How to Be an Antiracist

Kendi fondly remembers his Black women colleagues at Temple University, Doctors Kaila Story and Yaba Blay, who helped him address his internalized sexism and homophobia. In his upbringing, his family introduced mixed values that both upheld and challenged what Afro-Dutch scholar Philomena Essed called “gendered racism” (188). Kendi acknowledges, “I became a Black patriarch because my parents and the world around me did not strictly raise me to be a Black feminist” (183).

While Kendi describes his mother as a strong woman, his parents still viewed the growing number of Black children being born into single-parent households between the 1970s and the 1980s as an issue. Along with other liberals and conservatives, they blamed these growing numbers on the sexual irresponsibility of Black women and disregard of activist work of the 1960s.

These numbers have more to do with married Black women having fewer children throughout the 20th century. As times change, however, Kendi’s parents’ views eventually evolved to embrace more feminist ideas. In one instance, Kendi’s mother’s early protest of the language of submission in wedding vows set a precedent for equality in her marriage to Kendi’s father. She challenged Christian sexism as well, joining consciousness-raising groups for Christian women.

Kendi writes that Black women’s behavior has always been seen as problematic by conservatives and by Black men. In 1965, President Johnson’s assistant secretary of labor, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, published a government report called “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action,” which reported that ¼ of Black families were headed by women, which was twice the rate of White families. This was deemed “a crushing burden on the Negro male” (183). In 1994, the political scientist Charles Murray calculated that 68% of Black children were born into single-parent households, which he blamed on the “welfare system” (184).

Black women’s groups such as the Black Women’s Alliance in 1970 and the National Black Feminist Organization in 1973—along with Black women’s caucuses in Black power and women’s liberation groups—were formed to combat the sexism in Black spaces and racism in women’s spaces. In 1974, several Black women separated from the National Black Feminist Organization to form the Combahee River Collective. Members Barbara Smith, Demita Frazier, and Beverly Smith drafted a statement publicly declaring a platform for queer liberation, feminism, and antiracism, which was not commonly heard of at the time. They wrote, “Our politics initially sprang from the shared belief that Black women are inherently valuable” (187), joining a legacy of Black women publicly declaring their rights, including Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells, and Anna Julia Cooper. This statement was part of the anthology The Black Woman edited by Toni Cade Bambara, which included works by other prominent Black women such as Audre Lorde, Nikki Giovanni, and Alice Walker.

Racism and sexism continue to negatively impact Black women. In 1991, Anita Hill accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment, highlighting the violence that Black men and White people can inflict upon Black women.

In 1991, UCLA critical race theorist Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw introduced the term “intersectionality” (188) in her article, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color” in the Stanford Law Review. In it, she writes, “Although racism and sexism readily intersect in the lives of real people, they seldom do in feminist and antiracist practices” (188). The concept of intersectionality gave language for other marginalized groups to talk about intersections of racism, sexism, and homophobia.

Kendi proposes that to talk about injustice towards Black women, it is important to consider identifying Black women as a “race-gender” (188) as issues of race and gender cannot be separate for Black women. Black women suffer at the hands of Black men and White people alike. Black women are victims of high sterilization rates by the state. Black and Native women also experience higher poverty levels than any other race-gender group. Further, single White women’s median incomes are significantly higher than single Black women’s incomes.

Gendered racism does not only impact Black women but also White women and Black men. Gendered racism portrays White women as weak, leading to antagonistic attitudes towards strong White women—like Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election. The portrayal of White women as virtuous is also what has historically turned many Black men into the target of rape accusations when they are hypersexualized alongside virginal White women.

Since issues of race and gender entwine, Kendi concludes by stating that to be a feminist is to be an antiracist and vice versa.

Kendi reflects on his graduate school years where he learned to undo his internalized homophobia. His best friend and colleague, Weckea, is a Black gay man though Kendi did not realize it until his friend Raena informed him. When Kendi found out Weckea was gay, he was surprised his friend did not possess the stereotypical feminine traits he associated with gay men. He realized that to continue to be friends with Weckea, he had to challenge his homophobia. He learned from Kaila and Yaba about “gender being an authentic performance” (195) and opened himself to becoming a better ally to queer and transgender people.

Kendi discusses the long history of homophobia’s connection to racism. British physician Havelock Ellis coined the term “homosexual” and deemed homosexuality a “congenital physiological abnormality” (193). This idea, coupled with 19th century Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso’s criminalization of White homosexuality, has contributed to present-day pathologizing and criminalization of homosexuality. Furthermore, these ideas also assume biological difference or abnormality with queer bodies, which Kendi argues bears similarities to the ways in which non-White bodies are deemed deviant. When it comes to queer Black people, then this sense of abnormality compounds. Additionally, Black transwomen suffer violence on multiple levels for their gender, sexuality, and race.

Kendi feared critique—especially by colleagues he admired like Kaila and Yaba—for his lack of knowledge about gender and sexuality. He is grateful for his queer Black women colleagues who accepted him and encouraged him to undo his internalized ideas about gender, sex, and race. He realizes that “[t]o be queer antiracist is to understand the privileges of my cisgender, of my masculinity, of my heterosexuality, of their intersections” (197).