So, How To Be A Young Antiracist.
That means you're already banned in Florida, so.
It's funny when we talk about race because we live
in a country that the Congress and Senate voted
for Juneteenth bill, but we're the same nation that don't
want to talk about slavery.
They'll have Martin Luther King and Robert
E. Lee Day on the same days.
So I think when it comes to racism,
I think that a lot of people believe that if they're not
actively saying the n-word, or doing
or saying bigoted things, that means they're not racist.
So how can we start a conversation
about being anti-race when you're not quite
sure how to quantify racism?
We are, but I don't think a lot of people are.
And I think that's the very point.
Because if you're not doing anything
to challenge all of the injustice
and all of the inequity in our society, then what happens?
It persists.
Sure.
So therefore you're reinforcing it.
So therefore you're being racist.
And so we're encouraging people to actively
try to dismantle this structure,
including young people.
But what is their incentive?
Like, what would they be incent--
Nic, what is their-- if this system
is working for you or not, it doesn't cause you any--
because you can sleep at night.
Why would you want to change the system that seems to be
going just as you intended?
But is it actually working for you?
- Well, yeah. - It seems to be.
- Not me. - Right.
It's clearly is not working for you, but one of us.
I'm a temporary holds, but I'm talking about, like--
Yes.
I think, for me, it's all about children, right?
Like, even though this is a system that
might seem like it's working for you,
the world is actively changing.
If your children are not prepared to live in a world
and move to a world that have people that
are different from them in positions of power,
they're going to be in trouble. - Yeah.
But then they try to remake the world.
You'll see that.
Literally, we're a nation that is run by the Flintstones
and in the Jetsons.
And the [bleep] Flintstones are winning.
You have to understand that I don't believe a lot of people,
for instance, I don't believe white people--
a lot of white people-- are actively racist.
But I do believe that the notions of white supremacists,
they don't agree with their methods
but they agree with the goal, which is to keep
white people in charge.
And so if that is the premise, then what incentive--
seriously-- would there be to make
these changes that only destabilize
what you know works for you?
I think one of the things we've been showing
in studying racism is that it's actually harming white
people, too.
It's not harming them at the level it's harming people
of color, but there are actually white people who
are dying of police violence.
They're not dying at the level of Black and Brown people,
but more white people are dying of police
violence in this country than other countries.
More white people are incarcerated in this country
than other countries.
More white people are struggling
to vote in this country compared to other countries.
There were 5 million about poor whites in 1860
whose poverty was directly connected to the enslavement
of Black people.
But I think-- a lot of white people don't get this--
when you're poor, you are nigger, too.
You are You are.
You are.
You are You are.
You are.
Like, I don't think people understand--
IBRAM KENDI: No, they don't.
--that generally what hurts me, hurts you.
What is good for me is good for you.
And I think that but there is that thing where people will
give their last dime to keep things
a certain way as long as it hurts you.
Like, look at what happened with the Obamacare Act.
A lot of those people in those poor states
are being hurt by that, but they
don't care as long as you are.
Yeah.
And, but, the sense of optimism is in what
you said earlier children.
Because in children you have--
not mines, theirs-- a whole different thing but--
but in our children, we can see the potential of things
that we hope to never--
that we hope we can realize but probably never will.
So that is an angle, I think, that it's
probably substantive.
Yeah.
I think when it comes to children--
I have two of my own--
and it's important for me that they enter a world
that they feel empowered to change, which
is why we wrote this book.
So Doctor Kendi wrote his memoir years ago,
and I latched on to it, slid into his DMs,
and asked if I could do a young readers version.
Because it's important that young people have the tools.
I get so many kids who are asking, well, what do I do?
How do I help?
What do I change?
How can I get into this fight and do something about it?
And so creating a text like how to be a young anti-racist,
we're giving them information where they're
learning these definitions, they're learning
what racism actually is.
Give me an example of what racism actually is.
So racism is a system of ideas.
So you have racist ideas, and they are, basically, they're
made to keep inequities going.
Right.
Right?
So the whole purpose of a book like How To Be a Young
Antiracist is to give young people terms
that we can all agree on that way
we know what we're standing against.
Like what?
Like racism.
Having a term, a definition, for racism helps them see,
OK, this is what we're trying to fight.
Because one of the things that
happens is people who have historically been racist
refused to define that term.
Of course. Why would you?
Because it allows them to exonerate themselves
consistently and constantly.
