Becoming anti-racist means knowing and understanding our nation’s history of systemic racism and oppression and how to change it. All of us must become not just allies but co-conspirators in the fight for civil rights for Black, Latinx, Asian, and Indigenous peoples in the United States and abroad.
To that end, we invite our community into the process of learning and understanding how systems of racist oppression function and operate, and unlearning racist habits, ideas, and patterns in ourselves.
Culture Shift
Discussion Groups
Join Our Facebook Group for Upcoming Events
Resources
Here is a list of resources on the history of race and racism in the United States to help you get
informed about systems of oppression that target Black, Latinx, Asian, and Indigenous people.
READ
Critical Resistance - CR is an organization founded by Angela Davis and to end the inequities of the prison-industrial complex.
Showing Up for Racial Justice - SURJ provides a great set of resources to educate about white supremacy and how it functions in the United States.
Leadership Conference Education Fund - resources and education on police reform and public safety.
Your Kids Aren’t Too Young To Talk About Race - a pretty good roundup of resources for parents who want to raise anti-racist children.
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America - Ibram X. Kendi.
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness. 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.
Between the World and Me. Ta-Nehisi Coates. Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis.
WATCH
Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th discusses the history of the racial inequality in the United States. It highlights on the giant loophole in the 13th Amendment: prisons, and how that loophole has been exploited to target and oppress people of color to the present day.
Ava DuVernay’s documentary about the Central Park Five highlights how the justice system is weighted against people of color as it tells the true story of five teenagers falsely accused of a rape in Central Park who were imprisoned for as long as 13 years.
LISTEN
Floodlines from The Atlantic
An audio documentary about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Floodlines is told from the perspective of four New Orleanians still living with the consequences of governmental neglect. As COVID-19 disproportionately infects and kills Americans of color, the story feels especially relevant. "As a person of color, you always have it in the back of your mind that the government really doesn't care about you," said self-described Katrina overcomer Alice Craft-Kerney.
1619 from The New York Times
"In August of 1619, a ship carrying more than 20 enslaved Africans arrived in the English colony of Virginia. America was not yet America, but this was the moment it began." Hosted by recent Pulitzer Prize winner Nikole Hannah-Jones, the 1619 audio series chronicles how black people have been central to building American democracy, music, wealth and more.
Intersectionality Matters! from The African American Policy Forum
Hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a leading critical race theorist who coined the term "intersectionality," this podcast brings the academic term to life. Each episode brings together lively political organizers, journalists and writers. This recent episode on COVID-19 in prisons and other areas of confinement is a must-listen.
Throughline from NPR
Every week at Throughline, our pals Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei "go back in time to understand the present." To understand the history of systemic racism in America, we recommend "American Police," "Mass Incarceration" and "Milliken v. Bradley."
*podcast section by Code Switch
SUPPORT
Join PARC to host a discussion group
Discuss a book, podcast, movie, documentary, or policy
