’s Dark basketball players: “Networks Condemn Remarks by Imus,” The New York Times, April 7, 2007.

  casting call for the movie Straight Outta Compton: “The ‘Straight Outta Compton’ Casting Call Is So Offensive It Will Make Your Jaw Drop,” Huffington Post, July 17, 2014, available at www.huffingtonpost.com/​2014/​07/​17/​straight-out-of-compton-casting-call_n_5597010.html.

  Skin-bleaching products were raking in millions: “Lighter Shades of Skin,” The Economist, September 28, 2012, available at www.economist.com/​baobab/​2012/​09/​28/​lighter-shades-of-skin.

  In India, “fairness” creams topped $200 million: “Telling India’s Modern Women They Have Power, Even Over Their Skin Tone,” The New York Times, May 30, 2007.

  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: See “Mercury in Skin Lightening Products,” News Ghana, June 13, 2012, available at www.newsghana.com.gh/​mercury-in-skin-lightening-products/.

  the United States elected the “orange man”: See “NeNe Leakes Once Liked Donald Trump but Not ‘This Orange Man Talking on TV,’ ” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, September 7, 2016.

  tanning bed every morning: “Omarosa Manigault Newman Says Trump Uses a Tanning Bed in the White House Every Morning,” People, August 14, 2018, available at people.com/​politics/​omarosa-trump-daily-routine-tanning-bed-diet-coke-unhinged/.

  Surveys show that people consider tanned skin…more attractive: Cynthia M. Frisby, “ ‘Shades of Beauty’: Examining the Relationship of Skin Color to Perceptions of Physical Attractiveness,” Facial Plastic Surgery 22:3 (August 2006), 175–79.

  Chapter 10: White

  Jeb Bush’s termination of affirmative-action programs: “Jeb Bush Roils Florida on Affirmative Action,” The New York Times, February 4, 2000, available at www.nytimes.com/​2000/​02/​04/​us/​jeb-bush-roils-florida-on-affirmative-action.html.

  Al Gore’s winning face flash on the screen: “The 2000 Elections: The Media; A Flawed Call Adds to High Drama,” The New York Times, November 8, 2000, available at www.nytimes.com/​2000/​11/​08/​us/​the-2000-elections-the-media-a-flawed-call-adds-to-high-drama.html.

  a narrow lead in Florida of 1,784 votes: “Examining the Vote; How Bush Took Florida: Mining the Overseas Absentee Vote,” The New York Times, July 15, 2001, available at www.nytimes.com/​2001/​07/​15/​us/​examining-the-vote-how-bush-took-florida-mining-the-overseas-absentee-vote.html.

  stories of FAMU students and their families back home not being able to vote: For example, see “FAMU Students Protest Election Day Mishaps in Florida,” Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, December 7, 2000, available at diverseeducation.com/​article/​1034/; and “Florida A&M Students Describe Republican Attack on Voting Rights,” World Socialist Web Site, December 6, 2000, available at www.wsws.org/​en/​articles/​2000/​12/​flor-d06.html.

  11 percent of registered voters but comprised 44 percent of the purge list: Ari Berman, “How the 2000 Election in Florida Led to a New Wave of Voter Disenfranchisement,” The Nation, July 28, 2015, available at www.thenation.com/​article/​how-the-2000-election-in-florida-led-to-a-new-wave-of-voter-disenfranchisement/.

  Palm Beach County: Henry E. Brady et al., “Law and Data: The Butterfly Ballot Episode,” in The Longest Night: Polemics and Perspectives on Election 2000, eds. Arthur J. Jacobson and Michel Rosenfeld (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002), 51.

  Florida’s highest percentage of Black voters and the highest spoilage rate: “1 Million Black Votes Didn’t Count in the 2000 Presidential Election,” San Francisco Chronicle, June 20, 2004, available at www.sfgate.com/​opinion/​article/​1-million-black-votes-didn-t-count-in-the-2000-2747895.php.

  a New York Times statistical analysis: “Examining the Vote: The Patterns; Ballots Cast by Blacks and Older Voters Were Tossed in Far Greater Numbers,” The New York Times, November 12, 2001.

  Ted Cruz served on Bush’s legal team: Ari Berman, Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2015), 210.

  a silent march of two thousand students: See “FAMU Students Protest Election Day Mishaps in Florida” and “Florida A&M Students Describe Republican Attack on Voting Rights.”

