The Social Justice Book Club was created in the summer of 2020 in response to enduring health disparities, the Black Lives Matter movement and racial disparities in COVID-19 mortality rates. The Keck School of Medicine Office for Social Justice will once again be offering USC constituents the opportunity to participate in The Social Justice Book Club to explore the definition of racism and the proposal of anti-racism in America.

The book we selected for the Spring 2021 term is How to Be an Anti-Racist by American author and historian Ibram X. Kendi. The book discusses concepts of racism and Kendi's proposals for anti-racist individual actions and systemic changes. Kendi uses his life story to chart his own path and the reader’s putative path from racism to antiracism, arguing that antiracism is the only way to combat racism—one cannot simply be neutral, “colorblind,” or not racist. Each chapter focuses on a different element of racism and weaves in stories, chronologically, from Kendi’s childhood to the present.