Dr. Ibram X. Kendi is best known for his groundbreaking memoir How to Be an Antiracist, one of the books the Resource Center’s “Reading Race” group has tackled in recent years. In it, as former RCWMS Trustee Marcy Litle notes, Kendi “clearly marks the distinction between racist and antiracist, and among assimilationist, segregationist, and antiracist.” Kendi argues that we can’t sit on the sidelines and expect racism to die off by itself, we have to be actively antiracist.
After Kendi and his wife became parents, he wanted to adapt his message for a younger audience, and, in early June, published his first board book, Antiracist Baby, which acts as a how-to guide for children, talking about race and racism in a way that empowers the youngest minds to understand.
Kendi’s book is but one of many anti-racist books aimed at a younger audience. At RCWMS we have been especially concerned during the pandemic about families with young children. The pressures of working and managing childcare and school from home are daunting, and we salute you. If you haven’t had the chance to plumb the depths of the internet for antiracism resources, we have compiled a book resource list, grouped by age. We hope these will be useful to parents as you and your families cope and learn and grow in this troubling time.
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