Dr. Inram X. Kendi is a New York Times bestselling author, National Book Award winner, and the Founding Director of The Antiracist Research & Policy Center at American University in Washington, DC. He is a professor of history and international relations.
Kendi's title encompasses his main thesis: simply not being racist isn't enough. We must actively choose to be "antiracist," working to undo racism and its component polices in order to build an equitable society. 'Not being a racist' isn't the opposite of 'being a racist.' An anti-racist is being in an active state of combating racist policies and systems. There is no safe space, he writes, between racist and not a racist. There is no neutral." He suggests all of us are racists sometimes and not others, and we all need to work at anti-racism - at seeing all humans as as fully whole as all the rest.
In Skipjack, Celie is a perfect example of someone trying to be an anti-racist. Her friend Ava is quick to criticize her when she doesn't succeed. Ava is in her own way also a racist - how could the girls not have been back in the 1960's?
For anyone who is working to understand and improve the kind of racism we deal with in 2019, Dr. Kendi's book is a must read.