ReadUP 2021: How to Be an Antiracist: Home

ReadUP website

E-book copies of How to Be an Antiracist are available to current UP students, faculty, and staff through this link. 

The following Community Conversations will be hosted for UP faculty and staff by the UP Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.  These conversations will focus on How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi, and episodes of the University of Portland's Black Student Union original podcast, Black on the Bluff. To participate in these UP faculty/staff online discussion sessions, please register here:  

• February 26 noon to 1:30 pm—Chapters 1- 9 of How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi and Episode 3, “Black Femininity; Vulnerability and Colorism” of Black on the Bluff.
• Thursday, March 25^th noon to 1:30 pm—Chapters 10-18 of How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi and the soon-to-be released Episode 4 of Black on the Bluff.
• Tuesday, March 30^th noon to 1:30 pm—General session, open to all for the full reading of How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

March 31, 2021, 5:15pm

Schoenfeldt Distinguished Visiting Writers Series will offer a conversation with Dr. Ibram X. Kendi via live webinar. The event is free and open to all. Register to attend

UP students, faculty, and staff may submit questions in advance of the event (UP login required)

How to Be an Antiracist was named one of the best books of the year by The New York Times Book Review, Time, NPR, The Washington Post, Shelf Awareness, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus Reviews. 

Antiracism is a transformative concept that reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism—and, even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. At it's core, racism is a powerful system that creates false hierarchies of human value; its warped logic extends beyond race, from the way we regard people of different ethnicities or skin colors to the way we treat people of different sexes, gender identities, and body types. Racism intersects with class and culture and geography and even changes the way we see and value ourselves. In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi takes readers through a widening circle of antiracist ideas—from the most basic concepts to visionary possibilities—that will help readers see all forms of racism clearly, understand their poisonous consequences, and work to oppose them in our systems and in ourselves.

Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science with his own personal story of awakening to antiracism. This is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond the awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a just and equitable society. ~ from One World Literature / Penguin Random House

Ibram X. Kendi is one of America’s foremost historians and leading antiracist scholars. He is a National Book Award-winning and #1 New York Times bestselling author of six books. Kendi is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and the Founding Director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. Kendi is a contributor writer at The Atlantic and a CBS News Racial Justice Contributor. He is also the 2020-2021 Frances B. Cashin Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for the Advanced Study at Harvard University. In 2020, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. ~ from ibramxkendi.com

Read the first chapter on the publisher's website.

Read reviews available from the Clark Library Gale Database here