OK so I found articles about the author and having read them finally think I understand what he is saying

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/06/arts/ibram-x-kendi-antira...

In the final chapter of “How to Be an Antiracist,” Dr. Kendi
connects his own cancer with the “metastatic racism” afflicting America. To cure it, he says, we must actively combat it, rather than taking comfort in the false neutrality of being “not racist.”

So, in other words, he is saying that racism is like cancer "metastatic racism" and should be attacked in exactly the same way as we attack cancer instead of jist saying we are "not racist"

What if humanity connected the two? = racism and cancer

Then if we launched a war against it (racism) it would not only be about the number of people of all races who would survive cancer but also those who would survive racism, even though "bodies of color" kill far fewer of us in any case.

He seems to be referring to people of all colors being racist in some form, including himself. So "bodies of color" may be referring to institutionalised racism and/ or anti-racism movements. Groups of people of one color or another. It says he felt as a black that he was a lesser mortal in school with white and Asian classmates and felt little was expected of him from his teachers so he didn't even try.

Note that he mentions how Trump attacked black lawmakers but he also notes how Obama also made some racist comments.

He (Dr. Kendi) "defines racist ideas expansively: any idea that there is something inherently better or worse about any racial group. There is no such thing as “not racist” ideas, policies or people, he argues, only racist and antiracist ones.


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Note added at 7 hrs (2022-03-27 14:18:05 GMT)
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MORE
https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2020/june/ibram-x-kendi-d...

"A racist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial inequity between racial groups. An antiracist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial equity between racial groups. By policy, I mean written and unwritten laws, rules, procedures, processes, regulations, and guidelines that govern people. There is no such thing as a nonracist or race-neutral policy. Every policy in every institution in every community in every nation is producing or sustaining either racial inequity or equity between racial groups.

Racist policies have been described by other terms: “institutional racism,” “structural racism,” and “systemic racism,” for instance [...]"Racist policy” says exactly what the problem is and where the problem is. “Institutional racism” and “structural racism” and “systemic racism” are redundant. Racism itself is institutional, structural, and systemic.

“Racist policy” also cuts to the core of racism better than “racial discrimination,” another common phrase. “Racial discrimination” is an immediate and visible manifestation of an underlying racial policy. When someone discriminates against a person in a racial group, they are carrying out a policy or taking advantage of the lack of a protective policy. We all have the power to discriminate. Only an exclusive few have the power to make policy. Focusing on “racial discrimination” takes our eyes off the central agents of racism: racist policy and racist policymakers, or what I call racist power.

"A racist is someone who is supporting a racist policy by their actions or inaction or expressing a racist idea. An antiracist is someone who is supporting an antiracist policy by their actions or expressing an antiracist idea. “Racist” and “antiracist” are like peelable name tags that are placed and replaced based on what someone is doing or not doing, supporting or expressing in each moment. These are not permanent tattoos. No one becomes a racist or antiracist. We can only strive to be one or the other...."

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Note added at 7 hrs (2022-03-27 14:27:37 GMT)
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BTW he seems to be using "bodies of color" to refer to groups of people of color. See here:
"Droughts and food scarcity are ravishing bodies in Eastern and Southern Africa, a region already containing 25 percent of the world’s malnourished population. Human-made environmental catastrophes disproportionately harming bodies of color are not unusual; for instance, nearly four thousand U.S. areas—mostly poor and non-White— have higher lead poisoning rates than Flint, Michigan.