I have so much to learn. I’ve spent decades reading voraciously, even compulsively… sneaking out of bed to huddle by the nightlight devouring the Chronicles of Narnia (sorry, Mom), getting my B.A. in Russian history and literature, becoming mildly obsessed with the personal narratives of South Pole explorers, reading Harry Potter side-by-side in English and French… I could go on and on. Guess what I never noticed about virtually all of the books that I adored, that helped make me who I am? They are SUPER WHITE. They are the imaginative adventures and valiant histories of people who pretty much look exactly like me. That’s not self-criticism. That’s just fact.
So, when I started waking up to how my particular experience as a white cis woman has shaped and limited my understanding of, well, everything, I realized I had some serious catching up to do. And that’s what I’ve been working on for the past 18 months of this racial justice journey. I’ve boldfaced the items that have been especially important for me personally.
Books
- The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander
- The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin
- Notes of a Native Son, James Baldwin
- The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism, Edward Baptist
- Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
- White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, Robin DiAngelo
- Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America, Michael Eric Dyson
- All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks
- Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
- Waking Up White, Debby Irving
- Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More, Janet Mock
- Twelve Years a Slave, Solomon Northup
- Becoming, Michelle Obama
- So You Want to Talk about Race, Ijeoma Oluo
- The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, Richard Rothstein
- The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas
- Decolonizing Wealth: indigenous wisdom to heal divides and restore balance, Edgar Villanueva
- The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, Isabel Wilkerson
- White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son, Tim Wise
- More Perfect Season 1 and Season 2
- Seeing White: a 14-part documentary series exploring whiteness in America—where it came from, what it means, and how it works
- This American Life Episode #550: Three Miles
- BlackkKlansman
- Eyes on The Prize : America’s Civil Rights Years 1954-1965
- How to Deal with the Police: Parents Explain
- I Am Not Your Negro
- 13th
- Whiteness Project
- adrienne maree brown
- “The Case for Reparations,” Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Harvard Implicit Bias Test
- “Letter from Birmingham City Jail,” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
- Native-Land.ca
- “Bloodchild,” Octavia Butler