Articles

• Mental Health Resources for Black Americans, NAMI: October 20, 2020
• Universally Accessible and Racially Equitable Vote by Mail by Laura Wiliamson; June 17, 2020
  • This brief describes the challenges currently facing Black and brown people when voting by mail and presents policy recommendations at each step of the vote-by-mail process to mitigate those problems
• The Other Swing Voter by Ibram X. Kendi; January 2020
  • This article explains the trend of predominantly young people of color making up a group of “other swing voters:” those who often choose between voting Democrat, or not voting at all.
• Your Body Being Used: Where Prisoners Who Can’t Vote Fill Voting Districts by Hansi Lo Wang and Kumari Devarajan
  • This article explains the concept of “prison gerrymandering” and how it contributes to partisan voting maps.
• When Feminism is White Supremacy in Heels by Rachel Cargle; Aug. 16, 2018 
  • From tone policing to whitesplaining, the liberal white women’s feminism is more toxic than they realize, explains Rachel Cargle.
• The 1619 Project: The New York Times Magazine
  • Reframing the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.
• Ahmaud Arbery Could Have Been Me by Ibram X. Kendi; May 12, 2020
  • Americans don’t see me, or Ahmaud Arbery, running down the road—they see their fear.
• Op-Ed:Don’t understand the protests? What you’re seeing is people pushed to the edge by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; May 30, 2020
  • Kareem Abdul-Jabbar reflects on George Floyd protests.
• Reckoning with white supremacy: Five fundamentals for white folks by Lovey Cooper; June 1, 2020
  • If you’re a “well-meaning white person, feeling lost in your self-actualization process, here are five basic ideas to grasp. 
• The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates; June 2014
  • Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.
• White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh; 1988
  • This article covers 50 examples, or hidden benefits, from McIntosh’s perspective, of the privilege white people experience in everyday life.

Videos 

• Black Feminism & the Movement for Black Lives: Barbara Smith, Reina Gossett, Charlene Carruthers (50 min)
  • Black Feminism challenges us to act on the inextricable connections of sexism, class oppression, racism, ableism, homophobia and transphobia. As the contemporary Movement for Black Lives has invigorated resistance to racism and structural violence, this panel reflects on ways that Black Feminism shapes and informs the current struggles and successes.
• Why “I’m not racist” is only half the story | Robin DiAngelo | Big Think (7 min)
  • White guilt is a roadblock to equality, says Robin DiAngelo. It takes race conversations off the table and maintains the status quo. “How do so many of us who are white individually feel so free of racism and yet we live in a society that is so profoundly separate and unequal by race?” asks DiAngelo. Stop feeling bad—that’s not productive. Instead, start doing something to dismantle the systemic racism that benefits you at the expense of others.
• Dr. Robin DiAngelo discusses ‘White Fragility’ (1hr, 24min)
  • University of Washington professor Dr. Robin DiAngelo reads from her book “White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism,” explains the phenomenon, and discusses how white people can develop their capacity to engage more constructively across race.

Books

Non Fiction

• One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy by Carol Anderson; 2018
  • In this book, Anderson chronicles the rollbacks to African American participation in the vote since the 2013 Supreme Court decision that eviscerated the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
• How to Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi; 2019
  • In this book, Kendi weaves together an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science, bringing it all together with an engaging personal narrative of his own awakening to antiracism. How to Be an Antiracist is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond an awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a truly just and equitable society.
• Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi; 2016
  • In this book, Kendi explores and reveals how racist ideas were created, spread, and became deeply rooted in American society.
• The Color of Wealth: The Story Behind the U.S. Racial Wealth Divide by Barbara Robles, Betsy Leondar-Wright, and Rose Brewer; 2006
  • Written by five leading experts on the racial wealth divide who recount the asset-building histories of Native Americans, Latinos, African Americans, Asian Americans, and European Americans, this book is a uniquely comprehensive multicultural history of American wealth. With its focus on public policies–how, for example, many post-World War II GI Bill programs helped whites only–The Color of Wealth is the first book to demonstrate the decisive influence of government on Americans’ net worth.
• The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics by George Lipsitz; June 2018
  • In this unflinching look at white supremacy, George Lipsitz argues that racism is a matter of interests as well as attitudes, a problem of property as well as pigment
• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander; 2010
  • A critical analysis of the role the justice system plays in the oppression of African Americans in the United States.
• Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson; 2014
  • A powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice—from one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time.
• Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Davis; 2003
  • Angela Davis makes the case for prison abolition. 
• White Fragility by Robin J. Diangelo; June 26, 2018
  • The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality.
• From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation by Keeanga Yamahtta-Taylor; 2016
  • In this stirring and insightful analysis, activist and scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor surveys the historical and contemporary ravages of racism and persistence of structural inequality such as mass incarceration and Black unemployment. In this context, she argues that this new struggle against police violence holds the potential to reignite a broader push for Black liberation.

Fiction

• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas; 
  • The Hate U Give is narrated by Starr Carter, a 16-year-old black girl from a poor neighborhood who attends an elite private school in a predominantly white, affluent part of the city. Starr becomes entangled in a national news story after she witnesses a white police officer shoot and kill her childhood friend, Khalil. 

Movies

• 13th: Ava DuVernay
  • In this thought-provoking documentary, scholars, activists, and politicians analyze the criminalization of African Americans and the U.S. prison boom. 
• John Lewis: Good Trouble: Dawn Porter
  • This documentary explores the life and legacy of Congressman John Lewis, and his history of civil rights activism.
• The Hate U Give: George Tillman Jr.
  • Film adaptation of the novel by Angie Thomas
• Selma: Ava DuVernay
  • Tells the story of the 1965 voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery
• Just Mercy: Destin Daniel Cretton
  • Just Mercy tells the true story of Walter McMillian, who, with the help of young defense attorney Bryan Stevenson, appeals his murder conviction. The film is based on the memoir of the same name, written by Stevenson.

Television

• Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, “The Broken Policing System”
  • Five years after three high-profile killings by police, Hasan looks at the culture and systems in place that help officers avoid accountability.
• When They See Us: Ava DuVernay
  • A miniseries chronicling of the Exonerated 5, teens who were falsely convicted. 

Podcasts/Radio

• 1619
  • Four hundred years ago, a ship carrying enslaved Africans arrived in the English colony of Virginia. A new audio series from The New York Times examines the long shadow of that fateful moment.
• Does the Voting Rights Act Have a Second Chance?: All Things Considered, NPR; July 2020
  • NPR’s Alisa Chang speaks with Myrna Pérez, director of the Brennan Center’s Voting Rights and Elections Program, about the history of the Voting Rights Act — the legacy of the late Rep. John Lewis.
• Nice White Parents: NYT; July 2020
  • Nice White Parents looks at the 60-year relationship between white parents and the public school down the block.

Other

• The Nudge App: The Nudge provides a text on your phone a few times a week providing succinct tidbits of knowledge around racism. This is an incredibly helpful tool in learning more about the BLM movement, microaggressions, systemic racism, police reform, economic inequality, and most importantly our own unconscious biases.

To submit a resource, please fill out this form.