21-Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge
75 Things White Things Can Do For Racial Justice
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
Code Switch's list of books, movies, and podcasts to start with.
TEDx Talks on racism and how to eliminate it
Obviously Googling anything about racism and antiracism will pop up so much information. It's our duty to do our research and educate ourselves. Here are a few links that I've enjoyed looking over and using to add to my own lists and info. There are tons more. Each link will take you through to more links and more books and movies and TV and documentaries and resources to look. I also think we can look to much and get ideas and then not actually sit down and do the actual reading and watching and work it takes to educate ourselves. Me in particular. So I'll list some resources I've seen, listened, or read as well as resources that are on my radar or am currently reading/listening/watching.
Books:
Nonfiction:
We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby. Her essays hold no punches but the humor she has throughout is contagious.
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Y. Davis-- The way she's able to say we need to draw on all movements. When anyone is discriminated against that affects us and we need to be moved by their plight as well. That's how we affect change locally and globally.
March Forward Girl: From Young Warrior to Little Rock Nine by Melba Pattillo Beals. This was a hard book to read out loud with G. She endured so much pain and trauma growing up in the 40s in the Deep South. A brutal regime. Domestic terrorism.
Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob-- She presents how hard the conversations are with her son about all the things that are necessary to hear for children of color. And thus the conversations I need to be having as a white person.
Between the World and Me and
We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nahesi Coates-- He lays it all out. The first is a letter to his son and the other one is a collection of essays and commentary about the eight years with Obama as president.
Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America by Melissa V. Perry-Harris-- I learned a lot about Black women tropes that are everywhere and how damaging they are to the psyche of Black women and they inhibit full participation and citizenship in America.
March by John Robert Lewis-- All three volumes are phenomenal. A great memoir on Mr. Lewis' participation in the civil rights movement.
Fiction:
Dread Nation and
Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland-- I loved this alternate history on what would have happened if zombies rose up during the Civil War.
Pet by Akwaeki Emezi-- Their writing is amazing and I enjoyed Jam and her journey with Monster.
Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson-- The journey through time between each character and how they are where they are was truly beautiful. She never disappoints.
I Am Alfonso Jones by Tony Medina-- Alfonso has high hopes and dreams but his life is ended too soon when a security guard shoots him in a mall. This story takes us through all the grief and anger of all who knew him and a community that's had enough.
The Forgotten Girl by India Hill Brown-- This was a great book about a forgotten girl, a forgotten Black girl, who begins to haunt Iris who has recently discovered her grave. It's a powerful story of forgotten history and left out stories of Black Americans in many cities.
Attica Locke has written and continues to write fascinating mysteries/thrillers.
Black Water Rising,
Pleasantville-- Her crime thrillers are top-notch.
If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin-- No happy endings and but a powerful story with unforgettable characters.
Dreamland Burning by Jennifer Latham-- This is what introduced me to the Greenwood Massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921.
The Changeling by Victor LaValle-- It's horror at it's finest. I'd love this as a movie one day.
Tristan Strong Punches a Whole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia. Tristan introduces to John Henry, Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit. It's a heart-warming story and there's action, loyalty, friendship, and healing from grief.
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi-- It's a tough journey through time. But a necessary and beautiful one. She connects America and Ghana through people and time.
Books on my list that I'm reading now or will in the future:
Parting the Waters: Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement: 1954-1963 by Taylor Branch-- This is a big book. I started it back in January. I read a chapter or two here and there and there's so much information.
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America,
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi-- I love his focus on racist ideas. He breaks the ideas into two camps, segregationists and assimilationists. We can see through history how racist ideas came about in order to justify slavery. Racist ideas came about and were perpetuated in order to justify inhumane laws. His book is written with what antiracist views and ideas are and then uses experiences in his own life to show how he gained these insights and some of the racist ideas and views he held and ingrained and later stripped.
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi (I'm reading this one out loud with my son and we are having great conversations)
The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale-- I saw a video chat hosted by Trevor Noah with Alex Vitale and other activists. I'm trying to understand more about what defunding and abolishing the police really means.
Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla F. Saad (this one is a workbook/journaling type book to work through slowly and confront our deeply seeded and held biases and racist ideas).
Documentaries, Movies and TV Shows:
Film School Rejects has provided a list of free movies that have been made available this month to support Black Lives Matter. The Criterion collection has a ton of independent movies about Black people and filmed by Black people from the 1920s up to 2020.
Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am: I watched this wonderful documentary on Toni Morrison last night. It's available on Hulu. I've read Beloved and I've read a lot of things about Toni Morrison but I've never seen her being interviewed. She's funny. So intelligent, compassionate, passionate, and funny.
I Am Not Your Negro: I cannot explain how moving this documentary is on James Baldwin. It's available on Amazon Prime.
Netflix has a lot of their Black Lives Matter collections available for free on their YouTube channel.
The Innocence Files is a docuseries on the injustices of the criminal justice system in three parts: Junk science, eyewitness testimony, and prosecutorial misconduct.
Podcasts:
Code Switch, 1619, Still Processing, Pod Save the People with DeRay, Justice in America, Throughline, Floodlines, Intersectionality Matters
This is not an exhaustive list, obviously, but these are some of the ones I've read, seen, listened to and the ones I'm working on. I'm excited to continue my own education and start conversations in my own circle of family and friends.
