#BwayforBLM

Via Broadway for Black Lives Matter Again:

Not Your Average Summer Reading List:

A Resource Goody Bag to Aide the Journey of Unpacking/Unlearning Bias

A few tips: 

• Always start with Black stories written by Black Authors.

• Give yourself grace, don’t be afraid to ask questions, ask for help, and make mistakes; that’s how we grow.

• Don’t understand something? Try researching it first, loads of answers are a Google search away.

• If feelings of fragility rise within the self, work on trying to discover its source.

• Before going to a Black person for help with your discomfort, try reaching out to a fellow accountability partner, refer to the DARVO method and lean into the pain of unlearning and reframing.

Our educations have been deficient, the below resources are tools to help work through that. And remember, this isn’t to say one is racist but to instead challenge one to do the work necessary in becoming anti-racist.

BOOKS

*denotes Black author for books
**denotes POC author
This list is a mixture of fiction and non-fiction as a gift for open exploration.

LEVEL ONE: BEGINNER

Stamped From The Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi*- The National Book Award-winning history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society. Some Americans insist that we’re living in a post-racial society. But racist thought is not just alive and well in America–it is more sophisticated and more insidious than ever.
So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo*– In So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo guides readers of all races through subjects ranging from intersectionality and affirmative action to “model minorities” in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest conversations about race and racism, and how they infect almost every aspect of American life.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston- a classic.
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid- a contemporary look at how race influences how we relate to one another.
A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn– A challenging classic that strives to revolutionize the way American history is not only taught but remembered, told largely from the point of view of those whose plight has largely been omitted from American History.
White Fragility by Robin Diangelo– A book on why it’s so hard for white people to talk about racism.
Becoming by Michelle Obama– Where have you been, where are you going, who are you becoming? A memoir from one of the greatest women to walk planet Earth.
More Than Enough by Elaine Weltroth– Claiming space for who you are no matter what they say.

LEVEL TWO: INTERMEDIATE

The Burning House by Anders Walker– Anders Walker demonstrates that racial segregation fostered not simply terror and violence, but also diversity, one of our most celebrated ideals.
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander*– The New Jim Crow is a stunning account of the rebirth of a caste-like system in the United States, one that has resulted in millions of African Americans locked behind bars and then relegated to a permanent second-class status denied the very rights supposedly won in the Civil Rights Movement.
The Condemnation of Blackness by Khalil Gibran Muhammad*– Chronicling the emergence of deeply embedded notions of black people as a dangerous race of criminals by explicit contrast to working-class whites and European immigrants, Khalil Gibran Muhammad reveals the influence such ideas have had on urban development and social policies.
Your Silence Will Not Protect You by Audre Lorde– what Audre said.
The Fire Next Time James Baldwin- James Baldwin writing about his present, turns out it was our future.
Dying of Whiteness by Jonathan M. Metzel– How are the politics of racial resentment killing America’s Heartland?
A Different Mirror by Ronald Takaki**– the raw truth of American history and an examination of the ultimate question of what it means to be an American.
How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi*– Ibram X. Kendi’s concept of antiracism fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. Instead of working with the policies and system we have in place, Kendi asks us to think about what an antiracist society might look like, and how we can play an active role in building it.

Black Owned Bookstores to Buy From Instead of Amazon

Semicolon
Mahogany Books
Harriet’s Bookshop
Cafe con Libros
The Lit Bar

PODCASTS

Pod Save the People
NPR Code Switch
1619 (NYT)
About Race w/ Reni Eddo-Lodge
Intersectional Matters w/ Kimberle Crenshaw
Momentum: A Race Forward Podcast
Pod For The Cause (Leadership Conf. on Civil & Human Rights)
Seeing White
Parenting Forward / Ep. 5 Five “Pandemic Parenting Lessons with Cindy Wang Brandt”
Fare of the Free Child Podcast

Read more via Broadway for Black Lives Matter Again.