47 pages • 1 hour read
This Book Is Anti-Racist: 20 Lessons on How to Wake Up, Take Action, and Do the Work
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Themes
Racism and Systemic Injustices
Racism and systemic injustices are the main thematic elements of This Book Is Anti-Racist. Throughout the book, Jewell aims to educate young readers on how racism functions in society. She expands the definition of racism beyond just personal prejudice and asks readers to think about the systems of power that privilege certain people over others. Systemic injustices include housing discrimination, legal discrimination, and workplace discrimination. Jewell uses the example of the Grenfell Tower fire to talk about housing discrimination, and she cites statistics from the United States to highlight this issue and demonstrate how “Black home ownership has been on the decline” (60) over the past 10 years in the country. These examples illuminate how race dictates the kind of treatment that people receive when trying to access housing. She talks about examples of systemic racism within the education system, legal system, and business institutions as well to show how people of color are disadvantaged by systems of power that privilege white people.
The main focal point of the theme of racism and social injustices hinges on the understanding of the power structures that govern society. Jewell points out that the people in society who hold power are the dominant culture; those people who “are in charge of the institutions and have established behaviors, values, and traditions that are considered acceptable and the ‘norm’ in our countries” (26). She defines the dominant culture in the United States and in Britain as “people who are white, middle class, Christian, and cisgender” (26).
Later, she shows how the dominant culture gained power through the process of colonization, when European countries like England, France, Denmark, and Spain violently took control of countries “where Indigenous, Black, and Brown folx had lived for many years” (86). Colonization positioned white European culture as the dominant culture, and Black, Brown, and Indigenous cultures as “inferior” and “subordinate.” This positioning was based on the “made-up science that folx of different skin tones and from different geographical areas are biologically different and either superior or inferior” (87) and resulted in the justification for the transatlantic slave trade, racial segregation, and white supremacy.
Jewell points to “the legacy of enslavement” (87) in America: systemic oppression, school segregation, the high rates of incarcerated Black people, and the disparity in wealth between Black and white families. She argues that the history of slavery in the United States paved the way for modern systems of power that uphold racism today, to the benefit of the dominant culture. These systems of power form the basis of her analysis of racism and systemic injustices throughout the book.
Identity, Privilege, and Intersectionality
The concepts of identity, privilege, and intersectionality are woven throughout the book. Various aspects of an individual’s identity can either give or take away power and privilege. Because the dominant culture determines who holds power, privilege is ascribed to people who fit into the dominant culture box: people who are “white, upper middle class, cisgender, male, educated, athletic, neurotypical, and/or” who don’t have a disability (20). Those whose identities exist outside this box are not afforded the same power and privilege in society and are often marginalized or discriminated against.
Jewell notes that identity is complicated, with one person often having many identities, some of which may fit within the imaginary box of dominant culture and some of which don’t. In other words, many people hold identities that put them at odds with neat categorization. She gives herself as an example, saying that because she is a cisgender woman, she doesn’t have to “think about which restroom [she] will be able to use. [She has] agency” (32), because being cisgender positions her within the dominant culture. However, as a woman, she does not have the privileges that men have. She is “more likely to be overlooked for a position of leadership and get paid less for the same amount of work” (32).
Jewell relates this concept of intersecting identities to intersectionality, a term that Kimberlé Crenshaw coined in 1989. Intersectionality refers to the many ways that identities like race, class, gender, and sexuality intersect with one another in an individual and create specific experiences of discrimination or privilege. Crenshaw first defined intersectionality in a paper published in the University of Chicago Legal Forum called “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex.” The paper talked specifically about three legal cases involving Black women, where racial discrimination and discrimination based on gender were at play. As Jewell explains, “[a] Black woman is marginalized because she is a woman and because she is Black. Her experiences overlap and cause great harm” (34).
Those whose identities give them the greatest amount of privilege and power have the opportunity to use their privilege for good. Jewell encourages readers whose identities position them within the dominant culture to “spend [their] privilege” (167) rather than hold on to the power that “serves the dominant culture” and “allows for racism to continue on” (167). By using their privilege, Jewell argues, people who exist partially or entirely within the dominant culture can help those around them who have little to no privilege. By the end of the book, Jewell hopes that readers have come to better understand “[themselves], [their] role in society, [and their] privilege and power” (201). She calls on readers to use this understanding to build solidarity with others, despite differences in experiences. Identity, intersectionality, and privilege all come together to make up individuals who must work together to dismantle racist power structures.
Allyship, Activism, and Social Change
In their efforts to overcome racist power structures, readers must move toward allyship, activism, and social change. This theme explores the forces that act in opposition to racism and systemic injustices; it presents the alternative that Jewell proposes readers can enact. Being non-racist is a passive stance that too often involves holding on to power and privilege. Instead, Jewell promotes anti-racism, an active effort that involves being an ally, being an activist, and pushing for social change. She herself prefers the terms “accomplice” and “co-conspirator,” which remind her “to take risks” (129) in her anti-racism.
Jewell talks about many different examples of what allyship can look like, from educating oneself to adopting activist practices like organizing protests and standing up to police brutality. Whatever a person’s allyship and activism looks like, Jewell is clear that in order to achieve true social change, allyship cannot merely be a performance, or something that a person can “flick on or off when you have a Brown friend or a Black friend or a female friend” (178). Allyship is a lifelong project that requires more than just words. It requires action.
Allyship is vital because dismantling systemic racism is work that cannot be done alone. Racism is a system, a structure, that privileges certain identities over others. It is a vast and complicated power structure that benefits from putting people into conflict with one another. To tear this system down, people need to work together. Those with privilege need to “use [their] power and […] change perceived normality” (168) and decenter themselves from the narrative.
In the pursuit of an anti-racist society, the text explains, there may be times when “you will be made to feel like the comfort of one person is the most important over the safety and needs of many” (153). Jewell ties this pressure back to the theme of allyship, arguing that the reader is “accountable to moving the moment forward to justice and liberation” (153), not to catering to an individual’s comfort. Comfort, she argues, is the enemy of allyship and social change, and it “will not end racism” (143).
It can be difficult for people to agree completely on everything, especially when they come from different backgrounds and have different identities and perspectives. However, Jewell argues that these differences can actually be advantages. When pursuing social change, everyone has strengths to bring to the table. Allyship is strongest when people can play to their strengths and find ways to complement the strengths of others. Jewell affirms that it is okay to “disagree with folx on how they want to disrupt” the system as long as the reader still has a vision and makes sure to “[l]isten to the folx who are impacted by your actions” (155). Though it may “feel uncomfortable when our different paths connect because our experiences and histories are different,” those different strengths “will come in handy as we build a strong coalition of solidarity partners” (202) and, through allyship and activism, move toward social change.
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