Stamped by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi

This isn’t a history book. …Instead, what this is, is a book that contains history. A history directly connected to our lives as we live them right this minute. This is a present book. A book about the here and now.

– from Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi

OK, ya’ll. These are historic times and racial inequity has been rightfully highlighted in our cultural conversation and awareness. It is my desire to be part of this conversation, but as a white man, my place is to first listen. Listen to people of color. Really listen and consider their experiences of our nation. Even if I disagree with how it’s said and acted out, it doesn’t matter. I have no right to tell another how they should feel about an experience that is not my own. In the Bible, James encourages us to be “quick to listen [and] slow to speak.” I am trying to do this.

I think about my children and what qualities I want to instill in them regarding how we, as individuals and a society, should treat one another. What conversations should I be having with them about these current events? What is age-appropriate to share? And how do I do any of this during their own traumatization of a pandemic that has so disrupted their social/academic/religious/athletic/artistic lives and pursuits? And what can I say as a white man? And isn’t the fact that I have choices in any of this an indicator of my own white privilege? Of theirs?

Authors Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi. Credit: School Library Journal (slj.com)

These are just a few of the questions my wife and I have wrestled with over these last difficult weeks when I heard (providentially?) Jason Reynolds interviewed by Krista Tippett on her On Being podcast. Jason Reynolds is a young adult author and the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature of the Library of Congress. He’s also Black, which matters here.

Author Ibram X. Kendi (How to be an Antiracist) invited Reynolds to reinterpret Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America for a YA audience. The result is Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You. Reynolds and Kendi are both credited as the authors. It was such a great interview that I was immediately sold on Reynold’s compassion for young people, expertise on the subject matter, and skill with words that I ordered the book as soon as I got home.

I found the book to be very helpful to me as I’m learning that racism is not so much about people as it is about ideas that we’ve all inherited. These ideas have been baked and buried into systems and worldviews and manifest in policies that have proven to be unjust to people of color. How we then respond to this injustice is difficult work and the book discusses different historical leaders and their different answers to this question. The main three schools of thought are segregationalism, assimilationism, and what the book advocates: antiracism.

Reynolds is masterful in tackling such a heavy subject in a way that is, dare I say, entertaining. His writing style is short and punchy while trusting the intelligence of his young audience. Throughout the book, he encourages the reader to take a break and breathe while he takes us on the “not-a-history-book” journey from 1400’s Portugal to the USA’s current #BlackLivesMatter movement.

I’m glad I read this book and recommend it wholeheartedly for anyone 12 and up. I’ll now hand it off to the rest of my family and we’ll see what conversations ensue.