The antiracists try to transform racism. The assimilationists try to transform Black people. The segregationists try to get away from Black people.
Reynolds defines the characteristics that distinguish antiracists from assimilationists and segregationists. These terms are repeated throughout the book to classify the actions of various American leaders over time. Although many powerful white leaders in positions of unparalleled authority have been praised for views and actions regarding Black people (e.g., Jefferson and Lincoln), Stamped argues that it is important to understand how their assimilationist perspectives ultimately stifled Black freedom and promoted racist ideas.
Let’s learn all there is to know about the tree of racism. The root. The fruit. The sap and trunk. The nests built over time, the changing leaves. That way, your generation can finally, actively chop it down.
Reynolds and Kendi convey the concept of racism through the imagery of a tree. In a society built on slave labor that favors the existence of white individuals, it is important to recognize that racism grows and evolves over time. Reynolds and Kendi reiterate that racism cannot be eradicated by taking a passive stance. Instead, it requires a mobilized effort by many to learn, challenge, and dismantle many institutions and perspectives that are foundational to the creation of the United States.
[Cotton and Mather] built churches in Massachusetts but, more important, they built systems. The church wasn't just a place of worship. The church was a place of power and influence.
In tracing the roots of American racism, Reynolds and Kendi describe how Puritanism spread harmful rhetoric about African people. This country, founded upon the ideas of religious independence and freedom, ultimately preached exceptionalism. Puritans bolstered their own ideas by disenfranchising Native Americans and Africans.
Still, no one would publish her. I mean, those eighteen men knew she was brilliant, but none of them were publishers, and even if they were, why would they risk their business by publishing a Black girl in the midst of a racist world where poetry was for and by rich White people?
Phillis Wheatley was an exceptionally talented poet and writer. However, her personal narrative was hijacked by elite members of white society and was transformed to support the assimilationist perspective. Instead of seeing other Black individuals as possessing the potential to become eloquent writers and academics if given the resources, Wheatley was viewed as an exceptional and other-worldly character. In this way, Wheatley's existence was politicized without her consent.
When it came to Black people, Jefferson's whole life was one big contradiction, as if he were struggling with what he knew was true and what was supposed to be true.
Jefferson built his entire fortune off of slave labor. As a plantation owner, his wealth and prosperity depended on the work of slaves. Although he claimed to disagree with slavery, he was telling his own slaves to work even harder in order for him to accumulate more wealth. In this way, the authors expose how presidents and other politicians and thinkers prolonged slavery and magnified racism.
When we think of Abraham Lincoln, we think Honest Abe, black suit, white shirt, top hat, beard. The Great Emancipator (hmmm), one of the best, or at least most, -known and -loved presidents in America's history.
Following their analysis of the ideas and actions of Thomas Jefferson, Kendi and Reynolds explore the contradictory politics of Abraham Lincoln. Although Lincoln is often depicted as the person who singlehandedly freed all slaves, this narrative minimizes the fact that slaves organized locally and facilitated their own emancipation. In this way, the authors prompt the audience to re-examine the history that many Americans are taught about from a young age.
But the root of his exceptionalism, his excellence, came from his being biracial. It must have. According to one of Du Bois's intellectual mentors, mulattoes were practically the same as any White man.
For many years of Du Bois's organizing career, he was known as the "Black king of assimilation." He was preoccupied with becoming a member of white society and encouraging other Black citizens to do the same. However, his ideas were rooted in exceptionalism, and he did not create an understanding political atmosphere for other Black people who did not have access to the same resources that he did. Du Bois benefitted from colorism, which is defined as a form of prejudice or discrimination in which people who are usually members of the same race are treated differently based on the social implications which come with the cultural meanings attached to skin color. Many Black people had reservations about aligning with Du Bois's politics in the late 19th century for these reasons.
It would be up to Black artists to show themselves. To write and paint and dance and sculpt their humanity, whether White people liked it or not. Whether White people saw them as human or not. And they didn't see them as human.
While Du Bois and his followers wanted to portray an image of dignified and morally correct Black life, Black people were growing frustrated. If Black people could not be shown in their fully-human, imperfect reality, they were not portrayed as being human. And that, in and of itself, is racist. Stamped documents how, as a response to this movement, Black artists began to portray their own narratives through art. The Harlem Renaissance was an important time period for Black artistic representation.
Malcolm X's death rocked the Black antiracist followers, especially the ones populating urban environments. He'd instilled a sense of pride, a sense of intellectual prowess, a sense of self into many.
After his death, Malcolm X was portrayed by the media as violent and aggressive. However, he was a revolutionary leader and active antiracist. He inspired many people to actively fight against racism in all of its expressions in order to dismantle an oppressive system.
All sorts of different minds engaged with Black Power. Separatists, pan-Africanists, and everything in between. Black Power even appealed to the face of the civil rights movement.
Black Power was a revolutionary movement that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. It emphasized racial pride, economic empowerment, and the creation of political and cultural institutions. Although many different thinkers and activists emerged during and following the civil rights era, the Black Power movement had an important and broad effect, even changing the views of the most powerful civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr.