And even young people, therefore,
don't know what it is, so they can't even assess themselves
and guide themselves.
How would they know?
We have a lot of people who are raised
by people who moved out of places that Black
people are moving into. - Yeah.
Right? That was a predicate.
We're going to move out of places that Black
people are moving into.
But those are the people who have the conversation
with the people who are now having the conversation
with the people.
So they don't think the thing that they did was racist.
That's a level of obliviousness that you can't quite quantify.
It is.
And, indeed, the heartbeat of being racist is denial.
And this denial is consistent and constant and insidious.
You know, it does give me hope when I see people,
like, your book beat my book on The New
York Times bestseller list.
[laughter]
Get [bleep] of the set.
No, I'm just kidding.
And it's interesting because that came along at a time--
and you had written it a good while back--
but it resurfaced when the George
Floyd protest was coming on.
There really seemed a moment, and there seemed
these inflection points where we can generally,
well, people are really open to listen.
But the problem it's so fast.
You can only get attention so fast
and then we're on to the next thing.
And I think that's not even purposeful.
I think it's just a function of how we live.
But if you could say a substantive thing that people
could do every day, like in practice every day,
where they could be an example.
Because every time somebody says
something that somebody deems hurtful,
they automatically stop.
I don't want to hear it anymore.
I'm tired of this already.
We were a slave for 400 years, but Jim
Crow been around 50 years.
Like, trying to not be a slave has
not-- we haven't had to put as much elbow grease in that.
But books like this and having conversations
where people don't turn off are really the crux
of what we need to be doing.
And for young people, it's so much easier.
To like it is to learn a language,
it's got to be easier to learn a love language, right?
It's got to be easier to learn.
And what do I-- because I get angry.
Yeah.
Like, when Black people do it, it's called anger.
When white people do it, it's called righteous indignation.
But it's really hard to come from a place of anger
and try to teach somebody something.
NIC STONE: Yeah.
So I think, at least on me, the onus
has to be lowering the temperature
and listening, right? - Yeah.
And, I mean, look, the book is really all about
first turning inward.
I think part of the issue is that we don't do a good job
of humanizing ourselves.
We don't give ourselves the space to be angry.
We don't give ourselves the space to be sad.
We don't give ourselves the space to have
unpopular opinions, right?
Like, we do--
I do.
--we're all-- you do.
But even that, the fact that you're like, I'm angry
and I don't know how I feel about being angry, like,
it makes sense that we're angry.
So taking the time to look inward and figure out
the beauty of How To Be An Antiracist, the adult book,
was that you gave Ibram's whole story
where he is very open about the racist ideas
that he was holding.
So taking that and distilling it down for young people
so that they can see, oh, dang, this thing that I'm thinking
is probably a little racist.
We had an event last night in Atlanta.
And our teen moderator, that was the first question
she asked us.
She was like, I read the book and it
pointed out to me all of the ways that I have racist ideas.
And it made me feel a way about myself.
What am I supposed to do?
So then having that self compassion where you can see,
OK, yes, I am a product of a racist environment.
I probably have some racist ideas.
Taking the time to give yourself some grace,
you'll give other people some grace, too.
And that's how we kind of, like, get to a point
where we're working together to dismantle things.
At least hearing each other.
Yeah.
The thing that's so frustrating
for me is our stories tend to start in the middle.
Like, we were something before this.
And our stories seem to start in the middle.
So and it's just like even what's going on in Florida.
You don't even want us to learn our history.
Like, there was a time when the enslaved people
couldn't learn.
And now it's illegal for us to learn about enslaved people.
IBRAM KENDI: Yeah.
So it just--
You know, you spitting, boy.
And you would have heard that had you not beat me on The New
York Times best seller list.
That.
And I think that we have a lot to learn about how things work
and to really have constructive conversations.
Because it's so much more fulfilling to me
to shout at somebody, but it doesn't
really accomplish anything.
And I'm really very proud that you write books like this.
And I think the younger you start, I mean, you got--
not be an antiracist baby.
You have the babies, too? You have the baby?
Yeah.
Yeah, we got The Antiracist Baby.
What the [bleep] is a baby going to do?
Like-- - Hey, look.
You learn it somewhere.
You either learn to love people or you
learn to hate them, right? Like--
I don't want chocolate milk!
I want--
How to be a young Antiracist and The Young Antiracist
board book are available now.