A running list of anti-racism resources

The killing of George Floyd, an unarmed, handcuffed African American man, by a police officer in Minneapolis on May 25, has sparked mass protests in cities across America. Despite the lingering threat of coronavirus, thousands have taken to the streets to march in demonstrations, often confronted by police wielding tear gas and rubber bullets.

They’re not only marching for Floyd, either; his death closely followed news about the killing of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery and 26-year-old Breonna Taylor, shot in separate incidents; a black transgender man, Tony McDade, was also fatally shot by police on Wednesday, May 27.

Many more activists and supporters have expressed their solidarity online, sharing ways to be an ally to those engaged in direct action, or signing a record-breaking petition to arrest the four ex-officers involved in Floyd’s death (the officer directly responsible has since been charged with third-degree murder).

While Floyd’s death, and the subsequent videos on social media of burning buildings and shattered windows, feel like a tipping point in some ways, what we’re seeing is also unfortunately a familiar narrative in the US. A clip of the activist Angela Davis from the 70s, for example, shows her discussing protest and violence in a way that still resonates with the situation almost half a century later.

“Because of the way this society is organised,” she says, “because of the violence that exists on the surface everywhere, you have to expect that there are going to be such explosions.”

Davis’s discussion of the exacerbation of this violence by authority figures is also echoed by Donald Trump’s words in the days following Floyd’s death, including the president’s inflammatory May 29 tweet that reads: “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”

But that history of similar struggles can also serve the present. Books, films, and articles charting race relations and their wider history are a vital tool to inform activists and allies today, and inspire visions for an alternative system. Here, we’ve collected a list of resources to help stay educated and informed.

FILMS AND TV

The aforementioned interview with Angela Davis is taken from the 2011 documentary The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, which also includes commentary from the likes of Erykah Badu and Talib Kweli. The Black Power Mixtape also features in Dazed’s 2018 round-up of powerful docs about race and criminal justice, alongside films about the LA riots and the war on drugs.

Ava DuVernay has also shared a relevant clip about riots and police brutality from her 2016 documentary 13th in the wake of Floyd’s death.

And Raoul Peck’s I Am Not Your Negro (2016) is a documentary told solely in the words of the black homosexual writer James Baldwin, recited by Samuel L. Jackson.

The Criterion Collection has recently lifted its paywall on all titles from Black filmmakers and documentaries about Black experience, in support of Black Lives Matter. The titles available to stream for free include Leilah Weinraub’s 2018 documentary about a Black lesbian strip club in Los Angeles, Shakedown, Maya Angelou’s only feature length film, 1998’s Down in the Delta, and Cheryl Dunye’s 1996 debut, Watermelon Woman.

BOOKS

Consider – as the journalist and author of Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race, Reni Eddo-Lodge, suggests – getting a book from your local library and donating the cost to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, a non-profit providing bail support for protesters.

Toni Morrison, who passed away in August last year, was a masterful writer of fiction that explores racism and the African American past woven with feminist narratives, from The Bluest Eye to Beloved.

Audre Lorde’s seminal poems also take an intersectional approach to talking about race and feminism. (Read more political poems here, as chosen for Dazed by eleven of the most exciting contemporary poets). Lorde’s essential non-fiction texts are also gathered in the 1984 collection, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches.

In terms of nonfiction, the #BecauseWeveRead project has reshared a syllabus on “police, prisons, and abolition” following Floyd’s death. The book list includes texts that outline the problems with authority and pose potential solutions, suggesting what a post-abolition society could look like.

Michelle Alexander’s 2010 book, The New Jim Crow, also examines the role of the justice system in “the rebirth of a caste-like system in the United States”, which has seen millions of African Americans placed behind bars.

Robin Diangelo’s White Fragility examines the institutions, cultural representations, media, school textbooks, movies, advertising, and dominant discourses that insulate white people from the stresses of race, and how this insulation can make any small amount of race-based stress they are exposed to intolerable, provoking defensive – and often violent – responses.

