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Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You is Jason Reynolds’s “remix” of a book by historian and activist Ibram X. Kendi, titled Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. Like a remix of a song, Reynolds’s adaptation draws heavily on Kendi’s original book, but he reworks the material to appeal to a different audience: namely teenaged readers. Unlike Kendi’s original, Reynolds insists from the outset that Stamped is “not a history book,” though it deals with people and events from the past. Instead, Reynolds frames Stamped as a story that informs our understanding of the present and the future. Drawing on conventions from fiction, Reynolds employs an informal, irreverent narrative voice that entertains and sometimes cajoles his young readers to remain committed to confronting an uncomfortable topic, “the R-word.” As he recounts the origins of American racism, Reynolds seeks to expose the fundamental absurdity of racism while also rooting out racist beliefs that are deeply engrained in American society, even among people who disapprove of racism. For Reynolds and Kendi, recognizing and stamping out such ideas is the key to dismantling the racist structures that continue to plague American society.
Read more about the “remix” style in which the book is written.
One way that Stamped distinguishes itself from “history books” is through its presentist approach to historical subjects. Presentism is a way of interpreting history through the lens of the present, using current norms and attitudes to judge people and events from the past. On the one hand, Stamped resembles a history book in its careful exploration of historical people and events that shaped racist ideas dating back centuries. But in telling these stories, Reynolds frequently presents historical figures in an unflattering light, judging them by the values of contemporary society rather than by the norms and values that were prevalent in the past. Given the long history of American racism, this presentist approach to the past offers a compelling way for younger readers to understand their agency in the face of seemingly unchangeable conditions.
Read brief profiles of 19 historical figures whose actions are discussed in Stamped.
Another way that Stamped roots itself in the present is through its direct appeals to the reader. The “And You” of the book’s title signals that the book will attend to the reader’s reactions as well as their future actions with reference to racism and antiracism. As is often the case when a text exhorts the reader, Stamped aims to elicit small responses (including reactions to its contents) that will culminate, eventually, in bigger and more significant ones. Often, for example, it acknowledges the reader’s likely horror at intellectual contradictions in racist thinking or at historical moments of brutality toward people of color. The book urges readers—especially Black readers—to always remember that the racist claims it helps them navigate do not define their worth or potential. No matter what the world seems to say of them, Reynolds encourages young readers to be themselves, rejecting efforts to diminish themselves for other people’s comfort. In its closing sentences, Stamped holds up the example of the antiracists who founded the #BlackLivesMatter and #SayHerName social movements, urging readers to take the path of action and activism as their own.
Although Stamped is “not a history book,” in many ways it resembles one. Structurally, the book is divided into five sections that follow a roughly chronological timeline from 1415 to the present. (Stamped was published in 2020.) Although many of the key moments in the history of American racial injustice are mentioned, Reynolds does not attempt to present a comprehensive history of events. Rather, he focuses primarily on the stories of historical thinkers and intellectuals, a choice that subtly stresses that racial hierarchy is a human invention. Although numerous historical figures are discussed over the course of the book, five play an especially prominent role in anchoring the narrative: Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, William Lloyd Garrison, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Angela Davis. Reynolds uses these individuals as touchstones to map the trajectory of American racism from the colonial period through the present.
Throughout Stamped, Reynolds categorizes people and ideas in one of three ways: racist, assimilationist, or antiracist. Reynolds condemns racist ideas, arguing that they are rooted in white greed and hate. He unforgivingly lambasts intellectuals like Mather and Jefferson, whose writings promote the lie that Black people are inherently inferior. However, Reynolds is also highly critical of assimilationist thinkers like Garrison, an influential 19th-century abolitionist, and Du Bois, a prominent 20th-century Black intellectual. Although Garrison and Du Bois devoted their lives to combating racism and racial injustice, Reynolds criticizes their implicit acceptance of Black inferiority and their goal of helping Black people assimilate into white society. The book’s subtitle, Racism, Antiracism, and You, omits the category of assimilationism altogether, suggesting that this mindset is just another form of racism.
The third category, antiracism, is embodied in the story of Black intellectual and activist Angela Davis (1944-present), whose full-throated rejection of racism has long made her a target of political persecution. Unlike assimilationism, antiracism unapologetically condemns the notion of white superiority. As Davis’s story makes clear, antiracism requires extraordinary bravery. It is a difficult path to choose. But Reynolds argues that antiracism is the best, indeed the only, way forward for both the United States and each person who picks up the book. In continuing forward through the book, the reader has already begun treading the path of antiracism.
Read a brief historical context essay about “Stamped and the Roots of American Racism.”
