Anti-Racist Vocab Guide: An Illustrated Introduction to Dismantling Anti-Blackness

By Maya Ealey

From "Assimilation" to "Decolonization," "Black Wall Street" to "Police Brutality," and "Colorism" to "White Supremacy," this book equips you with the language to engage in crucial conversations around anti-Black racism.

The Anti-Racist Vocab Guide is a boldly illustrated visual glossary that distills complex subjects into comprehensive yet accessible definitions of terms and provides concise and insightful explanations of historical moments. With reflection questions to use for introspection or as a starting point for hard conversations with those close to you, this book will encourage both your learning and unlearning—no matter where you are in your journey to understanding race in America.

THOROUGH AND APPROACHABLE: This book presents huge topics in easy-to-understand language that welcomes readers of every experience.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS: Each entry is followed by questions to encourage readers to continue their education and translate their new understanding into positive action in their daily lives.

BEYOND THE BUZZWORDS: This is an invaluable resource guide that breaks down and goes beyond common phrases to provide actionable awareness.

EVOCATIVE ART: Author Maya Ealey's striking art provides conceptual illustrations of each term explained in the book in her bold, passionate style.

Perfect for:

• Anyone interested in learning more about race in America
• People who want help understanding the complicated subject of racism
• Parents, teachers, and students
• Readers of instructive and informative best sellers such as How to Be an Antiracist, White Fragility, The 1619 Project, and Do the Work!: An Antiracist Activity Book

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chronicle Books Digital
• Release date: Jan 30, 2024
• ISBN: 9781797222899

Maya Ealey

Maya Ealey is a multi-hyphenate creative based in the San Francisco Bay Area specializing in art direction, brand design, and illustration. Her love for color, technology, representation, and nostalgia is reflected throughout her work, including her 90s-inspired side business, Just Rewind It, which was featured in Beyoncé's 2020 Juneteenth Black Parade Route roundup. Maya is passionate about breaking opportunity barriers and encouraging upward mobility for Black people.

Book preview

Introduction

The summer of 2020 was undoubtedly the hardest summer I’ve lived through as a Black woman in America.

On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was killed by Officer Derek Chauvin, who knelt on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and forty-six seconds, suffocating him to death. The murder of Floyd completely and irrevocably destabilized the racist grounds on which America was built. Horrific videos circled every corner of the internet, conversations ran rampant, and the streets of Oakland, California, were ablaze. The truth was finally out, and there was no way to ignore that law enforcement guns down Black people almost on the daily. The ruse of America’s so-called post-racial society was shattered.

I remember feeling the heat rising through my face and settling around my ears. I felt as though my heart had been ripped out of my chest. A deep wound had been reopened, a wound that my ancestors have carried for four hundred years. In less than ten minutes, a harsh reality was re-etched in stone: My life and the lives of those who look like me have little value. Are we really so disposable? It was a moment of collective mourning in the Black community. And I, for one, spent a lot of time crying.

Like most Black people in America, I have struggled with my identity and figuring out my place as a Black woman within society. As a Black woman in an interracial relationship, a designer in the tech industry, and part of the Bay Area dance community, I frequently find myself in non-Black spaces. I know what it’s like to mold myself to avoid being labeled as the angry Black woman. I know the sting of being called a nappy-headed bitch while walking down the street. I know the pain that comes with working twice as hard to prove that I am not what society tells me I am, only to still be dismissed, judged, and made to feel less than.

In the 1990s, California prided itself on being the most diverse and progressive state, but that was where I first encountered racial aggressions. My first experiences with racism as a child were on the playground, when I was called a monkey by my peers or when my two-strand twists, adorned with colorful barrettes, were mocked by the other children. The attack on who I was—a young Black girl—was the catalyst for me heavily adapting the idea of meritocracy to my life. I began a pattern of subconsciously trying to prove my value through what I could achieve.

Gotta work twice as hard, amirite?

As I continued into adulthood and entered the workplace, a whole other set of challenges presented themselves to me. During the decade I have worked in the Bay Area tech industry, I have worked with only one other Black designer. The lack of diversity can feel isolating and soul-crushing at times. There are barriers to entry for people of color, and then ceilings to break through once you’re there. The many microaggressions I have experienced over the course of my career range from being added to a meeting to talk about how to advertise to the Oakland community because I’m Black, to hearing whispers around the office when I adopt a new hairstyle, to being passed over for promotion, and even to discovering that I was paid significantly less than my white peers. All these instances make me feel like I have to continually prove myself, over and over again.

During the many years my husband and I have been together, we have experienced firsthand the perverseness of racism on a level I had not previously experienced. As an interracial couple, we have never overlooked the topic of race and identity. My husband, being of mixed German and South-Asian heritage, has his own unique set of experiences related to his cultures and their histories. We have learned to navigate situations and spaces that at times are not built for us.

It took me well into my adult life to face the truth:

There will always be people who will try to devalue and dehumanize me based on the color of my skin, but we can all choose to learn how to decolonize our ideologies and values.

During the summer of 2020, I was hurt, angry, and mostly tired—tired of having the same ole conversations. My white and non-Black POC friends and coworkers filled the days following George Floyd’s death with the question Are you OK? No. I was not OK. I was pained, grieving, and grappling with the crushing feeling of inadequacy. It was hard to even answer that question. The conversations I chose to engage in typically carried the following sentiment: I can’t believe something like this happened. I had no idea racism was still so bad.

While I held back tears, I watched over and over as my Black coworkers took on the burden in company-led sessions to share their lived experiences and ask for basic human empathy. I sat in dance community discussions about how to support the Black community and finally throw away the term urban choreo and credit the creation of hip-hop dance to Black artists. The more I listened, the more I realized that a lot of us were not on the same page. We were not speaking the same language. I realized everyone was in a different place in their educational journey on race in America. I began to research, write, and illustrate a series of posts on my Instagram account. That list of terms would eventually become this book.

I am in the decolonization process. It has been brutal and emotionally taxing. There were many moments throughout this process where I simply couldn’t bring myself to write. As I worked on this book, I’ve had to come face-to-face with incredibly horrific stories, statistics, and studies about the mistreatment of Black people in America. From the overestimation of age of Black children to the decades of overtly racist policies against Black people, the pain of these realities has weighed heavily on me. As I continue to decolonize my values, which currently looks like unlearning the pressure of meritocracy that comes with being a Black woman in America, I invite you to do the same. It is imperative that communities who want to do better understand more about the systemic and social challenges that we Black folks come up against. It is a privilege to educate yourself about racism rather than to experience it. For those of us who live with the effects of racism day to day, it is a process of deepening our understanding of our own experience.

Reflection is a useful tool for checking in with yourself and challenging your own way of thinking. Throughout this book, there are reflection questions at the end of each entry. Use these questions for introspection or as a jumping-off point for a dialogue with someone close to you.

As the prolific Black woman I was named after said:

Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. —Maya Angelou

Author’s Note

I’m a creative, a designer, and an illustrator, not an academic, so I understand the value of widely accessible language and visually driven learning. My aim is to share what I do know, what I’ve learned, and what I’m still learning. This book serves as