Antiracist Baby (2020)

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Antiracist Baby Book Cover

Antiracist Baby is a children story book written by National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning and How to be and Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi and Illustrated by Ashley Lukashevsky. Released in June 2020, Antiracist Baby is a tool that empowers parents and children to get rid of racism in society and within ourselves.

Plot

Antiracist baby offers “nine steps to make equity a reality.” Like most books for babies, it primarily speaks to the parents but babies and toddlers could enjoy the illustrations of adorable and diverse babies playing together, snuggling with their parents, and gathering with a wide range of families in their community. Each step includes a brief, rhyming explanation, such as Step 3, “Use your words to talk about race,” it says: “No one will see racism if we only stay silent. / If we don’t name racism, / it won’t stop being so violent.” [1]

Anti-racism

Antiracist book was created because Kendi wanted a tool to be able to talk about being antiracist to his 4 years old daughter and he thinks the best way to talk to her about it is through a book. He also wanted to start a conversation among other parents about the important of having this kind of conversations with children, because even though many parents think that kids are color-blind, the data shows otherwise.[2] Kendi makes this very clear in the first to double-page spread: " Antiracist Baby is bred, not born./ Antiracist Baby is raised to make society transform. //Babies are thought to be racist or antiracist—there is no neutrality.[3]

This book helps to show parents and kids that diversity is celebrated. It also offers simple steps to raise anti-racist kids. The final step in the book is “Believe we can overcome racism,” which is a challenge and a hope.

References

  1. McMahon, Regan (2020). Antiracist Baby. Retrieved on December 15, 2020.
  2. Walsh, Colleen (2020). Teaching children to be antiracist. Retrieved on December 15, 2020.
  3. Kirkus Review. Anticrist Baby. Retrieved on December 15, 2020.