Let’s Talk About Race-Resource Guide

~Dr. Grace D. Gipson, PhD

Over the past few months, we have been struggling through a global pandemic---one that has disproportionately affected Black and Brown communities---while also trying to find some sense of comfort and happiness. However, we as country and even the world have recently witnessed a national outpouring of anger, frustration, passion, and protests in response to the ongoing pain of racial injustice and police brutality. With the recent national attention regarding the killings of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd, it is essential to create dialogues about these events and how we make meaning of them to invest in a better society. 

As stated by Black feminist and civil rights activist Audre Lorde, “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.” Thus, as we continue to have discussion in our schools, churches, community events, and our homes it is important that we engage in these differences, while simultaneously equipping ourselves and others. Having the knowledge can lead to fruitful conversation and some sort of change. 

This knowledge can be found in a variety of resources, tools, books, films/documentaries, and community efforts. 

Below you will see a guide that seeks to equip us with the knowledge in hopes to bring about change: 

Multimedia

● The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture online portal- “Talking About Race” 

● #SayHerName-AAPF https://aapf.org/shn-campaign 

● Black Lives Matter https://blacklivesmatter.com/

● PBS NewsHour Extra (Lesson plan for grades 6-12 about the death of George Floyd) 

● Black Lives Matter at School Curriculum Guide

● Teaching Tolerance https://www.tolerance.org/moment/racism-and-police-violence 

● Embrace Race https://www.embracerace.org/

Graphic Novels/YA/Children’s Books

● Dear Martin (2017) ~Nic Stone

● The Poet X (2018) ~Elizabeth Acevedo

● Bayou (2009) ~Jeremy Love

● Something Happened in Our Town: A Child's Story About Racial Injustice (2018) ~Marianne Celano, Marietta Collins,and Ann Hazzard

● Saturday (2019) ~Oge Mara

● The Youngest Marcher: The Story of Audrey Faye Hendricks, a Young Civil Rights Activist (2017) ~Cynthia Levinson

● Each Kindness (2012) ~Jacqueline Woodson

● “Resist: 35 Profiles of Ordinary People Who Rose Up Against Tyranny and Injustice” (2018) ~Veronica Chambers

● Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You (2020) ~Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi

● Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel Adaptation (2020) ~Damian Duffy & John Jennings

● March [Trilogy] (2016) ~John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell

● The Hate U Give (2017) ~Angie Thomas

● ‘Still I Rise: A Graphic History of African Americans’ ~Roland Laird w/Taneshia Nash

● Skin Like Mine (2016) ~LaTashia M. Perry

● I Am Enough (2018) ~Grace Byers

● Hair Love (2019) ~Matthew Cherry

● Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History (2017) & Little Legends: Exceptional Men in Black History (2019) ~Vashti Harrison

Films/Documentaries

● I Am Not Your Negro

● Race

● Do the Right Thing

● Fruitvale Station

● If Beale Street Could Talk

● Selma

● The Hate You Give

● Pariah

● Get Out

● Say Her Name: The Life and Death of Sandra Bland 

● Dear White People [Film & Netflix series]

● The 13th [Netflix]

● When They See Us [Netflix]

● Seven Seconds [Netflix]

● Time: The Kalief Browder Story [Netflix]

● See You Yesterday [Netflix]

Books

● White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide (2016) ~Carol Anderson

● How to Be An Antiracist (2019) ~Ibram X. Kendi

● Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools (2018) ~Monique Morris

● From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation (2016) ~Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

● Between the World and Me (2015) ~Ta-Nehisi Coates

● So you want talk about race (2019) ~Ijeoma Oluo

● White Fragility: Why it’s so hard for white people to talk about racism (2018) ~Robin Diangelo

● Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race (2017) ~Beverly D. Tatum

● The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the age of Colorblindness (2020) ~Michelle Alexander

● Parable of the Sower (1993) ~Octavia E. Butler  

● ‘Choke Hold’: Policing Black Men (2018) ~Paul Butler

● Citizen: An American Lyric (2014) ~Claudia Rankine

● Bad Feminist (2014 ) ~Roxane Gay

● Heavy: An American Memoir (2019) ~Kiese Laymon

● Racism Without Racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of Racial Inequality in America (2017) ~Eduardo Bonilla-Silva

● The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (2018) ~Richard Rothstein

● No Ashes in the Fire (2019) ~Darnell L. Moore

● 'When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir' (2020) ~Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele

● 'Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower' (2019) ~Brittney Cooper

● 'Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism' (2018) ~Safiya Umoja Noble

This is not an end all, be all list, but meant to ignite and continue dialogues that can be difficult, but are very necessary. Hopefully, this list will also lead to the creation of building other resource guides that can be used in the fight against anti-Blackness and anti-racism. 

“We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.” ~Ella Baker