Kendi I. Stamped From the Beginning. The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America

Nation Books, 2016. — 363 p.Stamped From the Beginning - The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi is the National Book Award winning history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society. Some Americans insist that we're living in a post-racial society. But racist thought is not just alive and well in America--it is more sophisticated and more insidious than ever. And as award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi argues, racist ideas have a long and lingering history, one in which nearly every great American thinker is complicit. In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. He uses the life stories of five major American intellectuals to drive this history: Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and legendary activist Angela Davis.Stamped From the Beginning is an engrossing and relentless intellectual history of prejudice in America. The greatest service Kendi provides is the ruthless prosecution of American ideas about race for their tensions, contradiction and unintended consequences. This book deep is (and often disturbing) chronicling of how anti-black thinking has entrenched itself in the fabric of American society. It is also a staggering intellectual history of racism in America that is both rigorous and readable. It provides an intricate look at the history of race in the U.S., arguing that many well-meaning American progressives inadvertently operate on belief systems tinged with a racist heritage. Kendi upends many commonly held beliefs about how racism works, exploring the ideas and thinkers behind our most intractable social and cultural problem. Kendi has done something that's damn near impossible: write a book about racism that breaks new ground, while being written in a way that's accessible to the nonacademic. If you've ever been interested in how racist ideas spread throughout the United States, this is the book to read.In 2016, the United States is celebrating its 240th birthday. But even before Thomas Jefferson and the other founders declared independence, Americans were engaging in a polarizing debate over racial disparities, over why they exist and persist, and over why White Americans as a group were prospering more than Black Americans as a group. Historically, there have been three sides to this heated argument. A group we can call segregationists has blamed Black people themselves for the racial disparities. A group we can call antiracists has pointed to racial discrimination. A group we can call assimilationists has tried to argue for both, saying that Black people and racial discrimination were to blame for racial disparities. During the ongoing debate over police killings, these three sides to the argument have been on full display. Segregationists have been blaming the recklessly criminal behavior of the Black people who were killed by police officers. Michael Brown was a monstrous, threatening thief; therefore Darren Wilson had reason to fear him and to kill him. Antiracists have been blaming the recklessly racist behavior of the police. The life of this dark-skinned eighteen-year-old did not matter to Darren Wilson. Assimilationists have tried to have it both ways. Both Wilson and Brown acted like irresponsible criminals.Table of ContentsProloguePART I Cotton Mather
Human Hierarchy
Origins of Racist Ideas
Coming to America
Saving Souls, Not Bodies
Black Hunts
Great AwakeningPART II Thomas Jefferson Enlightenment
Black Exhibits
Created Equal
Uplift Suasion
Big Bottoms
ColonizationPART III William Lloyd Garrison
Gradual Equality
Imbruted or Civilized
Soul
The Impending Crisis
History’s Emancipator
Ready for Freedom?
Reconstructing Slavery
Reconstructing BlamePART IV W. E. B. Du Bois
Renewing the South
Southern Horrors
Black Judases
Great White Hopes
The Birth of a Nation
Media Suasion
Old Deal
Freedom Brand
Massive ResistancePART V Angela Davis
The Act of Civil Rights
Black Power
Law and Order
Reagan’s Drugs
New Democrats
New Republicans
99.9 Percent the Same
The Extraordinary NegroEpilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index