Making Room for Dignity: A Review of Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist

What good is life amidst the recurring questions, their poor results, and the endless cynicism of our age? Walt Whitman once asked. In the end, he offered the briefest and profoundest of consolations: “That you are here – that life exists and identity; That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.” And if with our verses we can affirm the dignity of others, perhaps the morrow will be a little less alien for all of us.  My studies as a doctoral student in the Department of Humanities at York University aspire towards just such a deliberately naïve vision.