Kendi: Writing Prompts, Chapters 1-5
In Chapters 1-3, Kendi narrates his parents' early relationship in 1970s New York, where they were both students and Black liberationists. After they married and settled down into their respective careers, however, they became assimilationists, meaning they believed Black people could and should integrate into White society and prove themselves equal through hard work and impeccable moral conduct. Kendi introduces W.E.B. Du Bois' idea of the dueling (or double) consciousness, in which Black people are torn between feeling racial pride and feeling the need to conform, to be accepted by White people. Kendi notes that the concept of race was invented by the biographer of Portuguese prince Henry the Navigator in the 15th century as a means of legitimizing the earliest iteration of the slave trade. In Chapters 4-5, Kendi outlines some of the most common forms of racism, their origins, their effects, and his experiences with them. He begins with biological racism, the belief that ...