Resources

COVID-19 AND RACISM

Stop Blaming Black People for Dying of the Coronavirus
Race and Medicine: The Harm that Comes from Mistrust
Five Ways to Take Anti-Racist Action during COVID-19
Oprah Winfrey on COVID-19 and Black America
WP4BL Statement on Movement for Black Lives COVID-19 Demands

 

CONSTRUCTION OF WHITENESS

White Supremacy Culture — Tema Okun’s updated list of all the ways that white supremacy influences our lives, often without us consciously being aware of it. Highly recommended!
White People: I Don’t Want You To Understand Me Better, I Want You To Understand Yourselves — by Ijeoma Oluo, an explanation as to why it’s so important for white people to understand whiteness before engaging in racial justice work.
Why Talk About Whiteness — An explanation about why we don’t think about our own whiteness, and why that’s a problem
How  White People Go Made — The history of the construction of whiteness
Roots Deeper Than Whiteness — Thinking of ourselves as more than white, and reclaiming our roots
The Doctrine of Discovery — video explaining how the Doctrine of Discovery created the colonization movement, and how that influences how we now view race
Birth of a White Nation — video explaining the historical process that created the concept of whiteness
The Shadow of Hate — a video history of racial discrimination in the United States
The Color of Fear — a multiracial conversation about race
Resource Guide for White Teachers — Large resource list with lots of information regarding understanding race and whiteness


SURJ NATIONAL

Showing Up for Racial Justice — main website for the national organization. More information about the SURJ mission, and tools for organizing.
SURJ Facebook page — Keep up to date on national events and news. Keep an eye out for the educational calls!
SURJ Families — Facebook group affiliated with SURJ with discussions surrounding raising racially aware children and dealing with family specific issues.
SURJ Education — Education on all sorts of relative topics.


BLOGS AND MAGAZINES

http://blackcommentator.com — A weekly Internet magazine dedicated to the movement for social justice and peace.  Providing commentary, analysis and investigation on issues affection African Americans.

http://www.theroot.com — An Internet magazine of African American culture that provides thought-provoking commentary and perspectives from a variety of Black writers.


LOCAL

http://www.bobrochester.com — Black Owned Businesses in Rochester, NY
B.L.A.C.K. — Building Leadership and Community Knowledge, a grassroots collective created to empower the Black community
New Black Panther Party — New Black Panther Party, Rochester chapter
Minority Reporter — Local news source specifically geared towards the African American community
Enough is Enough — local group focused on police accountability and transparency.
Roc/ACTS — Rochester Alliance of Communities Transforming Society, Inc. (Roc/ACTS) is building a multi-racial, county-wide, faith-based coalition of urban and suburban congregations and organizations which will use its collective power to address critical issues in Rochester.


NEWS

http://Blackagendareport.com — News, commentary and analysis from the Black left.

http://www.colorlines.com — A daily news site offering award-winning reporting, analysis, and solutions to today’s racial justice issues.

https://newsone.com — A source of news and opinion pieces written about and for Black people living in America.


RESEARCH AND TOOLS

http://www.adl.org — Anti-Defamation League, which advocates on a number of anti-discrimination and anti-hate speech platforms.  Also has a portal to report incidents of hate.

http://www.brennancenter.org — Research, policy development and advocacy focus on systemic reform to combat lasting legacies of discrimination and inequality.

http://www.racialequitytools.org — Supports work to achieve racial equity with a robust selection of tools, research, tips, curricula and ideas to increase peoples’ own understanding and to help those working toward justice at every level.


BOOKS ON RACE AND RACIAL JUSTICE/EDUCATION

HISTORY:

The History of White People, by Nell Irvin Painter. Telling perhaps the most important forgotten story in American history, eminent historian Nell Irvin Painter guides us through more than two thousand years of Western civilization, illuminating not only the invention of race but also the frequent praise of “whiteness” for economic, scientific, and political ends. A story filled with towering historical figures, The History of White People closes a huge gap in literature that has long focused on the non-white and forcefully reminds us that the concept of “race” is an all-too-human invention whose meaning, importance, and reality have changed as it has been driven by a long and rich history of events. 70 black-and-white illustrations

Lies My Teacher Told Me, by James Loewen. Americans have lost touch with their history, and in Lies My Teacher Told Me Professor James Loewen shows why. After surveying eighteen leading high school American history texts, he has concluded that not one does a decent job of making history interesting or memorable. Marred by an embarrassing combination of blind patriotism, mindless optimism, sheer misinformation, and outright lies, these books omit almost all the ambiguity, passion, conflict, and drama from our past. Includes a new chapter on 9/11 and the Iraq War.

A People’s History of the United States, by Howard Zinn. Since its original landmark publication in 1980, A People’s History of the United States has been chronicling American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official version of history taught in schools—with its emphasis on great men in high places—to focus on the street, the home, and the, workplace. Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, it is the only volume to tell America’s story from the point of view of—and in the words of—America’s women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As historian Howard Zinn shows, many of our country’s greatest battles—the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women’s rights, racial equality—were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance.

WHITENESS:

What Does it Mean to be White? Developing White Racial Literacy, by Robin DiAngelo. What does it mean to be white in a society that proclaims race meaningless, yet is deeply divided by race? In the face of pervasive racial inequality and segregation, most white people cannot answer that question. In this second edition, the author reveals the factors that make this question so difficult: mis-education about what racism is; ideologies such as individualism and colorblindness; segregation; and the belief that to be complicit in racism is to be an immoral person. These factors contribute to what she terms white racial illiteracy. Speaking as a white person to other white people, DiAngelo clearly and compellingly takes readers through an analysis of white socialization. Weaving research, analysis, stories, images, and familiar examples, she provides the framework needed to develop white racial literacy. She describes how race shapes the lives of white people, explains what makes racism so hard to see, identifies common white racial patterns, and speaks back to popular narratives that work to deny racism. This revised edition also features discussion questions, an index, and a glossary.

White Lies: Race and the Myths of Whiteness, Maurice Berger. The acclaimed work that debunks our myths and false assumptions about race in America. Maurice Berger grew up hypersensitized to race in the charged environment of New York City in the sixties. His father was a Jewish liberal who worshiped Martin Luther King, Jr.; his mother a dark-skinned Sephardic Jew who hated black people. Berger himself was one of the few white kids in his Lower East Side housing project. Berger’s unusual experience–and his determination to examine the subject of race for its multiple and intricate meanings–makes White Lies a fresh and startling book.