Why I'll be reading Ibram Kendi's 'Goodnight Racism' to my son every night

We take a day in the month of January to remember a man who had a dream of what this country could be if it weren't so messed up. In his new children's book, Goodnight Racism, Ibram Kendi encourages our children to dream like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I'm aware that I've been. As a city council member, mayor, and now as an advocate, I have worked to create equal opportunity and end structural violence. While I was mayor of Stockton, Calif., I launched the country's first mayoral-led basic income program and now lead a coalition of 80 mayors who are trying to make King's dream of guaranteed income a reality. The founder of End Poverty in California is focused on changing the narrative about poverty in the state to make it easier to eradicate poverty. Goodnight Racism made me aspire for a society worthy of my children.

Kendi reminds us that the moon, the elements, the universe, and indeed the Creator all want the same thing: for every child to be safe, fed, and loved. Under the cover of night, a child can see a bright day, one that brings peace to a country with pervasive poverty, inequality, and violence.

The hope that the dream will inspire will allow us to say goodbye to racism, inequality, and neglect if grownups join her in the work of creating the world we all deserve to live in. Our kids are deserving.

The book is close to the child's dream. The racial wealth gap between Black and white Americans hasn't budged since 1964; COVID-19 decimated communities of color, and women of color in particular, and children are being murdered while going to school.

Kendi's scholarship on the ways in which difference and racism have been stamped into the fabric of this country from the beginning gives him a good idea of this. When it's easy to fall into nihilism but still feel the need to fight for justice, he is a historian. We need new visions and imaginings of what we can be when we are in. If not for ourselves, then for our children, we need to dream of something better. Even in the most harrowing conditions they are the anchor of our dreams.

When I read Goodnight Racism to my son, he said, " Daddy, she sleep." He sees sleep and rest as necessary and universal, because we all have the same needs.

Goodnight Racism is written with children in mind, but it is also a great example to adults about what is lost amidst the exhaustion of living in a time of great division. Nothing that my son imagined was radical or even puzzling to him while reading with me. I wanted to know if everyone should have food. He clapped his hands and said yes after looking at me like that was a dumb question.

Everyone should be loved. I kept going. He said yes to his father.

The most enduring part of Kendi's legacy may not be the books he's written, but the way he speaks to the youngest among us. Kendi is speaking to children and reminding them that their thinking is rational even if the world isn't working.

One of my son's favorite books is Goodnight Moon, and he eagerly joined me in saying, "Goodnight!" to injustice and racism. My son's dream was not yet a dream. It is his current understanding of the world we live in that is important to me and my wife. The work my mother and I do is so important that his reaction to the book reminded him. He doesn't want to wake up to a nightmare. I want him to wake up in the middle of the night.

The Deeper The Roots: A Memoir of Hope and Home was written by Michael Tubbs.

Kendi gave a blurb for my book.