{"id":78518,"date":"2022-10-16T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-16T04:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=78518"},"modified":"2022-10-24T12:37:04","modified_gmt":"2022-10-24T16:37:04","slug":"how-to-fight-racism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-fight-racism\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Fight Racism: Challenge Policies, Not Ideas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Will there ever be a world without racism? Is challenging racist rhetoric an effective solution to rooting out racism?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Racism is a deeply entrenched societal issue that will take many years to root out completely. According to Ibram X. Kendi, the author of <em>Stamped From the Beginning<\/em>, the path to a world without racism lies in fighting racist policies, not challenging racist rhetoric.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here is how to fight racism, according to Kendi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-how-to-fight-racism\"><strong>How to Fight Racism<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Kendi argues that <strong>we can never truly eliminate racism because there will always be people willing to advance themselves with racist policies <\/strong>and to invent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/racist-ideas\/\">racist ideas<\/a> to justify these policies. And as we\u2019ve seen, strategies like education and uplift do nothing to stop those policies or the ideas that spring from them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead, Kendi argues, <strong>the solution is to defeat racist policies themselves\u2014and keep them from coming back<\/strong>. To do so will require antiracists to achieve political power, enact antiracist policies, and hold on to their power (and policies) long enough for antiracist thought to become the new public <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/common-sense-pamphlet\/\">common sense<\/a>. At that point, Kendi says, the general populace will need to hold the government responsible for maintaining the newly antiracist society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><strong>How to Be an Antiracist Society<\/strong><br><br>Because <em>Stamped from the Beginning<\/em> is a history book, Kendi only sketches out a political plan and doesn\u2019t go into much depth about <em>how<\/em> <em>to fight racism<\/em>. However, in his second book, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/app\/book\/how-to-be-an-antiracist\/\"><em>How to Be an Antiracist<\/em><\/a>, he lays out <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/app\/book\/how-to-be-an-antiracist\/chapter-9#steps-to-ending-racial-inequity\">a more detailed plan<\/a>:<br><br>1) Figure out which policies are causing inequity and think of antiracist policies to replace them.<br><br>2) Determine who has the power to put antiracist policies into effect.<br><br>3) Educate the public about the racist policies and your proposed antiracist replacements. Persuade policymakers to adopt your proposed changes.<br><br>4) If that doesn\u2019t work, use <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/app\/book\/how-to-be-an-antiracist\/part-3#demonstrate-vs-protest-mobilize-vs-organize\"><em>demonstrations<\/em> and <em>protests<\/em><\/a> to move the public to action.&nbsp;<br><br>5) Make sure the new policies lead to more equitable outcomes. If they don\u2019t, find new policies.<br><br>Kendi, a cancer survivor,<strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/app\/book\/how-to-be-an-antiracist\/chapter-9#cancer\">likens racism to societal cancer<\/a>.<\/strong> He argues that like cancer, racism eventually spreads to take over all of a society\u2019s vital systems. If left unchecked, he says, racism will kill society as surely as cancer will kill a person. On the other hand, if we\u2019re willing to acknowledge and fight racism, he says that antiracist policies work like chemotherapy, shrinking the racist \u201ctumor\u201d until it\u2019s small enough for us to surgically remove any remaining racist policies. At that point, as with cancer, we should watch for the first signs that racism is returning, so that we can deal with it before it spreads and causes more harm.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Will there ever be a world without racism? Is challenging racist rhetoric an effective solution to rooting out racism? Racism is a deeply entrenched societal issue that will take many years to root out completely. According to Ibram X. Kendi, the author of Stamped From the Beginning, the path to a world without racism lies in fighting racist policies, not challenging racist rhetoric. Here is how to fight racism, according to Kendi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":32876,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[275,24],"tags":[741],"class_list":["post-78518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-society","tag-stamped-from-the-beginning","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How to Fight Racism: Challenge Policies, Not Ideas - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"According to Ibram X. Kendi, the path to a world without racism lies in fighting racist policies, not challenging racist ideas. Here&#039;s why.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-fight-racism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Fight Racism: Challenge Policies, Not Ideas\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"According to Ibram X. Kendi, the path to a world without racism lies in fighting racist policies, not challenging racist ideas. Here&#039;s why.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-fight-racism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-10-16T04:01:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-10-24T16:37:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/racism-black-lives-matter-protest-race.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1080\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Darya Sinusoid\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Darya Sinusoid\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-fight-racism\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-fight-racism\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Darya Sinusoid\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/0421cce75bc249b11e2517b3a91f9c46\"},\"headline\":\"How to Fight Racism: Challenge Policies, Not Ideas\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-10-16T04:01:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-10-24T16:37:04+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-fight-racism\/\"},\"wordCount\":452,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-fight-racism\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/racism-black-lives-matter-protest-race.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Stamped from the Beginning\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Politics\",\"Society\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-fight-racism\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-fight-racism\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-fight-racism\/\",\"name\":\"How to Fight Racism: Challenge Policies, Not Ideas - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-fight-racism\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-fight-racism\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/racism-black-lives-matter-protest-race.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-10-16T04:01:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-10-24T16:37:04+00:00\",\"description\":\"According to Ibram X. 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