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How did it come to this? A racial reckoning. An antiracist revolution. My cover essay for the Sept. issue @TheAtlantic argues America is ending its denial. No president has caused more Americans to stop denying the existence of racism than Donald Trump. 1/
theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
As Trump’s horrific presidency hopefully nears its end, Americans should be thankful to him in only one respect. He has shown Americans what Americans did not want to see. 2/
theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
He has held up a mirror to American society, and it has reflected back a grotesque image that too many people had until now refused to see: an image not just of the racism still coursing through the country, but also of the reflex to deny that reality. 3/
theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
Big shifts in views of race were already under way before the COVID-19 disparities became clear and these latest examples of police violence. What we are seeing is the culmination of a longer process that tracks closely with Trump’s political career. 4/
theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
The America that denied its racism through the Obama years has struggled to deny its racism through the Trump years. The high levels of Americans denying racism during the Obama era started to decline rapidly in 2015 with Trump's political arrival. 5/
theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
Trump has forced White Americans especially to reckon with their nation’s racism, and perhaps their own. Trump’s denials after he’s clearly been racist—that he’s the least racist person—has compelled a reckoning w/ the sound of denial, “I’m not racist.” 6/
theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
Just as the march of slaveholders in the 1850s helped pave the way for the revolution against slavery in the 1860s, Trump’s presidency has paved the way for a revolution against racism.

But will Americans walk the antiracist way of systemic change? 7/
theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
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Ibram X. Kendi
@DrIbram
Mead is basically arguing that White people have more self-control than Black and Brown people. Think about Mead's racist ideas the next time you witness an out-of-control Trump or White cop or White terrorist or White Congressman or White anti-masker. 1/3
Think about Mead's own racist idea the next time you read this White man’s out-of-control ideas. Mead can’t help it. He can’t help presenting theories with faulty "cultural" history and without empirical data. He can’t help denigrating Black and Brown people. 2/3
It is important to note: There are individuals who happen to be White and Brown and Black who exhibit high or low levels of self-control. No racial group exhibits more or less self-control. Mead is conflating culture and behavior. There is no such thing as racial behavior. 3/3
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Ibram X. Kendi
@DrIbram
Perhaps the greatest anti-slavery speech ever uttered is “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July,” by Frederick Douglass, in 1852. I wanted to make the speech more accessible. Here’s a thread with an abridged version of the speech we should reread every #FourthofJuly. 1/
The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th of July oration. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. 2/
"I shall not presume to dwell at length on the associations that cluster about this day. Oppression makes a wise man mad. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment." 3/
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Ibram X. Kendi
@DrIbram
I wanted to write a book that challenged people and writing #HowToBeAnAntiracist was unlike any challenge of my lifetime. I wanted to write a book that encouraged people to join the antiracist journey of transformation. Little did I know I’d be transformed in the process. 1/3
I feared writing #HowToBeAnAntiracist because the complex truth has historically been weaponized into simple lies to combat racial reality. But now I fear what happens if we don’t clarify the complicated truth. I fear what happens if we don’t resist. 2/3
History is calling us all. Thank you to everyone who is using #HowToBeAnAntiracist as one of your guides as you answer the call of history to radically transform yourself as we radically transform our society. This is the new cover of #HowToBeAnAntiracist. 3/3
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