How to Be an Antiracist

In 2007, Kendi spoke at Temple University’s Black Student Union meeting to plan an action for the release of the Jena 6. The Jena 6 were six Black boys accused of beating a White boy after nooses were hung at a schoolyard tree in Jena, Louisiana as a warning to Black students. The Jena 6 faced an all-White jury where one of the boys was found guilty and assigned a 22-year sentence. Kendi, along with the other Black students at the meeting, were furious about the racist verdict. Kendi proposed a national action that would include a mass automobile caravan to Washington D.C., occupying the streets leading to the White House to apply pressure on the administration. Although others challenged his idea as it posed too much of a safety risk, Kendi remained adamant. He realizes now that his unwillingness to hear other people’s justifiable fear of arrest was “not radical at all” (211).

In reflecting on this experience in graduate school, Kendi discusses the major flaws of efforts towards social change. For him, the best antiracist strategies attack racism as a source of power, but the type of change most people are accustomed to is “uplift suasion” (202).