"This is the consistent function of racist ideas—and of any kind of bigotry more broadly: to manipulate us into seeing people as the problem, instead of the policies that ensnare them." — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
"Incorrect conceptions of race as a social construct (as opposed to a power construct), of racial history as a singular march of racial progress (as opposed to a duel of antiracist and racist progress), of the race problem as rooted in ignorance and hate (as opposed to powerful self-interest)—all come together to produce solutions bound to fail. Terms and sayings like “I’m not racist” and “race neutral” and “post-racial” and “color-blind” and “only one race, the human race” and “only racists speak about race” and “Black people can’t be racist” and “White people are evil” are bound to fail in identifying and eliminating racist power and policy." — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
"The common idea of claiming 'color blindness' is akin to the notion of being 'not racist'—as with the 'not racist,' the color-blind individual, by ostensibly failing to see race, fails to see racism and falls into racist passivity." — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
"What’s the problem with being 'not racist'? It is a claim that signifies neutrality: 'I am not a racist, but neither am I aggressively against racism.' But there is no neutrality in the racism struggle. The opposite of ‘racist' isn’t 'not racist.' It is ‘antiracist.'" — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
"Separation is not always segregation." — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
"One of racism’s harms is the way it falls on the unexceptional Black person who is asked to be extraordinary just to survive—and, even worse, the Black screwup who faces the abyss after one error, while the White screwup is handed second chances and empathy." — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
"Racist ideas make people of color think less of themselves, which makes them more vulnerable to racist ideas. Racist ideas make White people think more of themselves, which further attracts them to racist ideas." — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
