Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You - Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi

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AUTHORS: Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi

GENRE: NonFiction, Racism.
RATING: 3.75 stars.

An interesting and enlightening read, though it didn’t quite work out the way I had expected (I thought it was more generic in nature. I totally forgot that the blurb mentions its focus on the USA.)

Jason Reynolds declares that this is not a history book. But a great chunk of it is dedicated to US history and how racism and anti-racism became mainstream topics in the country. The range of topics covered is vast: skin colour and religion based discrimination, how racist ideas began, historical racists, contemporary racism, biblical scriptures being used for racist thinking, white privilege, gender discrimination, interracial relationships, segregation, black power… It goes from one hard-hitting idea to another. More importantly, it does so in a chronological order such that the development of these thoughts over the centuries is made vividly clear.

Originally written by Ibram X. Kendi under the title “Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America”, this adaptation by Jason Reynolds brings the ideas to the level of the teenage reader. And this is brilliantly done. He doesn’t shy away from complicated topics, but his approach – combining humour with history – makes this a superb book for its target segment.

I do wish it had been a bit more global in its approach; there was a lot of US history that I couldn’t connect with. (This, of course, is to be blamed on my erroneous expectations. The book didn’t claim that it wasn’t about the USA.) At the same time, there is no doubt that the problem of racism persists in various forms in almost all countries and more such books are required across the globe so that at least the next generation is better equipped to clean the mess made by their forefathers.

My favourite line among many thought-provoking quotes:
“There will come a time when we will love humanity, when we will gain the courage to fight for an equitable society for our beloved humanity, knowing, intelligently, that when we fight for humanity, we are fighting for ourselves.”

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