Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America

How does gender contribute to Kendi’s discussion of race? Select three events or movements across time that evoke views of race and gender at the time. Use these examples to explain how Kendi views the relationship between masculinity and femininity in the development of racist and antiracist movements, language, and art.

How does science relate to racist ideas? Kendi reaches across centuries to show the scientific, or pseudo-scientific, roots of the idea of race. How do biologists and medical scientists connect to the production of racist policies and ideas? Name at least three major thinkers, movements, or events as you make your connections.

Select one black artist, or group of artists, that Kendi names in his text. Use this artist’s or group’s career, work, and environment to answer the question: how does art enhance, complicate, and/or promote the development of racist or antiracist thought in America?

What is the relationship between the academic world and the political world in producing or reinforcing racist policies and ideas? From theologians to presidents to professors, Kendi tracks many prominent thinkers’ writings to show how they shape public and political imaginations. Select three to five individuals whose work interests you and revisit their historical situations to develop a theory of how academic work influences public ideas and policy.

What is the relationship between enslavement and imprisonment across American history, as Kendi sees it? Do the shifting spatial arrangements of Black people—from plantations to Civil War camps to “ghettoes”—organize bodies in physical space as reflections of racist thought at the time?

How does the idea of motion and migration shape Kendi’s narrative?

What is the difference between individualizing and generalizing members of a racial group, in Kendi’s view? Why does individualized, diverse experience matter to antiracist thoughts and movements? Select three moments in history in which either individualizing or generalizing about the black experience has shaped public thought about Blackness.

What are “uplift suasion” and “media suasion”? When did they begin, and how do they progress? Select creative examples of moments in history in which either technique takes hold. Why does Kendi appear unconvinced by the work to “persuade away” racist thought? Do you agree with his stance?