Welcome, gentlemen, to The Daily Show.
-Thank you, thank you. -Uh, great to see you again.
But let's jump into this book,
which a lot of people would think...
would see the cover and go like, "Why would I read this?"
Racism, Antiracism, and You.
The first thing you say is, "This is not a history book."
What does that mean?
Uh, look, I-I chose to start the book that way,
because this book is geared toward younger people,
and younger people don't like to read history books.
-Right. -And so you start off by saying,
don't worry, this is not a history book,
and then you okey-doke 'em, right?
Uh, the other part of it, the other part of it, though,
is that... is that we talk about history
as if it's in a bubble.
But the truth is that history is perennial.
It runs through our lives... our lives every single day.
-Right. -And it's more about it being a present book
-that history actually impacts. -That's really interesting,
because that has been fascinating
reading through this.
I didn't know what to expect. You know, you read books
that tell you about the history of America,
you read books that only focus on racism today,
or maybe even jim crow, but this book really just takes you
through everything in a way that seems like it's palatable.
Like, has it been designed in such a way
that you can just read it and understand without...
without feeling too much?
Is that what you've tried to do for younger readers?
I mean, racism is historical.
And what that means is, it's rooted in the past,
but you can constantly see it operating in your daily life,
and you constantly see how it's gonna operate tomorrow.
And that's what we wanted to sort of show for young people,
that this history book is in the present,
it's operating in the future,
so they can understand their everyday lives.
NOAH: When you... when you wrote the book,
you know, the two of you came together,
Jason and Ibram, and you... and you worked on this,
telling the story of racism.
And-and you have such short chapters
in the book, which is really interesting.
It doesn't follow the format of a normal book.
Sometimes, a chapter is ten pages.
Sometimes, it's-it's longer. Some...
You know, sometimes, the way you write on a page,
like, the words pop out. They change.
It really does engage you in a certain way.
Were you trying to break the mind
and how it's consuming information
-when you created the book? -For sure.
But-but I'm also trying to make sure
that we're working with, uh, the realities of young folks,
which is an overstimulated world, right?
-Oh. -I-I can't compete with cell phones,
video games, YouTube, uh, Fortnite
and all these things that they have going on
with their lives every single day.
My job isn't to compete, though.
That's a silly and futile argument.
My job is to work with those things
by creating multiple stimuli within the pages of a book.
-Why not? -Why? That's brilliant.
-(applause) -I think you...
With-Without even realizing it,
you-you might have hit on another opportunity.
You-you just add, like, an expansion onto Fortnite
-that just teaches you about racism. -Exactly.
So, you have, like, skins from the past,
and then kids can learn.
-There's, like, challenges. -Don't give too much away.
-Don't give too much. -(laughter)
-That's next up. -Um, Ibram,
young people are gonna read this book,
and some of them may feel deflated.
They may go like, "Man, racism was so bad back then,
"so bad during slavery,
"so bad during jim crow, segregation, et cetera,
"and it feels like it's so bad today.
How can I maintain hope in this world?"
You know, whether-whether as a black kid
or whether as a kid who's not black
and going like, "I'm an ally.
I want this world to be a better place."
So, that's why we didn't just want
to write a history about racism.
We wanted to write a history about anti-racism.
We wanted to show them how people have been fighting
-against anti-racism from its... from its origins. -NOAH: Mm-hmm.
And people are fighting against it today,
and they can be a part of that fight.
And-and here is essentially how people have done it in the past,
here how they've been effective,
and here's how you can be effective today.
When you look through the stories,
when you dig into the history of racism,
does it, does it have, the way we understand racism today,
does it have a definitive start date?
Is there a moment in time, or is it just an evolution
of people hating each other because they're not the same?
So, there is a start date-- the transatlantic slave trade.
You know, that's when you had all these different
ethnic groups in Africa were imagined as one people.
-Mm-hmm. -One inferior people
that was worthy of enslavement.
And, then simultaneously, the racist policies
that undergirded the transatlantic slave trade.
And, we talk about these original racists in the text
and-and young people are like, "Whoa, there-there was like a,
there was, like, original first racists-- I had never known!"
-Right. -And, you know, that's one of the fascinating things
I think about this text.
One thing you do really well in the book in my opinion
is you break it down, so that people can see
what is oftentimes underlying racism or-or racism
that some people may not even realize
that they have been indoctrinated into.
You know, you-you talk about the Southern strategy.
You talk about how Nixon and many Republicans
realize that they couldn't just say these things,
they couldn't call black people the N-word outwardly,
they had to say "ghettos" and they had to say "thugs,"
and those, the code words and language that was used.
When breaking that down for kids,
do you think that will help them understand
some of those implications that are still in place today?
I do, I do think that breaking it down
will help them sort of grapple with it and understand,
but I also think that we can create new code, right?
And, so, and, so, what I'm saying is that this book,
the intention of this book is to create new code, right?
"Antiracist" is a new code, right?
For-for-for, uh, a person who's really fighting for true equity.
-Right. -For true love, right?
And I think, and I think that's our-our real test.
People talk about indoctrination all the time.
This idea that, like, "Oh, this is-- I don't want this book
in my classroom, 'cause it's indoctrination."
Well, isn't everything?
So, what if we were able to create new indoctrination
for equity and justice?
-Wow. -(applause and cheering)
That's powerful.
I-I loved it.
I've never read about history like this.
I've never read about the now like this.
And, it really breaks racism down into a beautiful way
that I think kids of all races will enjoy.
-Thank you so much for being on the show. -You're welcome.
I hope everybody reads it. It should be in every school.
-Yes. -Thank you, man. -I'll tell you that much.
Thank you so much for being on the show.
Stamped is available now.
You'll really want to go out and get it.
Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi, everybody.