A few days ago, when I was about one third through this book, I wrote that Kendi had suggested that a racist would make things worse, a non-racist would wind up leaving things as they are today, and that only an antiracist (he may have made up the word) could improve things for the racial groups that face discrimination, and that discrimination is inbred in society. I suggested that success would be measured by the number of areas where the percentage of participants of a particular race would equal, or approximately equal, the percentage of the entire country’s population represented by that group.

I think I stated that correctly, but now I have read the entire book and because it has seemed to become such an influential book, or at least an oft referred to book, I need to expand. It is also a book that has been listed several times on a list of books that have been banned, or should have been banned. Although Kendi sort of answers that himself, even before the banning had taken place, I must admit that I don’t understand why anyone would want to ban this book.

In the first place, this is a coming of age book. It’s the story of a middle class Black kid, raised in Queens and then in high school finding his family relocating to Manassas, Virginia, and finding himself more interested in basketball than academics. He feels lucky to get into Florida A & M, an HBCU, where he majors in magazine journalism and African American Studies and then finds himself in Philadelphia at Temple, where he earns a Ph.D. During this time, he becomes more and more interested in American society and role played by Blacks and other identifiable groups. As his education proceeds, so does his thinking, changing and adding things as he goes. What he believes one day, he may not believe the next. Each book he reads, each class he takes, each piece of research he accomplishes, each new friend – he absorbs what they are telling him and adds it to what he already knows. It’s a story of personal growth and maturity, and could stand just on that, irrespective of the correctness or practicality of his ideas.

But his ideas are important. His view of the position of Blacks in society (he focuses on American society, but agrees that the same issues are reflected in society elsewhere) does change over time. But he starts with a basic premise – that all people, irrespective of race, are equally endowed with a moral sense and with intellectual capacity. He then concludes that the subordinate places that Blacks so often find themselves in are not their fault, but the fault of society itself. And not so much the fault of individual actors in society (of which there are plenty who add to the problem), but to the nature of society itself. And there is nothing that a normal Black or a typical White can do about it.

He also concludes that it is a waste of time and energy to try to change the minds (the conscious or unconscious minds, I assume) of members of society. You can’t do it successfully. It just doesn’t work. This is one of those conclusions he reaches over time – it was not obvious to him at the start of his journey. He concludes you have to change society itself, and that has to be done through policies that will lead to the changes you want to see. As a corollary of this, he has determined that the problems of Blacks is not the result of Whites hating Blacks, or of Blacks fearing Whites. He views it as a simple struggle for power, and for fear of losing power. Power and status and money and all that goes with it. And it is this fear that keeps Blacks down.

I am oversimplifying, of course. And that’s in part because, although I can say this is what Kendi concludes, I can’t say that I understand everything he says, much less agree with it. In part, that is because this is such a complicated book.

It isn’t a long book, but it is a packed book. Like it’s only 235 pages, but he has 500 pages of information and thinking in it. The chapters are distinctly titled, but there is a lot of intersecting from one to another.

This is a book filled with data. Data about everything. Economics, housing, education, employment. And not just contemporary data, but historic data. And all of the data is sourced, so I feel comfortable assuming that it is by and large accurate.

This is also a book filled with references to other books – to thinkers, Black and White, and to books reaching varying conclusions as to why things are the way they are. The books are all serious books. Very serious books. The kind you read only if you are taking a class with them on the required list.

In other words, this is an extremely intellectual book. Despite its title, it is not a “how-to”. It’s a book that requires and demands looking at it very carefully, examining every sentence, weighing each of his conclusions. As opposed to a book that should be banned, this is a book that should be read widely. Not quickly, not cursorily, but fully. And what Kendi is asking, I think, is for his book not to be discounted because a conclusion may be uncomfortable, or different from what one would expect. He throws a lot out there, and there is a lot for each of us (whoever we are) to sift through.

He shifts, I think, between optimism and pessimism and back again. He is thinking. He is recording his thoughts. His thoughts, as I have said, change and mature. But he doesn’t erase them, he just adds to them.

As I said, he concludes that policies are what is important. But the book doesn’t outline those policies. I don’t think he had developed them yet. Perhaps by now he has. I don’t know. He knows we are one society. He doesn’t seem to want to see pure assimilation, which he seems to say means that Blacks will (unsuccessfully perhaps) become White. He certainly wants Black identity and culture to remain. But how do you accomplish this, and at same time fight racism? How do you have racial equality and yet permit voluntary racial separateness, separateness not in the sense of segregation, but in the sense of self identity. And what would happen if Black/White intermarriage, already a fairly normal phenomenon, would become even more common?

I need to hear more from Kendi. Hopefully, we will as time goes on. In the meantime, as I have said, don’t ban him. Instead, argue with him. Tell him where he’s right and where he’s wrong. Look at how you see what he is seeing. And how you have changed, as he has changed.