The National Book Award winning history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society.
Some Americans insist that we're living in a post-racial society. But racist thought is not just alive and well in America — it is more sophisticated and more insidious than ever. And as award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi argues, racist ideas have a long and lingering history, one in which nearly every great American thinker is complicit.
In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. He uses the life stories of five major American intellectuals to drive this history: Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and legendary activist Angela Davis.
As Kendi shows, racist ideas did not arise from ignorance or hatred. They were created to …
The National Book Award winning history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society.
Some Americans insist that we're living in a post-racial society. But racist thought is not just alive and well in America — it is more sophisticated and more insidious than ever. And as award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi argues, racist ideas have a long and lingering history, one in which nearly every great American thinker is complicit.
In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. He uses the life stories of five major American intellectuals to drive this history: Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and legendary activist Angela Davis.
As Kendi shows, racist ideas did not arise from ignorance or hatred. They were created to justify and rationalize deeply entrenched discriminatory policies and the nation's racial inequities.
In shedding light on this history, Stamped from the Beginning offers us the tools we need to expose racist thinking. In the process, he gives us reason to hope.
Completed book #5 in my 2022 #FReadom list of books banned or challenged in Texas libraries and schools: Ibram X Kendi's thoroughly researched and educational Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in Americawww.ibramxkendi.com/stamped
In this book, Kendi upends the myth that hateful people originate racist ideas which result in discrimination. It lays out a compelling historical case that discrimination (in service of power or self-interest) drives racist ideas, which then in turn drive hate.
This book eloquently chronicles the whole, bitter history of racism, connecting all these events together in an engaging progression of racist and antiracist thought and actions over the years. It expertly exposes the shortcomings of various attacks on racism and shows the ways in which racist power has been able to continue largely uninterrupted for such a long time.
Review of 'Stamped from the Beginning' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
I just finished Dr. Kendi’s phenomenal book, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. In the book, Kendi makes three distinct schools of thought regarding race obvious: segregation, assimilation, and antiracist. Segregationists seek to separate the races. Assimilationists seek to force non-white races to take on white culture as their own. Antiracists see that race is a false construct bolstered by racism and bad science. Antiracists seek to eliminate the disparities between racial groups to create an egalitarian society.
Dr. Kendi explores the ideas of segmentation, assimilation, and antiracism throughout American history through five individuals: Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and legendary activist Angela Davis.
Kendi concludes by discussing the antiracist goal of eliminating disparities between racial groups. Historically, antiracists have sought to use moral suasion, uplift, and education to encourage Americans to pursue the elimination of …
I just finished Dr. Kendi’s phenomenal book, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. In the book, Kendi makes three distinct schools of thought regarding race obvious: segregation, assimilation, and antiracist. Segregationists seek to separate the races. Assimilationists seek to force non-white races to take on white culture as their own. Antiracists see that race is a false construct bolstered by racism and bad science. Antiracists seek to eliminate the disparities between racial groups to create an egalitarian society.
Dr. Kendi explores the ideas of segmentation, assimilation, and antiracism throughout American history through five individuals: Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and legendary activist Angela Davis.
Kendi concludes by discussing the antiracist goal of eliminating disparities between racial groups. Historically, antiracists have sought to use moral suasion, uplift, and education to encourage Americans to pursue the elimination of racial disparities. These strategies have failed. As in his other work, Kendi concludes that Antiracist political power must be used to eliminate racist policies and create antiracist policies in the interest of creating a more egalitarian society.