  Message to the Blackman in America: Elijah Muhammad, Message to the Blackman in America (Chicago: Muhammad Temple No. 2, 1965).

  According to the theology he espoused: For this story, I used the even clearer theology that Malcolm X espoused in his autobiography, as taught to him by Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm X and Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (New York: Random House, 2015), 190–94.

  “our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy”: “Gore: ‘It Is Time for Me to Go,’ ” The Guardian, December 14, 2000, available at www.theguardian.com/​world/​2000/​dec/​14/​uselections2000.usa14.

  “The white man is the devil”: Malcolm X and Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, 184–85.

  The Hate That Hate Produced: See “The Hate That Hate Produced (1959): Malcom X First TV Appearance,” available at www.youtube.com/​watch?v=BsYWD2EqavQ.

  “Never have I witnessed such”: Malcolm X, “Letters from Abroad,” in Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements, ed. George Breitman (New York: Grove Press, 1990), 59.

  “You may be shocked by these words”: Ibid., 61.

  “I totally reject Elijah Muhammad’s racist philosophy”: M. S. Handler, “Malcolm Rejects Racist Doctrine,” The New York Times, October 4, 1964.

  as the resistance within White nations shows: See, for example, Sarah Jaffee, Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt (New York: Nation Books, 2016).

  identified anti-White discrimination as a serious problem: “Majority of White Americans Say They Believe Whites Face Discrimination,” NPR, October 24, 2017, available at www.npr.org/​2017/​10/​24/​559604836/​majority-of-white-americans-think-theyre-discriminated-against.

  President Andrew Johnson reframed this antiracist bill: Andrew Johnson, “Veto of the Civil Rights Bill,” March 27, 1866, in Teaching American History, available at teachingamericanhistory.org/​library/​document/​veto-of-the-civil-rights-bill/.

  “hard-core racists of reverse discrimination”: Robert Bork, “The Unpersuasive Bakke Decision,” The Wall Street Journal, July 21, 1978.

  Alicia Garza typed “Black Lives Matter” on Facebook: “Meet the Woman Who Coined #BlackLivesM
atter,” USA Today, March 4, 2015, available at www.usatoday.com/​story/​tech/​2015/​03/​04/​alicia-garza-black-lives-matter/​24341593/.

  Giuliani called the movement “inherently racist”: “Rudy Giuliani: Black Lives Matter ‘Inherently Racist,’ ” CNN, July 11, 2016, available at edition.cnn.com/​2016/​07/​11/​politics/​rudy-giuliani-black-lives-matter-inherently-racist/​index.html.

  these ground troops shelling out racist abuse: “Living While Black,” CNN, December 28, 2018, available at www.cnn.com/​2018/​12/​20/​us/​living-while-black-police-calls-trnd/​index.html.

  bold black letters against a yellow background: “Where Does That Billboard Phrase, ‘Anti-Racist Is a Code Word for Anti-White,’ Come From? It’s Not New,” The Birmingham News, June 30, 2014, available at www.al.com/​news/​birmingham/​index.ssf/​2014/​06/​where_does_that_billboard_phra.html.

  Robert Whitaker, who ran for vice president: “Following the White Rabbit: Tim Murdock Sits Atop an Online Cult, Spreading Fears of ‘White Genocide’ That Have Fueled Violence and Terrorism,” Southern Poverty Law Center, August 21, 2013, available at www.splcenter.org/​fighting-hate/​intelligence-report/​2013/​following-white-rabbit.

  43 percent of the people who gained lifesaving health insurance: “Who Gained Health Insurance Coverage Under the ACA, and Where Do They Live,” Urban Institute, December 2016, available at www.urban.org/​sites/​default/​files/​publication/​86761/​2001041-who-gained-health-insurance-coverage-under-the-aca-and-where-do-they-live.pdf.

  destroyed the lives of more than forty million White people: “Research Starters: Worldwide Deaths in World War II,” The National WWII Museum, available at www.nationalww2museum.org/​students-teachers/​student-resources/​research-starters/​research-starters-worldwide-deaths-world-war.

  more than five hundred thousand White American lives lost: “The Cost of War: Killer, Wounded, Captured, and Missing,” American Battlefield Trust, available at www.battlefields.org/​learn/​articles/​civil-war-casualties.