Book Review: Antiracist Baby

Ibram X. Kendi – a 2016 National Book Award winner –  is perhaps best known for his best selling handbook, “How to be an Antiracist.” Now Professor Kendi is a faculty member at Boston University, where he will serve as the founding director for Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research.

His latest published work is a children’s book titled “Antiracist Baby.” With colorful illustrations by Ashley Lukashevsky, the eye-catching drawings and easily read text (in rhyming couplets, no less) offers “nine steps” to achieving an antiracist mindset (aimed at toddlers – who will enjoy the rhymes and vivid, but simple depictions – to grandparents who may learn a thing or nine themselves).

Here’s a quick summary:

Lesson 1. Open your eyes to all skin colors. (Claiming a color-blind view of the world denies reality.)

Lesson 2. Use your words to talk about race (we must name racism to stop the violence surrounding it).

Lesson 3. Point at policies as the problem, not people (because policies don’t always allow for equal access).

Lesson 4. Shout, “There’s nothing wrong with people!” (Each of us are human beings.)

Lesson 5. Celebrate all our differences (Antiracist Baby loves a world that’s diverse).

Lesson 6. Knock down the stack of cultural blocks. (Antiracist Baby welcomes all groups voicing their unique views.)

Lesson 7. Confess when being racist. (Nothing disrupts racism more than when we confess the racist ideas we sometimes express.)

Lesson 8. Grow to be an antiracist. (Antiracist Baby is always learning, growing and changing.)

Lesson 9. Believe we will overcome racism. (Antiracist Baby is filled with the power to transcend...And doesn’t judge a book by its cover, but reads to THE END.)

The nine lessons are easy to comprehend and enjoyable to read and the pictures are a delightful sight, making the lessons easy to grasp. The final two pages of “Antiracist Baby” are offered by Professor Kendi as a teaching guide for parents and caregivers. A short list of queries and discussion points, such as, “Ask your child: ‘When you imagine a farmer, a teacher, or an astronaut – what do they look like?’” The last bit of advice Professor Kendi offers is this: “Remember to talk to your kids about how people aren’t just ‘racist’ or ‘antiracist,’ but rather how their actions can be racist or antiracist.”

Here’s my poetic assessment of Ibram X. Kendi’s important guide to behaving in an antiracist way:

The lessons are nine

And they’re meant to refine.

Our behaviors you see

To improve society.

We each play our parts

So let us speak from our hearts.

Honestly

You and me

Us and we

United we stand

Divided we fall

Let us all heed

This antiracist call...

“Antiracist Baby” is on sale wherever books are sold.

ISBN: 97805953110508

ben@beachcomber.news