Layla F. Saad’s Me and White Supremacy encourages readers to dismantle their own privilege, teaching them how to be an ally and engage in anti-racist efforts.

Ibram X. Kendi’s How to be an Antiracist explains that it’s not enough to just not be racist. “I wrote this book for this moment,” Kendi says in a May 27 Twitter post: “For this moment to become a movement, for the movement to transform us as we transform this country.” (Kendi has also recently shared his own “antiracist” reading list).

Readers have also shared recommendations through Noname’s online book club.

ARTICLES

Writer Kemi Alemoru, in an article for gal-dem, discusses the act of sharing images and videos of police brutality. “When it comes to something as viscerally distressing as a video of a person being murdered,” she writes, “perhaps there need to be more ground rules and decorum around their dissemination.”

For the New York Times, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor directly reflects on the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd, pointing to the government repeatedly failing black people to explain the severity of the protests.

The New York Times’ “1619 Project” looks at things from a slightly wider angle. The ongoing initiative (which is also available as a podcast) traces the consequences of slavery to the modern day.

A final article hones in on the word “intersectionality” in relation to both race and gender. Written in 2019, “The Intersectionality Wars” includes a conversation with Kimberlé Crenshaw, an academic who coined the phrase 30 years ago.

PODCASTS

Having coined the term “intersectionality”, Kimberlé Crenshaw also hosts the podcast Intersectionality Matters!, where she discusses her specialist subjects: race theory and civil rights. Recent episodes have tackled the construction of narratives during a disaster and state violence.

Seeing White is a 14-part documentary series that was released in 2017, but the themes discussed with leading scholars – including white supremacy, police shootings, and racial inequity across many institutions – are just as relevant today.

NPR’s Code Switch features a diverse team of journalists “fascinated by the overlapping themes of race, ethnicity and culture, how they play out in our lives and communities, and how all of this is shifting”. Recently, they’ve covered police brutality and race in relation to coronavirus.

COMMENTATORS, ORGANISATIONS, AND ACTIVISTS

Organisations like Black Visions Collective, Minnesota Freedom Fund, and Reclaim the Block have been working to support protesters, spread awareness, and confront the establishment.

The North Star Health Collective provides healthcare, resources, and training to help activists or other organisations stay safe during protests and events. “We stand in solidarity with the need for diverse strategies and tactics,” reads a statement on its website. “We will not denounce fellow activists or organizations.”

Showing Up For Racial Justice (@ShowUp4RJ) specifically aims to organise white people for racial justice, holding Zoom calls and educational seminars online.

Black Women’s Blueprint promotes and organises black liberation through a feminist lens, writing: “Our purpose is to take action to secure social, political and economic equality for Black women in American society now.”

Black Lives Matter have coordinated protests in Minnesota over the past few days, but also in other US cities such as Los Angeles. You can follow your local group on social media to see when other marches are planned.

Other prominent Twitter users, such as the How to be an Antiracist author Ibram X. Kendi, have supported activism by sharing information, analysis, and other users’ threads detailing first-hand experiences.

OTHER RESOURCES

The racial justice educator, lawyer, and author Rachel Ricketts has shared a variety of anti-racism resources, curating materials to help address white privilege, promote racial equity, and consider the disproportionate effect of other events on race, such as the coronavirus pandemic.

More resources for white people to learn how to discuss race and racism can be found via Fractured Atlas, or on tech writer and engineer Tatiana Mac’s website.

On Instagram, the artist Mimi Zhu has also shared new, text-based artwork aimed at raising awareness among white people and non-black people of colour. “Non-black people must do better,” she writes. “Keep in mind that black people are not obligated to teach us how to care for them. Look into your honest self. Your discomfort, your learned anti-blackness and your family history. Move beyond the internet to show your outrage and grief. Take action and do not remain complicit.”

The Atlanta rapper Killer Mike has also publicly spoken out around George Floyd’s death, as he has done before, with past instances of police brutality. In a video, he tells protesters: “It is your duty to fortify your own house, so that you may be a house of refuge in times of organisation. And now is the time to plot, plan, strategise, organise, and mobilise.”