Kendi at the BSU meeting
Kendi paints a picture of himself at the BSU meeting in the "Failure" chapter as being militant, aggressive, and impassioned, using scorched-earth rhetoric and evincing very vividly his discontent with the other putatively weak and fearful members. He thought he was a radical, but now he looks back and critiques this version of himself as being too dogmatic, too stubborn, and too quick to judge others for not doing things the way he would do them.
Responsibility of Racism
Kendi conjures up an image of how Black people have to calm the fears of racist White cops and how it is just as absurd as claiming that women are responsible for whether or not they are raped. Imagining a Black person trying to calm down a White cop in full riot gear is impossible to countenance, but it is something that is implicitly or explicitly expected to happen on a regular basis.
Kendi in College
In college, Kendi was very precise about his style, but he did not realize at the time that he was exhibiting both his Blackness and his desire not to look Black. He wore cornrows but also put honey-colored contacts in his eyes. He did so not because he consciously wanted to look White, but rather because he was trying to be handsome and thought Light eyes would be the way to accomplish this.
Kendi and the Mirror
When Kendi meets with the editor for his article, the man uses denigrating language towards Black people even though he is Black. This is startling for Kendi, who is offended but then imagines looking in the mirror, at which point he realized, "I hated what I saw" (139). We can imagine Kendi seeing himself and knowing that he has also harbored negative, stereotypical thoughts about his fellow Black people and essentially no better than Stewart. This leads him more fully down the path of antiracism.
