Chapter 8 - How To Be An Antiracist - Ibram X. Kendi

Chapter 8 - Behavior

Behavioral Racist: One who is making individuals responsible for the perceived behavior of racial groups and making racial groups responsible for the behavior of individuals.
Behavioral Antiracist: One who is making racial group behavior fictional and individual behavior real.

"All we have are stories of individual behavior. But individual stories are only proof of the behavior of individuals. Just as race doesn't exist biologically, race doesn't exist behaviorally." - Pg. 95

"Both positions led Americans toward behavioral racism: Black behavior demoralized by freedom --or freed Black behavior demoralized by slavery." - Pg. 97

"What if we measured intelligence by how knowledgeable individuals are about their own environment? What if we measured intellect by an individual's desire to know? What if we realized the best way to ensure an effective educational system is not by standardizing our curricula and tests but by standardizing the opportunities available to all students?" - Pg. 103

It's not an achievement gap but an opportunity gap.

"As long as the mind thinks there is something behaviorally wrong with a racial group, the mind can never be antiracist." Pg. 104

Self-Examination.
Being an antiracist means I look at each individual as an individual and cannot put their behavior onto their race. I really like what Kendi says on page 105, "Behavior is something humans do, not races do." Every person makes their own decisions and just like my decisions are not put on to all white people, no other individual should have this take place.

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