Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America (National Book Award Winner) Paperback – August 15, 2017

The author posits that there are really 3 sides to the debate of racial disparities existing and persisting. The three sides are segregationists, assimilationists and antiracists. His definition of racism,i.e., the adoption of racist ideas is a simple one, and as such you will see some famous people that will surprise you to be labeled as racist at points in their career. W.E.B. DuBois is certainly a name most readers would never associate with being a "racist" during his long illustrious career.

One thing that is most important in these kinds of arguments, is for everyone to be operating from the same definition. So to the author's credit he states his explanation of racist ideas early. Keep in mind, we are not talking about racism, but racist ideas and how these ideas have affected and infected not only Americans but world citizens. "My definition of a racist idea is a simple one: it is any concept that regards one racial group as inferior or superior to another racial group in any way. I define anti-Black racist ideas—the subject of this book—as any idea suggesting that Black people, or any group of Black people, are inferior in any way to another racial group."

With that in mind,author Ibram Kendi compiles a comprehensive history of racist ideas, using historical "tour guides " to traffic readers through a landscape beginning in mid 1600 to present day. Kendi here makes a powerful statement with this book about how these racist ideas have led to continuing racist discrimination.

"I held racist notions of Black inferiority before researching and writing this book. Racist ideas are ideas. Anyone can produce them or consume them, as Stamped from the Beginning’s interracial cast of producers and consumers show...Fooled by racist ideas, I did not fully realize that the only thing wrong with Black people is that we think something is wrong with Black people.I did not fully realize that the only thing extraordinary about White people is that they think something is extraordinary about White people."

That's a potent admission for someone writing the "definitive" history of racist ideas. But I think it is important to this wonderful work by Kendi. As he goes about exposing these ideas, readers may be surprised to find themselves subscribing to ideas that, by Kendi's definition are clearly racist. As we move through the five eras, with our guides, you will be fascinated as these ideas and the consequences of them are brought to light. Thoughts that you have given little attention to, and have become part of your consciousness will hopefully be liberated.

Something that black people generally do when they hear some terrible news item, one of the initial thoughts is hoping the perpetrators are not Black. Does that hope spring from our buying into the racist idea that Black people are pathological? And we will be judged by the actions of the perpetrators and therefore be seen as defective? Is this a racist idea?

"Already, the American mind was accomplishing that indispensable intellectual activity of someone consumed with racist ideas: individualizing White negativity and generalizing Black negativity. Negative behavior by any Black person became proof of what was wrong with Black people, while negative behavior by any White person only proved what was wrong with that person."

All the ways that racist ideas have worked hand in hand with discrimination are unearthed here. And it may come as a surprise to some that prominent Black leaders of their day held tightly to racist ideas, like uplift suasion. The concept that "was based on the idea that White people could be persuaded away from their racist ideas if they saw Black people improving their behavior, uplifting themselves from their low station in American society. The burden of race relations was placed squarely on the shoulders of Black Americans. Positive Black behavior, abolitionist strategists held, undermined racist ideas, and negative Black behavior confirmed them."

Sounds a lot like today's concept of respectability politics, if we would just pull our pants up, stop listening to that damn music, not be so loud, etc. etc. If we would just present ourselves in a more respectable manner, we could then usher in that post-racial epoch that some say is already here.

The journey through the racist idea history has to include the players and events of the time periods covered and Kendi does a good job of incorporating that history and integrating the ideas that girded those times. The book clocks in at 500 pages, but it is well worth your time and investment.

About halfway through reading this book, I realized I was highlighting almost every single page and had to start color-coding my highlights so as to make a little more sense of why certain passages struck me—a visual testimony of how illuminating Stamped from the Beginning is. With a primary focus on racism toward African-Americans and people identified as Black, this book is a thoroughly researched, sweepingly comprehensive survey of racism from its first traceable roots in ancient Greece when Aristotle said Africans had “burnt faces” to the start of the African slave trade in 15th century Europe, to the first recorded slave ship arriving in colonial America in 1619, all the way through the Civil War, the Jim Crow laws, the 1960s Civil Rights movement, and up to the present day. In order to help readers navigate this extensive timeline, author Ibram X. Kendi divides the book into five parts, featuring one historical figure as a sort of tour guide or anchor for each part.

