How to be an Antiracist - Spring 2021 Selection - One Book, One College - Jacobs Library at Illinois Valley Community College

From The New York Times book review by Jeffrey Stewart (August 20, 2019):

Kendi is on a mission to push those of us who believe we are not racists to become something else: antiracists, who support ideas and policies affirming that “the racial groups are equals in all their apparent differences — that there is nothing right or wrong with any racial group.” For Kendi, the founding director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University, there are no nonracists; there are only racists — people who allow racist ideas to proliferate without opposition — and antiracists, those who expose and eradicate such ideas wherever they encounter them.

Ibram X. Kendi on Antiracism

How to be an Antiracist
The difference between "not racist" and "antiracist"

Event Videos

Live and recorded events were held during IVCC's Spring 2021 semester.

The archived videos have been posted below:

One Book, One College Kickoff Video
Join IVCC for our inaugural One Book, One College Kickoff! We are so excited to share our new community reads program with you!

Chapter Discussions

How to be an Antiracist Introduction, Chapters 1 & 2
Join facilitators Adam Oldaker and Jayna Leipart Guttilla as they guide the discussion of Ibram X. Kendi's "How to be an Antiracist."
How to be an Antiracist, Chapters 3, 4, 5, & 6
Join Amanda Cook Fesperman as we discuss chapters 3, 4, 5, & 6 of Ibram X. Kendi's "How to be an Antiracist."
How to be an Antiracist, Chapters 7,8, 9, 10, & 11
Join Jared Olesen as we discuss chapters 7, 8, 9, 10, & 11 of Ibram X. Kendi's "How to be an Antiracist."
How to be an Antiracist, Chapters 12, 13, 14, & 15
Join Dr. Kimberly Radek-Hall as we discuss chapters 12, 13, 14, 15 of Ibram X. Kendi's "How to be an Antiracist."
How to be an Antiracist, Chapters 16, 17, & 18
Join Adam Oldaker as we discuss chapters 16, 17, & 18 of Ibram X. Kendi's "How to be an Antiracist."

Panel Discussions

Race, Class, & Culture

Race, Class, & Culture, Part 1
A discussion on Race, Class, & Culture with Jared Olesen, Amanda Cook Fesperman, Sara Escatel, TIna Hardy, & Tammy Landgraf.
Race, Class, & Culture, Part 2: Standardized Testing
Join IVCC Faculty and Staff as they discuss the following question: Ibram X. Kendi stresses that standardized tests hurt students of color and those who don't know how to "take the test." As an institution, how can we stop perpetuating racism through standardized testing?
Race, Class, & Culture, Part 3: Cultural Assimilation
Join IVCC faculty and staff as they discuss the following question: In Kendi's chapter on Culture, he speaks of his personal experience in school and what was deemed "civilization."
What are areas in our world/institutions we unknowingly require/expect students/employees to abandon their culture to assimilate to a racist civilization?
Race, Class, & Culture, Part 4: Ableism
Join facilitator Jared Olesen, Disability Services Coordinator Tina Hardy, Director of Adult Education Sara Escatel, Early Childhood Education Program Coordinator Tammy Landgraf, and Political Science and History instructor Amanda Cook Fesperman to discuss the following question:
"The basic tenets of racism, and the structures that have created it and still perpetuate it don't always seem fundamentally different than the less-discussed mindset and set of behaviors called ableism - the
concept that involves discrimination toward, or prejudices against people with disabilities. What similarities or differences can you draw from Kendi's ideas when comparing or contrasting it to ableism?"
Race, Class, & Culture, Part 5: Policy & Race
Join faciliator Jared Olesen and panelists Tammy Landgraf, Amanda Cook Fesperman, and Tina Hardy discuss the following question:"Kendi makes a strong case that public policy is the architecture of racism and that anti-racist attitudes and values must be accompanied by concrete policy change if racism is to be meaningfully addressed. What do you think of Kendi's discussion of policy change? What sort of concrete policy change do we need?"

Alumni, Staff, & Faculty Panel

Alumni, Staff, & Faculty Panel
Join facilitator Amanda Cook Fesperman and panelists, Jibril Church, Jon Easley-Oldaker, Aiden Ethington, & Dr. Robyn Schiffman discuss living and working in the Illinois Valley as members of minority groups.

Gender, Sexuality, & Race

Gender, Sexuality, & Race: Intersectionality, Inequity, & Ibram X. Kendi
In joint support of Women's History Month and One Book, One College, Dr. Kimberly M. Radek-Hall discusses "How to be an Antiracist" through the lens of intersectionality. She is joined by Rev. Dr. Angela Walker, Dr. Jjenna Hupp Andrews, & Rev. Ray Jordan.

Ibram X. Kendi's Reading List

The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America by Khalil Gibran Muhammad

*Not currently available in Jacobs Library. Click the link to request the item from another library.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain by Langston Hughes

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

The Blacker the Berry by Wallace Thurman

The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley

Dying of Whiteness by Jonathan M. Metzl

In Locking Up Our Own by James Forman Jr.

Black Marxism by Cedric Robinson

Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour: The Narrative History of Black Power in America by Peniel E. Joseph

How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

Well-Read Black Girl by Glory Edim

Redefining Realness by Janet Mock

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

Fatal Invention by Dorothy Roberts

*Not currently available in Jacobs Library. Click the link to request the item from another library.

West Indian Immigrants by Suzanne Model

White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Maya Angelou

Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper

*Not currently available in Jacobs Library. Click the link to request the item from another library.

Reconstruction Updated Edition

Reconstruction by Eric Foner

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

The Fire This Time Jesmyn Ward

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

The Half Has Never Been Told by Edward E. Baptist

The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935 by James Anderson

The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein

The Origins of the Urban Crisis by Thomas Sugrue

The Warmth of Other Suns

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

Cold War Civil Rights by Mary Dudziak

The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

Medical Apartheid by Harriet A. Washington

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond

One Person, No Vote by Carol Anderson

One Book, One College

Read the book? Tell us what you thoughts and provide suggestions for upcoming selections in the box below!

The Library has created an Antiracist Guide, which attempts to be comprehensive in scope.

The Library has created a History of Race & Racism in the Illinois Valley guide.

From The New York Times book review by Jeffrey Stewart (August 20, 2019):

Ibram X. Kendi on Antiracism

Race, Class, & Culture

Alumni, Staff, & Faculty Panel

Gender, Sexuality, & Race

Ibram X. Kendi's Reading List

Reconstruction Updated Edition

The Warmth of Other Suns