Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You

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Plot

This book reveals the history of racist ideas in America, and inspires hope for an antiracist future. It takes you on a race journey from then to now, shows you why we feel how we feel, and why the poison of racism lingers. It also proves that while racist ideas have always been easy to fabricate and distribute, they can also be discredited. [1]

Pros

The New York Times Book Review - Kaitlyn Greenidge Reynolds's engaging, clear prose shines a light on difficult and confusing subjects, including anti-blackness and the creation of racial capitalism. Terms like "segregationist," "integrationist" and "anti-racist" are defined in direct, accessible language, becoming real tools for a reader to take from the book. This is no easy feat. These ideas are the water that we all swim in. But the book's pauses of white space and radical changes in font and text size force the reader to stop and really consider what is being deconstructed.

Reynolds (Look Both Ways) lends his signature flair to remixing Kendi’s award-winning Stamped from the Beginning into a powerful “not a history book” primer on the historical roots and present-day manifestations of antiblack racism in America. In five sections, Reynolds’s conversational text discusses the influential figures, movements, and events that have propagated racist ideas, beginning in 1415 with the publication of the infamous work that laid the groundwork for subsequent religious justifications of enslaving African peoples and continuing through the “war on drugs” and #BlackLivesMatter. Employing a format that hews closely to Kendi’s original, Reynolds discusses and differentiates between segregationist (“a hater”), assimilationist (“a coward”), and antiracist (“someone who truly loves”) rhetoric via figures such as Angela Davis, W.E.B. DuBois, Thomas Jefferson, and Cotton Mather. Short chapters, lively phrasing (“You know what hits do—they spread”), and intentional breaks (“Time Out,” “Let’s all just take a deep breath”) help maintain a brisk, compelling pace. Told impressively economically, loaded with historical details that connect clearly to current experiences, and bolstered with suggested reading and listening selected specifically for young readers, [2]