Aleksa's Book Review: How to be an Antiracist

After many recommendations and endless praise, I've decided to give this book a read and see how racist I am. The book conveniently opens with a definition of racism and antiracism - with no midpoint. You are either with us or against us, and nuance means that you are using white supremacy, ignorance and offloading.

There's a lot of stories in the book about the author growing up black in the US, with a decent family. He seems like a decent sort, but appears entirely too focused on race from an uncannily young age. This continues into his temporary adoption of the Nation of Islam, and other strange ideas, later replaced with a more mature view.

However, that mature view never shines through in a book that merely skates by Charles Murray's and Thomas Sowell's observations on race and society: the book just says their views are racist and never mentions them again. I don't care what the author's lived through - and this book will let you know exactly what that was - you can't be that sloppy in communicating ideas this complex.

Furthermore, the book notes that outwardly observable racism is only a small percentage of what racism is - what most racism is, in fact, just means "not actively working to increase the level of equity among intersectional groups". And, to be honest, if that's what being racist is I'm OK with it.
6/10