Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You

Having read Kendi’s “Stamped From the Beginning” and greatly enjoyed it, I was intrigued to see this ‘remix’ available, and wondered about it enough to decide to have a look. It did not take long to realize that this is not something that adds to or supplements Kendi’s original work; rather, it is a reworking, clearly designed to be more ‘readable’: shorter, more engaging, covering the key points in considerably less detail. The author writes in a ‘speaking to the reader’ style. I realized that this was meant to get the same message across to people who did not want to read a 600-page history book (this book is a 250-page book with plenty of white space). From the back cover: “Through a gripping, fast-paced, and energizing narrative that speaks to young people as only Jason Reynolds can…” I was like, ah, there it is : “speaks to young people.” That’s the audience this book is for. So, I would say that if you have the time and attention span to read a well-researched and thorough account of racist ideas throughout American history, read Stamped From the Beginning. If you don’t want to devote the time to that but want to get the main ideas, by all means go ahead and read this book.

I have studied history in graduate school and taught history in high school. I found this book to be wildly wrong about a number of people and events in American history. For example, Kendi and Reynolds’ claims about the early New England settlers is just flat out wrong. It’s true that there were slaveholders in New England in the early days of this country, but there were not many and the few who did hold slaves were far outside the mainstream of New England thought, in particular they were a long way from being affirmed and accepted by the New England Puritans, such as Jonathan Edwards. Other examples of bizarre thinking include the author’s take on the color white as a symbol of virtue, purity, innocence and superiority is clearly true in some contexts, but clearly not true in other contexts. It can also be seen as a symbol of vapidity, emptiness, boredom, etc. In a similar way, any other color, including black is good in some cases (‘in the black’ for profit, the Jesus seminar uses black to represent the true words of Jesus, etc.) and bad or ‘badass’ in others (Johnny Cash as the man in black, blackguard, etc.). It is dangerously disingenuous and silly to argue that because some symbolic uses of white are good and some symbolic uses of black are bad that the whole culture is tipped in the direction of “white” people. My biggest concern: this is going to mislead a generation of students, and create even more racial strife in our culture. We need to learn to relate to each other as individuals not as pawns of culture.

This text is engineered to divide people into categories, using extreme binary “with us or against us” thinking. Protect your children from high schools that are assigning this to 9th graders as *mandatory* reading. The logic of this book is to leverage compassion and guilt in order to create young shock troops for the upcoming revolution. This is the kind of book that makes Charles Manson look prophetic. You reap what you sow. My advice: Buy this book because in 5 years our children will be taking this as gospel. Arm yourself against this dangerous nonsense, and teach your children to read this, and read it critically.

Reynolds’s writing is superb. Kendi’s thinking transforms your world. The book grabs you and holds on to the end.

Together, the two make the case that the construct of race has always been used to gain and keep power, whether financially or politically (p. 245). They begin with a story about the worlds first racist, Gomes Eanes de Zuraras popular 1415 biography of the Portuguese Prince Henry framed the enslavement of Africans as an opportunity to engage in missionary work, to save souls. He positioned the Africans as lesser and the story goes on from there. Kendi believes that people fall into three categories regarding thoughts, beliefs on racethe racist (the real haters), the assimilationists (people who like you (Black people), but only with quotation marksbecause youre like them), and the antiracists (they love you because youre like you). It seems that rarely do we fit into one category. Instead, over the course of a lifetime and (even over the course of a day), people can take on and act out ideas represented by more than one of these three identities. Can be both, and (p. 3-4). Reynolds and Kendi tell story after story about how the racial constructs of these three groups, over time have influenced how people think. In less than 250 pages, the book covers six hundred years of history, with story after story of how this happened.

DON’T SKIP REYNOLDS’ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AT THE END – it’s a call to action. He writes to his audience –
“But I have to warn you:
Scrolling will never be enough.
Reposting will never be enough.
Hashtagging will never be enough.
Because hatred has a way of convincing us that half love is whole. What I mean by that is we–all of us–have to fight against performance and lean in to participation.” p. 253

There’s so much I didn’t know about how my life and thinking as a white woman born and living in the United States have been shaped by the racist beliefs, policies and stories told by others. Yes, I knew some of it, but this book revealed once again and ever more powerfully the troubling depth of this issue.

Highly recommend for high school and college classrooms–the teachers and the students.

This is an incredible book explaining, in short, a history that should be required reading for everyone. It really shouldnt just be a teen book as I didnt find it that way and very much enjoyed the style and pace of the book, I read it in full in one sitting. Also, I have found it quite humours reading through the negative reviews of people whos children had to read it as it was required reading at school. Clearly they should be the ones to be required to read this rather than judging!

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