Angelica

“Caregivers must model a critical home, a critical classroom, a critical community, for kids to defy and question everything that’s questionable.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Raise an Antiracist

“To be racist is to be conceited AND insecure. To be conceited is to have an exaggerated sense of self, to think you are better than you really are, to think others are worse than they really are, to think you, and people "like" you in your racial group, sit at the top of an imagined racial hierarchy. To be insecure is to undervalue the self, to think you are worse than you really are, to think others are better than they really are, to think you, and people "like" you in your racial group, sit at the bottom of an imagined racial hierarchy. Conceit and insecurity are the twin children of being racist. Every racist idea is a conceited idea or an insecure idea. Every racist idea proclaims the proficiencies or deficiencies of a racial group. Racist ideas are red meat for ravenous egos and insecurities.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Raise an Antiracist

“There are parents who think better of their kids based on what their words say, but think worse of their kids based on what their policies say. These parents SAY their kids are smarter and harder working than those other kids but these same parents resist equalizing educational opportunities between their kids and those other kids. ... Their defense of a rigged educational system conveys maybe they don't think their child is smart after all; that they don't believe their kids could rise above the pack if their kids were not privileged. It is the conceit of parents who claim their kids are excelling solely because they are smarter or harder working. It is the insecurity of parents who resist changing the structure to one that better benefits all children, including their child. This is an allegory for racism. The very racial groups at the top of the racial hierarchy claim they are there due to their superiority at the same time they resist antiracist efforts to create a fair and equitable society where they could actually show they are superior.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Raise an Antiracist

“Then again, not everything is questionable. Facts are not questionable. Not all racial questions are antiracist. Our questions should be premised on the basic fact of our common humanity. To be racist is to assume that racial groups are not, or may not be, equals. This racist assumption ignores the nearly six centuries of power constructing the races and failing to prove that these racialized groups are anything but equals. To be antiracist is to assume that racial groups are equals. These different assumptions lead to different questions. Racist: What is wrong with those people? Antiracist: What is wrong with these racist policies? Different questions lead to different solutions. Racist: changing people. Antiracist: changing policy. The question—if wielded in antiracist fashion—is the most powerful sentence. The question is the seed to knowing. This process of persistent questioning is the key to critical thinking. To raise an antiracist is to raise a critical thinker.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Raise an Antiracist