- Martin Luther Kings “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
This letter, written in response to white condemnation of non-violent protest lays out the importance of protest to force a conversation about injustice and the responsibility we all have to push for change. This letter also clarifies that MLK understood violent protest as a highly logical response to a broken social contract.
The Groundwater Approach provides an incredibly helpful analogy for structural racism. The analogy was designed to “help practitioners at all levels internalize the reality that we live in a racially structured society, and that that is what causes racial inequity. The metaphor is based on three observations: 1. racial inequity looks the same across systems, 2. socio-economic difference does not explain the racial inequity; and, 3. inequities are caused by systems, regardless of people’s culture or behavior. Embracing these truths helps leaders confront the reality that all our systems, institutions, and outcomes emanate from the racial hierarchy, on which the United States was built. In other words, we have a “groundwater” problem, and we need “groundwater” solutions. Starting from there, we begin to unlock transformative change.”
This fabulous online reading list is organized by common questions and concerns people have about protests, racism, and police violence, and answers each question with compelling evidence to refute popular but incorrect narratives around racial justice
- Check Your Privilege is an online workbook and program
Check Your Privilege provides a “guided journey that deepens your awareness to how your actions affect the mental health of Black, Brown, Indigenous, People of Color ( BBIPoC).”
- This article discusses why COVID-19 is disproportionately affecting people of color, attributing the disparity to issues of structural racism
- This video discusses the evolution of race as a social construct designed to privilege white people and give them power over their darker skinned counterparts
- Read “The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehisi Coates about the need for America to reckon with its racial past
- Read this article on the disputes between Ta-Nehisi Coates and Cornel West over the nature of structural racism and power systems in the US, and how they should be addressed
- Read this interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates about how these current movements differ from those in 1968, Colin Kaepernick, police abolition, nonviolence and the state, and why he is hopeful
- Read “Racism Won’t Be Solved by Yet Another Blue-Ribbon Report” by Adam Harris about how what America needs in this moment is substantive change, not another government report about race relations in America that merely tells the same story that many other reports written in the aftermath of mass protests already cover
- Read “Trump Gave Police Permission to be Brutal” by Adam Serwer. This article addresses Trump’s position as a president who advocates law and order but not justice, and who has encouraged violent police behavior by dehumanizing those outside of his base. In a time that calls for unity, the president has delighted in deepening divisions and “advocating the violent enforcement of the color line”
- Read this article that explores a Tulsa Police Major’s comments that they’re “shooting black people 24 percent less than we probably ought to be”
- This page from the Atlantic compiles 163 of the Atlantic’s writings on race and racism in America
- Read this article about how to talk about race, racism, and racial justice
- Read this article on four ways to be an ally in the fight against racism
