Literary Ruralism (Part XXVII): Ibram Kendi's How to be an Anti-Racist

I've been reading How to be an Anti-Racist  (2019) this summer as part of a book group offered by my son's school, and I've learned a lot and been impressed by the book.  It has nothing to do with rurality, but I can't resist mentioning that I appreciate that Kendi defines his terms, a practice all too uncommon these days when discussing the very divisive issue of racism and what, specifically, what constitutes racism.  You can agree or disagree with his definitions, but at least he gives them to you.

But to get to the reason I'm posting this on Legal Ruralism, Kendi begins the book's penultimate chapter by talking about time he spent in SUNY Oneonta--State University of New York in Oneonta, as a dissertation fellow.  He was coming from Temple University in Philadelphia, having studied undergrad at Florida A & M.  He grew up in New York and suburban Virginia, near DC. 

Kendi writes:

Caridad was probably the one who ushered me to the lecture at SUNY Oneonta, our state college in the town of Oneonta, in upstate New York.  Forgive me for calling Oneonta a town.  Rural White people from surrounding areas labeled Oneonta "the city." 

At Oneonta, Whiteness surrounded me like clouds from a plane's window, which didn't mean I found no White colleagues who were genial and caring.  But it was Caridad, and all her Puerto Rican feminism and antiracism, who took me by the arm when I arrived as a dissertation fellow in 2008 and brought me closer when I stayed in 2009.  

The first paragraph reminds me that, in defining rural, it often comes down to the old cliche, "it's all relative."   The second reminds me how often we conflate rurality with whiteness, which may be close to accurate regarding Oneonta.  The Census Bureau reports that the population of Oneonta is 86% white (82% white alone, not Hispanic) and 4.6% black, 3.1% Asian and 8.1% Hispanic or Latino.