America may have come a long way in the struggle against racism, but one historian believes the country still has a long way to go. His new book envisions a path forward toward an “antiracist” future.
Ibram X. Kendi, author of the recently-published “How to Be an Antiracist,” spoke Feb. 4 at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He outlined ideas from his book and expanded on them to lay out a plan for Americans to move forward in the fight for equality.
One of Kendi’s central ideas, as stated in his speech and in his book, is that to be “not racist” is to simply take an on-the-fence position and enable racism. He spoke passionately that both racists and those who stand for gradual elimination of racism contribute to the problem by seeing those of other races as less than fully human.
“Since they imagine them as not only inferior by nature, they imagine black people as pretty much like animals, like beasts,” Kendi said, “they have long been advocating for slaveholding policies, for segregating policies, for incarcerating policies, for deporting policies, for killing policies, that gets these beasts as far away from humans, meaning white, as possible.”
In order to promote racial equality, Kendi encourages people to be actively “antiracist”, which means to identifying, exposing, and criticizing racist ideas wherever they can be found.
“Denial is the heartbeat of racism,” Kendi said.
“You get yourself thinking a certain way, even though you may not feel hateful toward a certain race, or even homophobic or against immigrants,” said UNO student Jabin Moore, “it can still be racist or have racist connotations.”
Taricka Burton, interim director of Multicultural Affairs at UNO, said Kendi is “exactly what we need as we push forward the diversity and inclusion mission that we have here on
campus at UNO, and what we represent and want to represent at UNO.”
