Stay Up: Racism, Resistance, and Reclaiming Black Freedom

What is racism? What can we do about it? These are the huge topics that Khodi Dill takes on in Stay Up: Racism, Resistance, and Reclaiming Black Freedom. He offers guidance from personal experience as a biracial man with a Bahamian mom and a white dad who grew up in the Canadian prairies. His experience also comes from being a teacher and continuously helping young people answer these big questions and move forward in a useful and positive way.

Dill focuses on any and all types of racism and bias – Black, Indigenous, people of colour – and he also includes ageism, sexism, ableism and other ‘isms’ which give any group in society power over others. While the book is directed at bipoc readers, whites who care about equality in society will also gain a better understanding and perspective after reading Dill’s book.

The text is divided into three main parts: ‘the know-up’ comes first and helps readers identify racism. Dill talks about his BSP (Black sensory perception) which is a gut reaction telling him who and what around him is racist, even if it seems very subtle. The second section is ‘personal liberation’ where Dill provides some useful tools to address the problems he outlines. He is a great proponent of anti-racist education. Lastly, there is a section entitled ‘social transformation’ where Dill encourages readers to dismantle the many parts of society which are racist. Given that he is a teacher, it is not surprising that much of the focus in this section is on schools and education.

Dill deals with difficult subjects within the overall category of racism, such as white supremacy and the trauma and fear that so many bipoc people live with on a daily basis. Because he presents a great deal of information in a relatively short book, young adult readers may want to read only a chapter at a time or, alternatively, may want to revisit various sections after reading the entire book. Adults will also benefit from the book; we are never too old to learn about these important topics. Stay Up, or selected parts of it, would be an excellent resource for conversations in classrooms in high schools as well as colleges and universities.

The possibly overwhelming text is broken into more easily digested pieces by graphics which include charts, lists and other visual aids. The art by Stylo Starr both complements Dill’s words as well as giving readers interesting and evocative artwork to ponder.

Stay Up includes a land acknowledgment, a note from the author, acknowledgments to all those who had input in the work, suggestions for further reading, a detailed list of sources and an index.

Society has a long way to go in order to become truly equitable. Via Stay Up: Racism, Resistance, and Reclaiming Black Freedom, Khodi Dill provides concrete suggestions and enthusiastic inspirations to help us along the path.