How To Be An Anti-Racist and How To Do Nothing
I’ve been trying to read more and trying to stay a little more off social media (aren’t we all). One of the reasons I’m paying $12/month for a squarespace site is to be able to type my thoughts here and stop looking for the minor joy of someone liking a post and instead enjoy the long lasting feeling of having put some little thing into the universe.
I bought Ibram X. Kendi’s book a couple weeks after George Floyd was murdered. I had heard him on a podcast and enjoyed it, but I didn’t feel the desire to dive deep. The book is simple in the best possible way: he picks out a handful of points and drums them home with discipline. Many folks have complained about the memoiresque elements of Kendi’s telling. . .he brings a lot of himself into the story. I have zero complaints about this. It helped me digest his journey and his arrival.
Ibram X. Kendi is 100% on team “black folks can be racist” and I grew up playing for the opposite team. Probably at some point in high school or college I was turned out to the idea that a black person treating a white person negatively solely for that reason was not a racist act, the basic idea being that a black person treating a white person negatively is a drop in the bucket and black people in total are not endowed with enough power in our world for that one black person’s negative treatment to tip any meaningful scale in the white person’s life. As I walk through this paragraph I realize I have less disagreement with Kendi than I thought. In that section of his book the big argument is that black people in a position of power can still be racist to other black people. I find that to be 100% true and if one is acting out racist policies you are certainly not dropping anything in the bucket, you are doubling down on racism. So yes, I think that black people can be racist towards black people. I still don’t think that racist is the right word for black people treating white people negative purely on the merits of their race. I believe it is a prejudice, but I do believe that racism on an individual level should be reserved for any actions that align with systemic racism, meaning negative treatment of whites based purely on race does not rise to the level of racism in my world.
I didn’t walk away greatly changed by Kendi’s book, which is not a knock on the book. I agree with the principles of the book, I believe that being a neutral actor in regards to race is a fiction, if you are neutral you are relying on the momentum of a racist society and thus tacitly co-signing on racism. I have to think more about what my takeaways will be from the book; at the time of the reading I let it wash over me and moved on.
I have moved on to Jenny Odell’s “How To Do Nothing” book and I’m about 1/2 way through the book. This book points back to tons of other writers, articles and more throughout the book and that is what is connecting me with it. I think the basic thesis of the book is largely agreeable to me: there are very economic reasons why we want the people of the world constantly distracted and constantly consuming. It is an important act to ignore the churn, to think deeply and to unplug. What I like about the book is that Odell is also outlining all the pitfalls of large scale efforts for groups to unplug (60s communes most particularly). On top of that, she seems to frequently point back to how much the process of unplugging is a form of privilege as most don’t have the time/finances to step away.
“How To Do Nothing” connects with me because some of my favorite moments in life haven’t been when I’ve been in some sort of monastic retreat. My favorite moments have been when I’ve felt tremendous focus and sense of purpose while present among my community, among my potential distractions. The singular focus I had for years on getting Heiruspecs up to a national level of prominence, the focus I felt trying to get my college education, my focus on trying to provide the best backing band that sweat could buy for Dessa. This book is helping me remember that I am losing something every time I slide to twitter while programming music on the Current, every time I read the headline and skip the article on the New York Times website.
That’s some thoughts about books for you.