"The opposite of 'racist' is not 'not racist.' It's 'anti-racist.' [...] What's wrong with being 'not racist'? It's a statement of neutrality: 'I'm not racist, but I'm not aggressively anti-racist either.' Yet there is no neutrality in the fight against racism. [...] Either you support the idea of ​​racial hierarchy as a racist, or you support racial equality as an anti-racist. Either you believe that the problems are rooted in groups of people, and you're racist, or you locate the roots of these problems in power and politics, and you're anti-racist. Either you allow racial inequality to continue, and you're racist, or you fight racial inequality, and you're anti-racist. There is no in-between."

On the issue of racism, neutrality is not an option: until we become part of the solution, we are inevitably part of the problem.

A master storyteller and gifted teacher, Ibram X. Kendi helps us recognize that everyone is, from time to time, complicit in racism—whether consciously or not. By chronicling his own journey from racism to anti-racism, he shows us how to do our part and demolishes the myth of post-racial society, giving rise to a new and necessary understanding of racism: What is it? Where does it hide? How do we recognize it? What do we do about it?