Stamped from the Beginning
The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
by Ibram X. Kendi · first published 2016
33% recommend67% neutral
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
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…questions: Is racism really at play? And given America's lasting, endemic racism, is there reason to think something makes it absent in a given case? A couple of the books that turned me around here: Kendi's "Stamped from the Beginning", a history of racist ideas. And Loewen's "Sundown Towns", a look at the wave of ethnic cleansing during the Nadir that happened across America. I had known about the Tulsa Massacre, but what I didn't…
on “The Strange Case of Dr. Ho Man Kwok (2019)” ↗…were deciding whether women should be allowed to vote. Women's "biological differences" were a huge reason they supposedly couldn't handle political power. For those interested in the history, Kendi's "Stamped from the Beginning" is an excellent history of how ideas about "biological differences" have, since the ancient Greeks at least, been used politically. The particular "biological differences" change, of course. E.g., the…
on “James Damore and three others end Google suit” ↗…racist? If so, I don't think there's much point in a discussion here. For those more reasonable who want to know about what anti-racism is opposed to, I'd suggest reading Loewen's Sundown Towns, Kendi's Stamped from the Beginning, and Mills's The Racial Contract as beginner-friendly looks at the system of racism, its historical and intellectual roots, and how it all played out historically.
on “Genders.wtf” ↗…your contributions to HN. I think you're missing a big piece here that I have very recently started to see myself. I would be delighted to share with you. Are you aware of Dr. Ibram X. Kendi's book "Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America"? I am just about done reading it. Before I may have side-eyed "criminal-justice racism" "health-care racism", etc. After, it is clear as day how racism…
on “America’s Largest Health Insurer Is Giving Apartments to Homeless People” ↗Ibram X Kendi has an excellent book, "Stamped from the Beginning" that does a great job of explaining how SAT and ACT tests were really only ever meaningful as a barrier to class mobility for blacks in the United states. in the 21st century it does the same thing.…
on “University of California Will Stop Using SAT, ACT” ↗And that's no accident. I'm currently reading Kendi's excellent "Stamped from the Beginning". He goes into a fair bit of detail how early in the US's history poor whites allied with poor blacks in pursuit of better economic equality. The white elites quickly recognized this as a problem and…
on “The Zero-Sum Bias: When people think that everything is a competition” ↗I think that's reasonable. I strongly recommend Kendi's booked "Stamped from the Beginning", which is basically a history of racist ideas. One of the things that's really striking about it is the extent to which the ideas commonly in circulation are ones useful to the powerful. One clear example…
on “The Long, Painful History of Police Brutality in the U.S.” ↗…behind America's wide array of those. A good place to start: Who were the perpetrators of those crimes? If you can sit with that question for as long as 30 seconds, you might be ready to read Kendi's "Stamped from the Beginning" or Loewen's "Sundown Towns".
on “New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity” ↗That's incorrect. The main use of diversity is in an antiracist fashion. I'd suggest you read one of Kendi's books. Stamped from the Beginning has clear and readable descriptions of the difference, but it's a relatively long work, so you might start with one of his shorter books.
on “Facebook apology as AI labels black men 'primates'” ↗…read so if you would like to critique my critique of Hughes' critique, there are items I ignore because they reference ideas I know are not from Kendi's book that I have read. I recommended the book Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America in my earlier post because it paints a clear picture how racism is alive in well in America in 2019, both in overt, covert, and systemic forms. Hughes'…
on “America’s Largest Health Insurer Is Giving Apartments to Homeless People” ↗…history. There's a long, long tradition of "patently obvious" "science" that just happens to justify the continued dominance of whatever group is top at the moment. As I mentioned elsewhere, Kendi's "Stamped from the Beginning" is an excellent examination of the racial aspect of that.
…to erase that means the problems will continue to remain unsolved. If you'd like to learn more, I'd suggest Kendi's How to be an Anti-Racist. For the historical roots, Kendi's history of racist ideas, Stamped from the Beginning is fascinating, too. To understand the white pattern of reaction and erasure here, DiAngelo's, White Fragility is a good resource (as is her 2011 paper by the same name). If you think you can solve these…
on “America is giving up on the pandemic?” ↗…nonetheless we not only understand the Federalist Papers just fine, we live by many of the ideas he expressed. Culture is handed down. If you'd like to better understand that, I'd suggest you read Kendi's "Stamped from the Beginning", who gives an intellectual history of America's racist ideas. I also think you're mistaken to lay the current troubles at the feet of formal segregation policies, which were only active in one part on…
on “‘Tokenized’: Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase” ↗…example. And of course to other rich white men. Empathy is reserved to specific groups, and lacking/discouraged/repressed for the rest. This is a learned, societally mediated behavior. You can read Kendi's "Stamped from the Beginning" if you'd like to see how that works in detail. Mills's "The Racial Contract" is a good philosophical examination, and Loewen's "Sundown Towns" looks at related aspects via data and history. So we see…
on “Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)” ↗I’ve also read that it was the byproduct of post war migration of whites who wanted access to the city but were afraid of the concentration of black people who resided in the city interior. (Stamped from the Beginning by Ibrim X Kendi)
on “Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy” ↗