how to read an antiracist

I took my seat for the train trip home from New York and immediately noticed a passenger on the other side of the aisle - on her lap was How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi, a book I thought so highly of that I recently put it on my shortlist for TOA Book of the Year. I hope this doesn't give the wrong impression. I tend to notice the books other people are reading in public, and when I see a book I've read myself it usually counts as a Notable Moment (what an exciting life I lead these days). In other words, spoiler alert - I didn't ask her opinion of the book.

I mean, how could I? The prior paragraph gives the wrong impression in another sense. The train was not a minute out of New York before the book moved from lap to the floor, where for the next four hours it fulfilled a dual function of glossy placemat and occasional footrest. I'd like to think I missed something while absorbed in my own reading. I suppose it's possible that while I walked to the other end of the car my fellow passenger scooped up the book and took in a few of Dr. Kendi's words, but as far as I observed the book remained closed for the duration of the trip.

I'm tempted to read too much into this, to expand an irrelevant anecdote into some broader analysis of how it represents the root of certain important issues, but I think it's better to stop here. Why bother making a point like "there are a million ways to not read, just as there are a million ways to not be antiracist"? I think we all know that we should do certain things, the importance of doing these things requiring no additional explanation from me, and every day we choose to either do these things or not do them.