Very few individuals or institutions mentioned in this book come off as completely free of racist thinking; even many abolitionists and civil rights activists are revealed to have held racist ideas that contradicted their cause. This made me realize the extent to which racism has ensnared the United States in its pernicious roots. In Stamped from the Beginning, Kendi presents two main ideas about racism that helped me understand its influence and progress over the centuries. First, he explains that “Hate and ignorance have not driven the history of racist ideas in America. Racist policies have driven the history of racist ideas in America.” The author admits, “I was taught the popular folktale of racism: that ignorant and hateful people had produced racist ideas, and that these racist people had instituted racist policies. But when I learned the motives behind the production of many of America’s most influentially racist ideas, it became quite obvious that this folktale, though sensible, was not based on a firm footing of historical evidence.” As Kendi explains further, “Racially discriminatory policies have usually sprung from economic, political, and cultural self-interests, self-interests that are constantly changing.” Now that I understand self-interest—not hate or ignorance—has been the driving factor behind racist policies, I can better understand why racism hasn’t died out with the Emancipation Proclamation or desegregation or any of the Civil Rights Acts passed in this country. Tragically, racism persists and continues to evolve according to the current self-interests of people and institutions in power. It’s why, after slavery was abolished, segregation and the Jim Crow laws rushed in to replace it, and long after segregation has been outlawed, African-Americans continue to be oppressed by disproportionate mass incarceration as well as disadvantaged by fewer, inferior housing and employment opportunities.

Second, Kendi points out that racism is not simply a debate between those who support racist ideas and those who oppose racist ideas. Throughout history, three–not two–viewpoints on racism have persisted: “A group we can call segregationists has blamed Black people themselves for the racial disparities. A group we can call antiracists has pointed to racial discrimination. A group we can call assimilationists has tried to argue for both, saying that Black people and racial discrimination were to blame for racial disparities.” As much as I would like to believe I am firmly in the antiracist camp, reading this book made me realize I have held a lot of racist ideas from an assimilationist viewpoint that I need to correct. Kendi gives many examples of well-meaning civil rights activists, including some African-Americans, who upheld assimilationist ideas. Some persisted with these ideas their entire lives, others realized their error and later self-corrected to an antiracist viewpoint, and still others upheld both antiracist and assimilationist ideas, often not realizing the contradiction. Thus, a tragic pattern that has repeated itself throughout American history is the persistence of many assimilationists in seeking to abolish racist policies and ideas with the same flawed strategies that never work.

Indeed, the African-American author admits, “Even though I am an African studies historian and have been tutored all my life in egalitarian spaces, I held racist notions of Black inferiority before researching and writing this book.” I think it’s crucially important that Kendi tells readers about his mistaken notions of race—not to make readers feel better about their own ignorance, but to demonstrate how deeply racist ideas have taken root in American culture. Hopefully this admission on the author’s part will ease readers out of their defensive mode and open their minds to the disturbing truth that racism is a lot more pervasive among us Americans than we would like to believe.

If you want to understand exactly how racism took root in the United States and why it has persisted through the present day, if you are prepared for a very sobering, very painful, and often highly disturbing look at the many flaws, hypocrisies, and atrocities in the American notions of democracy, exceptionalism, and “liberty and justice for all,” then Stamped from the Beginning is a must-read. Ultimately, what the author conveys with copious examples is that “Black Americans’ history of oppression has made Black opportunities—not Black people—inferior.” An absolutely necessary emendation to the traditionally accepted canon of American history.

This wonderful book provide a clear and readable history of racism that everyone and especially Americans should read. As a white immigrant Christian of moderate means, I am among those who conveniently succumbed to the implicit racism of America, and was repeatedly shocked by the rapier insights Kendi offers in this critical review of racism in America from early slavers to the Constitution, segregationists, abolitionists, assimilationists, and modern white supremacists. No one is safe from his bright light on the blatant and subtle forms of racism, from Jefferson, to Du Bois, to MLK, and Angela Davis, and now to the racism of Trump, who hides his otherwise ebullient racism by calling blacks "Thugs". What shocks me most is how naïve I am in believing I hold antiracist positions, only to discover that Kendi's critique blows holes into some of my beliefs. If I can be so naïve, perhaps so can you. This is a thoughtful and detailed historical summary that helps explain so many of America's current trends and ideologies.