The difference between being "not racist" and antiracist

Cloe Shasha: So welcome, Ibram,

and thank you so much for joining us.

Ibram X. Kendi: Well thank you, Cloe,
and thank you Whitney,

and thank you everyone
for joining this conversation.

And so, a few weeks ago,

on the same day we learned
about the brutal murder of George Floyd,

we also learned that
a white woman in Central Park

who chose not to leash her dog

and was told by a black man nearby
that she needed to leash her dog,

instead decided
to threaten this black male,

instead decided to call the police

and claim that her life
was being threatened.

And of course, when we learned
about that through a video,

many Americans were outraged,

and this woman, Amy Cooper,

ended up going on national TV

and saying,

like countless other Americans have said
right after they engaged in a racist act,

"I am not racist."

And I say countless Americans

because when you really think
about the history of Americans

expressing racist ideas,

supporting racist policies,

you're really talking about
a history of people

who have claimed they're not racist,

because everyone claims
that they're not racist,

whether we're talking about
the Amy Coopers of the world,

whether we're talking about Donald Trump,

who, right after he said
that majority-black Baltimore

is a rat and rodent-infested mess
that no human being would want to live in,

and he was challenged as being racist,

he said, actually, I'm the least racist
person anywhere in the world.

And so really the heartbeat
of racism itself

has always been denial,

and the sound of that heartbeat

has always been, "I'm not racist."

And so what I'm trying to do with my work

is to really get Americans
to eliminate the concept of "not racist"

from their vocabulary,

and realize we're either being racist

or anti-racist.

We're either expressing ideas
that suggest certain racial groups

are better or worse than others,

superior or inferior than others.

We're either being racist,

or we're being anti-racist.

We're expressing notions
that the racial groups are equals,

despite any cultural
or even ethnic differences.

We're either supporting
policies that are leading

to racial inequities and injustice,

like we saw in Louisville,
where Breonna Taylor was murdered,

or we're supporting policies
and pushing policies

that are leading to justice
and equity for all.

And so I think we should be very clear

about whether we're
expressing racist ideas,

about whether we're
supporting racist policies,

and admit when we are,

because to be anti-racist

is to admit when
we expressed a racist idea,

is to say, you know what?

When I was doing that in Central Park,

I was indeed being racist.

But I'm going to change.

I'm going to strive to be anti-racist.

And to be racist

is to constantly deny

the racial inequities
that pervade American society,

to constantly deny the racist ideas
that pervade American minds.

And so I want to built
a just and equitable society,

and the only way we're going
to even begin that process

is if we admit our racism

and start building an anti-racist world.

Thank you.

CS: Thank you so much for that.

You know, your book,
"How To Be An Anti-Racist,"

has become a bestseller
in light of what's been happening,

and you've been speaking a bit

to the ways in which
anti-racism and racism

are the only two polar opposite ways
to hold a view on races.

I'm curious if you
could talk a little bit more

about what the basic tenets
of anti-racism are,

for people who aren't as familiar with it
in terms of how they can be anti-racist.

IXK: Sure. And so I mentioned in my talk

that the heartbeat of racism is denial,

and really the heartbeat
of anti-racism is confession,

is the recognition

that to grow up in this society

is to literally at some point in our lives

probably internalize
ideas that are racist,

ideas that suggest certain racial groups
are better or worse than others,

and because we believe
in racial hierarchy,

because Americans have been
systematically taught

that black people are more dangerous,

that black people are more criminal-like,

when we live in a society
where black people

are 40 percent of the national
incarcerated population,

that's going to seem normal to people.

When we live in a society

in a city like Minneapolis

where black people
are 20 percent of the population

but more than 60 percent of the people
being subjected to police shootings,

it's going to seem normal.

And so to be anti-racist

is to believe that there's nothing wrong

or inferior about black people
or any other racial group.

There's nothing dangerous

about black people
or any other racial group.

And so when we see these
racial disparities all around us,

we see them as abnormal,

and then we start to figure out, OK,
what policies are behind

so many black people
being killed by police.

What policies are behind
so many Latinx people

being disproportionately
infected with COVID?

How can I be a part of the struggle

to upend those policies and replace them
with more anti-racist policies?

Whitney Pennington Rodgers:
And so it sounds like

you do make that distinction, then,
between not racist and anti-racist.

I guess, could you talk a little bit
more about that and break that down?

What is the difference between the two?

IXK: