Below is an ongoing list of resources for anyone interested in learning more about race, systemic racism, white supremacy, and racial justice. They are a combination of short online articles, videos, comprehensive websites, books, and more. -Karen Gaffney

1. Race is not biological but rather a social construct. We hear almost every day that race is somehow innate, inherent, or natural. In other words, we’re often taught to believe that race is biological, but this is a dangerous myth that has been dispelled countless times. However, despite this work, the myth persists. These sources refute the myth that race is biological and explain what it means when we say there is no biological basis to race:

• TED Talk w Dorothy Roberts “The Problem with Race-Based Medicine”
• PBS documentary: Race: The Power of an Illusion and corresponding website. While all three one-hour episodes are very insightful, the first is especially helpful as an introduction. The film is currently available here on Vimeo, and you can find it on Kanopy streaming service (check your library).
• “Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Race” (from Race: The Power of an Illusion)
• What DNA ancestry tests can — and can’t — tell you (video)
• “The Biology of Skin Color,” Nina Jablonski (HHMI Biointeractive) (video)
• “The disturbing reason some African American patients may be undertreated for pain”
• “What Serena Williams’s scary childbirth story says about medical treatment of black women”
• “Black Mothers Keep Dying After Giving Birth. Shalon Irving’s Story Explains Why”
• “Why Biologists & Biology Teachers Are Uniquely Qualified to Discuss the Issue of Biological Race”
• What Scientists Mean When They Say ‘Race’ Is Not Genetic
• “Race Does Not Equal DNA: If race is a social construct, what’s up with DNA ancestry testing?”
• Forensic anthropologists can try to identify a person’s race from a skull. Should they?
• Can Skeletons Have a Racial Identity?
• If race isn’t biological, how do forensics investigators determine a person’s race using just their bones or a fragment of their DNA?
• The limits of ancestry DNA tests, explained
• “How Not To Talk About Race And Genetics”
• “The unwelcome revival of ‘race science’”
• “Genes for Skin Color Rebut Dated Notions of Race, Researchers Say”
• “The Ancient Origins of Both Light and Dark Skin”
• “What Doctors Should Ignore”
• “What if the Court in the Loving Case Had Declared Race a False Idea?”
• “Syllabus: A History of Anti-Black Racism in Medicine”
• Karen Gaffney’s op-ed “Countering the Rise of White Nationalism” recommending that faculty across disciplines address the myth that race is biological in their college courses
• Karen Gaffney’s book Dismantling the Racism Machine: A Manual and Toolbox that begins by debunking the myth that race is biological
• Superior: The Return of Race Science by Angela Saini
• Racism, Not Race: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions by Joseph L. Graves Jr. and Alan H. Goodman
• Textbook Race: Are We So Different?, edited by Alan H. Goodman, Yolanda T. Moses, and Joseph L. Jones (and supported by the American Anthropological Association). See corresponding website www.understandingrace.org and note that the textbook is associated with a traveling exhibit of the same name, which I saw several years ago at the Liberty Science Center in NJ and strongly recommend.
• Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-Create Race in the Twenty-First Century by Dorothy Roberts 
• Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives by Linda Villarosa
• Genetics and the Unsettled Past: The Collision of DNA, Race, and History, edited by Keith Wailoo, Alondra Nelson, and Catherine Lee
• Race and the Genetic Revolution: Science, Myth, and Culture, edited by Sheldon Krimsky and Kathleen Sloan
• The Nature of Race: How Scientists Think and Teach about Human Difference by Ann Morning
• The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea by Robert Wald Sussman
• Race in a Bottle: The Story of BiDil and Racialized Medicine in a Post-Genomic Age by Jonathan Kahn
• The Race Myth: Why We Pretend Race Exists in America by Joseph Graves
• Race?: Debunking a Scientific Myth by Ian Tattersall and Rob DeSalle

2. Race was invented at a specific moment in history. If race is not biological, then it must be something we created or invented, a social construct. If race is a social construct, why was it created? When? By whom? I’m especially interested in how race (including whiteness) was invented, at least in part, as a divide and conquer strategy to break up coalitions between European and African laborers. This developed especially in colonial Virginia in the mid to late 1600s (as in Bacon’s Rebellion). As many scholars have noted, with the invention of race, whiteness became associated with freedom and blackness with slavery. With the creation of a racial hierarchy, whiteness was positioned at the top, imbued with advantages, privileges, and a full sense of humanity. The sources below don’t all necessarily agree with each other on every detail, but they collectively provide an insightful understanding of this history. Shorter sources are listed first:

• “The Origin of Race in the USA,” Danielle Bainbridge (The Origin of Everything series, PBS Digital Studios) (video)
• The History Of White People In America, Episode One: How America Invented Race (video)
• “The problem is white supremacy”
• The 1619 Project
• “White identity in America is ideology, not biology. The history of ‘whiteness’ proves it.”
• US Census Bureau website: About Race
• “Seeing White” (14-part podcast series from Scene on Radio that covers the social construction of race, the invention of whiteness, systemic racism, and more)
• “How Racism Explains America’s Class Divide and Culture of Economic Cruelty (An Excerpt from Under the Affluence)” by Tim Wise
• Book Review/Summary of The Invention of the White Race by Theodore W. Allen
• “Whiteness as Property” by Cheryl Harris in Harvard Law Review, June 1993
• “Interview with Ira Berlin”
• “The History the Slaveholders Wanted Us to Forget” by Henry Louis Gates
• “Why Schools Fail To Teach Slavery’s ‘Hard History'” (about Southern Poverty Law Center’s report on “Teaching Hard History”)
• “A History of Race and Racism in America, in 24 Chapters” by Ibram X. Kendi
• Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi (book excerpt and his interview with Dr. Christina Greer)
• “The Color of Whiteness”
• “‘What to the Slave is 4th of July?’: James Earl Jones Reads Frederick Douglass’s Historic Speech”
• “There were hundreds of Africans in Tudor England – and none of them slaves: Black Tudors, Miranda Kaufmann, review”
• The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward E. Baptist (video of a lecture by the author about his book here)
• The History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter
• Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race by Matthew Frye Jacobson
• The Invention of the White Race by Theodore W. Allen
• One Drop of Blood: The American Misadventure of Race by Scott Malcomson
• The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics by George Lipsitz
• Critical White Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror, edited by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic
• The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class by David Roediger

3. White people need to understand and recognize white supremacy in order to dismantle it. It can be very difficult for white people to think about and talk about how white supremacy (a racial hierarchy with white at the top) is at the heart of systemic racism, whether we’re looking at at colonial America or the present. Here are some sources that help address the challenge of confronting white supremacy:

• “a word for white people, in two parts”
• “How White People Can Show Up to Support Black Lives”
• “The Work Is Working”
• “Message to White Allies from A Black Anti-Racism Expert: You’re Doing It Wrong”
• “There Is No Such Thing as a ‘White Ally’”
• “When black people are in pain, white people just join book clubs”
• “To White People Who Want to Be ‘One of the Good Ones’”
• Webinar: “Healing from Toxic Whiteness”
• MTV Decoded with Franchesca Ramsey (several relevant episodes)
• Peggy McIntosh’s work can be a helpful place to begin: see “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.”
• “The Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture”
• “White Americans Are Still Confused About Racism – Here’s “The Talk” We Need To Have”
• “Bryan Stevenson on What Well-Meaning White People Need to Know about Race”
• “7 things black people want their well-meaning white friends to know”
• “White People Are Noticing Something New: Their Own Whiteness”
• “Yes, You Can Measure White Privilege”
• “What Is Whiteness?”
• “I am a Racist, and So Are You”
• “Why I’m A Racist”
• “‘Implicit bias’: The problem and how to interrupt it. Plus, the beads test.”
• “10 ways white people are more racist than they realize”
• “How White People Handle Diversity Training in the Workplace”
• “A Sociologist Examines the “White Fragility” That Prevents White Americans from Confronting Racism”
• “White Fragility and the Rules of Engagement”
• “In These Times of Racial Strife, A White Professor Explores The Prevalence of ‘White Fragility'”
• “White Fragility Leads to White Violence: Why Conversations About Race With White People Fall Apart”
• “11 Common Ways White Folks Avoid Taking Responsibility for Racism in the US”
• Tim Wise’s blog
• “Dear white allies after Charleston: Please understand this about your privilege”
• “I, Racist”
• “White Debt” and NPR interview with author Eula Biss
• “The sacredness of working to end white supremacy — a conversation with Rev. Anne Dunlap”
• “The Subtle Linguistics of Polite White Supremacy”
• “4 Problematic Statements White People Make About Race — and What to Say Instead”
• “When Is Bias a Problem?”
• “5 Backhanded Compliments Women Of Color Are Tired Of Hearing”
• “The White Anti-Racism Tone Police: White Supremacy vs. White Privilege”
• “White Privilege, Explained in One Simple Comic”
• “White Privilege & Anti-Racism in the Funnies”
• “White privilege sucks for everyone. WTF to do about it.”
• 11 Things White People Need To Realize About Race
• “No, My Critique Of White Liberalism Is Not ‘Dividing’ The Movement”
• White Guilt is actually White Narcissism
• Don’t Worry, I Checked My Privilege
• “A Flowchart For People Who Get Defensive When Talking About Racism”
• “Debunking a Myth: The Irish Were Not Slaves, Too”
• “Going to the Root: How White Caucuses Contribute to Racial Justice”
• “How Conservatives Hijacked ‘Colorblindness’ and Set Civil Rights Back Decades”
• “Part One: The White Problem” and “Part Two: How White People Got Made”
• “Woman Linked to 1955 Emmett Till Murder Tells Historian Her Claims Were False”
• “The problem with that equity vs. equality graphic you’re using”
• Curriculum used by Starbucks for their staff training on 5/29/18
• “Interrupting Whiteness” book and dvd recommendations from the Seattle Public Library
• Anti-racism resources for white people

Parents, Teachers, and Kids

• Teaching about Racism, Injustice and Structural Inequality, Resources (from Rutgers Graduate School of Education)
• “How to Raise an Anti-Racist Kid”
• “Resources on Teaching Kids about Race and Racism”
• “This student explains white privilege after a black sophomore caused a campus lockdown for carrying a glue gun to class”
• Teacher: A student told me I ‘couldn’t understand because I was a white lady.’ Here’s what I did then.
• “What White Children Need to Know About Race”
• “Talking About Racism With White Kids”
• “The Conversation We Must Have with Our White Children”
• “Teaching Tolerance: How white parents should talk to their young kids about race.”
• “Why White Parents Need to Do More Than Talk to Their Kids About Racism”
• “How Well-Intentioned White Families Can Perpetuate Racism”
• “Teaching your kids not to ‘see’ race is a terrible idea, studies have found”
• “Resources for Talking to Kids About Race and Racism”
• “Why White Parents Need to Talk About Race”
• “Are We Raising Racists?”
• “‘Only White People,’ Said the Little Girl”
• “White Parents: Teaching Our Kids To Be Colorblind Isn’t The Answer”
• “If You Think You’re Giving Students of Color a Voice, Get Over Yourself”
• “14 Children’s Picture Books Exploring Race and Racism”
• Raising Race Conscious Children
• “How Teachers Learn to Discuss Racism”
• “Culturally Relevant Curriculum and Culturally Responsive Schools Toolkit”
• “Guide for Selecting Anti-Bias Children’s Books”
• Zinn Education Project Teaching Materials (Pre-K to High School)
• The Conscious Kid

Books and Films

• Anderson, Carol. White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide. Bloomsbury, 2016.
• Saad, Layla. Me and White Supremacy. Sourcebooks, 2020.
• Metzl, Jonathan. Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America’s Heartland. Basic Books, 2019.
• Oluo, Ijeoma. So You Want to Talk About Race. Seal Press, 2018.
• DiAngelo, Robin. White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. Beacon Press, 2018.
• What Makes Me White (info on film)
• Irving, Debby. Waking Up White: And Finding Myself in the Story of Race. Elephant Room Press, 2014. (See her Ted Talk “Finding Myself in the Story of Race.”)
• Tochluk, Shelly. Witnessing Whiteness: The Need to Talk About Race and How to Do It. 2nd ed. Rowman & Littlefield, 2010.
• Kivel, Paul. Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice. 3rd ed. New Society Publishers, 2011.

4. Systemic racism persists. Just because race is a social construct doesn’t mean that racism isn’t very real. There are numerous sources that reveal the persistence of structural, institutional racism.

• “What Is Owed”
• “America’s Enduring Caste System”
• “The Case for Reparations” (by Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic, May 21, 2014)
• “The Gaps Between White and Black America, in Charts”
• “You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body Is a Confederate Monument”
• “Why Won’t Society Let Black Girls Be Children?”
• “White America Wants Me to Conform. I Won’t Do It.”
• “Unequal Opportunity Race” (video by the African American Policy Forum) and Statement from AAPF and the National Association for Ethnic Studies (after video was banned)
• “Talks to help you understand racism in America” (Ted Talks)
• “White Extinction Anxiety”
• “Report Updates Landmark 1968 Racism Study, Finds More Poverty And Segregation” (Kerner Report)
• Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13^th
• Harvard Implicit Bias Test (At the bottom of the page, click on “I wish to proceed with the ‘Race Association Featured Task'”)
• “Why Black Lives Matter” by Nikkita Oliver (video of her performing spoken word)
• “No Racial Barrier Left to Break (Except All of Them)” by Khalil Gibran Muhammad
• “On Racial Violence: The Condition of Black Life Is One of Mourning”
• “The Racist Trope That Won’t Die”
• “The History of White Power”
• “One of today’s ‘wokest’ moments happened in 1968”
• “Does Seeing Faces of Young Black Boys Facilitate the Identification of Threatening Stimuli?”
• “Why White Americans Call The Police On Black People In Public Spaces”
• “Should I Call the Cops?”
• I Don’t Feel Your Pain: A failure of empathy perpetuates racial disparities.
• This ‘Equity’ picture is actually White Supremacy at work
• “James Baldwin Insisted We Tell the Truth About This Country. The Truth Is, We’ve Been Here Before”
• Beyonce’s mini-documentary “Take My Hand, Precious Lord: The Voices” (video)
• “A Conversation on Race: A series of short films about identity in America”
• Measuring Race and Ethnicity Across the Decades: 1790–2010 (US Census)
• From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
• Proud Boys and the White Ethnostate: How the Alt-Right Is Warping the American Imagination by Alexandra Minna Stern
• Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. (video interview here)
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching: A Young Black Man’s Education by Mychal Denzel Smith (see excerpt here)
• Nobody: Casualties of America’s War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond by Marc Lamont Hill
• Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority Tom Burrell
• Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement
• Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge

Environment and Health

• “How Decades of Racist Housing Policy Left Neighborhoods Sweltering”
• “Why Does Disaster Aid Often Favor White People?”
• “Pollution Is Killing Black Americans. This Community Fought Back”
• “Racism: It’s in the Water” (video)
• Race Best Predicts Whether You Live Near Pollution
• “Robert Bullard: ‘Environmental justice isn’t just slang, it’s real’” (interview)
• How Can We Close The Black-White Sleep Gap?
• “How Racism Is Bad for Our Bodies”
• “Racism Is Literally Bad For Your Health”
• “Racism’s Hidden Toll: In America, how long you live depends on the color of your skin.”
• “How America Kills Black Men Without Lifting A Finger”
• “Nothing Protects Black Women From Dying in Pregnancy and Childbirth”
• “Black Mothers Keep Dying After Giving Birth. Shalon Irving’s Story Explains Why”
• “How Racism May Cause Black Mothers To Suffer The Death Of Their Infants”
• “Racism Is The Root, Sustaining Cause Of Black Infant Mortality”
• “Dr. Mary Bassett: We Must ‘Name Racism’ As A Cause of Poor Health”
• “Study: Affluent Black Kids Suffer Higher Rates of Depression Because … You Guessed It: Racism”
• “Police Killings Have Harmed Mental Health in Black Communities, Study Finds”
• “Gun Violence Has Cut More Than 4 Years Off The Life Expectancy Of Black Americans: Study”
• “Can trauma have genetic effects across generations?”
• An American Health Dilemma: A Medical History of African Americans and the Problem of Race: Beginnings to 1900 and An American Health Dilemma: Race, Medicine, and Health Care in the United States, 1900-2000 (a two-volume series) by W. Michael Byrd and Linda A. Clayton

Education, Employment, Wealth, and Housing

• Adam Ruins Everything: The Disturbing History of the Suburbs (video)
• Abolitionist Teaching and the Future of our Schools
• African-Americans With College Degrees Are Twice As Likely to Be Unemployed as Other Graduates
• “Unemployment in Black and White”
• Racism in the Kindergarten Classroom: New research finds faces of five-year-old black boys put whites in a more threat-conscious state of mind.
• “Hate in Schools”
• “To Be Young, ‘Gifted’ And Black, It Helps To Have A Black Teacher”
• “Colleges Recruit at Richer, Whiter High Schools”
• Illustration: Microaggressions in the Classroom
• “What Anti-racist Teachers Do Differently”
• Statement Regarding the NAACP’s Resolution on a Moratorium on Charter Schools
• “When Does the Racial Achievement Gap First Appear?”
• “Your School Shapes How You Think About Inequality”
• “Even With Affirmative Action, Blacks and Hispanics Are More Underrepresented at Top Colleges Than 35 Years Ago”
• “The Lasting Impact of Mispronouncing Students’ Names.”
• “Federal Data Shows Public Schools Nationwide Are a Hotbed of Racial Injustice” (ACLU)
• “School Segregation, the Continuing Tragedy of Ferguson”
• “Why Are New York’s Schools Segregated? It’s Not as Simple as Housing”
• “White People Keep Finding New Ways to Segregate Schools”
• “The Race Gap in High School Honors Classes”
• “When Black and White Children Grow Apart: Research shows that interracial friendships decline as kids enter adolescence—and that teachers may play a role”
• Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination (link goes to summary)
• Job Discrimination, Based on a Name (New York Times Room for Debate)
• “U.S. Court Rules Dreadlock Ban During Hiring Process Is Legal”
• “The resegregation of America”
• “How Segregation Shapes Fatal Police Violence”
• “Roads to nowhere: how infrastructure built on American inequality”
• “‘The Wrong Complexion For Protection.’ How Race Shaped America’s Roadways And Cities”
• ‘Black Heirlooms’ Examines the Toll of the Racial Wealth Gap on Black Families (video)
• “Black, Latino Two-Parent Families Have Half The Wealth Of White Single Parents”
• “That was no typo: The median net worth of black Bostonians really is $8”
• “The Black-White Wage Gap Is as Big as It Was in 1950”
• “Debt and the Racial Wealth Gap”
• “The Ever-Growing Gap: Without Change, African-American and Latino Families Won’t Match White Wealth for Centuries” (report)
• “Blacks and Latinos Will Be Broke in a Few Decades”
• “How the West got rich and modern capitalism was born” (about Empire of Cotton: A Global History)
• “How Black Middle-Class Kids Become Poor Adults”
• Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America
• “Settler Fragility: Why Settler Privilege Is So Hard to Talk About”
• “Location! Location! Location!” (NPR Code Switch podcast on segregation)
• “How A Half Century Of Redlining Successfully Segregated American Neighborhoods”
• “How Redlining’s Racist Effects Lasted for Decades”
• “Blacks Still Face a Red Line on Housing”
• “‘White Flight’ Persists in America’s Suburbs”
• “Affluent and Black, and Still Trapped by Segregation”
• “Living Apart: How the Government Betrayed a Landmark Civil Rights Law”
• Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (book)
• The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein (interview on Fresh Air and interview on the Philippe Matthews Show)
• What’s Race Got To Do With It? How Current School Reform Policy Maintains Racial and Economic Inequality by Bree Picower and Edwin Mayorga
• “The Kochtopus” is an excellent Prezi on the influence of the Koch Brothers

Voting and Politics

• “Voter Suppression Is Warping Democracy”
• The Strange Career of James Crow, Esquire: After the Supreme Court razed the Voting Rights Act in 2013, Jim Crow came skulking back to the South.
• “The Bogus Voter-Fraud Commission”
• “The Trump Administration Is Trying Again to Get Data on Every American Voter”
• One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy by Carol Anderson
• Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America by Ari Berman
• Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class by Ian Haney López
• The Black Presidency: Barack Obama and the Politics of Race in America by Michael Eric Dyson (video interview here)
• Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America by Ari Berman
• The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency by Randall Kennedy

Criminal Justice System (see separate tab on “Resources on ‘The New Jim Crow'”)

Popular Culture and the Media (see separate tab on “Resources on Representation Matters”)

5. Focusing on economic inequality alone does not explain racial inequality. 

• “Beyond ‘White Fragility’: If you want to let freedom ring, hammer on economic injustice.”
• “We Must Talk about Race to Fix Economic Inequality” (video)
• “Black Women’s Median Wealth is $5: Why Don’t We Care?” (recorded webinar from AAPF)
• “Wealth inequality has widened along racial, ethnic lines since end of Great Recession”
• Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person
• Poor whites live in richer neighborhoods than middle-class blacks and Latinos
• The Enduring Solidarity of Whiteness: Black poverty is fundamentally distinct from white poverty—and so cannot be addressed without grappling with racism. (by Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic, Feb. 8, 2016)
• “Surprised? Even Poor Whites Have It Better Than Blacks”
• “No, Your Hardships Don’t Erase Your White Privilege”
• “Why the Racial Wealth Gap Harms Everyone—Even Whites”
• “Whites Have Huge Wealth Edge Over Blacks (but Don’t Know It)”
• “Democrats can win by tackling race and class together. Here’s proof.”

6. Race isn’t just black and white.

• A Conversation With Latinos on Race (NY Times video)
• Maria Hinojosa’s TED Talk “From invisible to visible” (video)
• 15 Things That Happen When People Think You Don’t “Look Latina”
• “The Problematic History of the Word ‘Hispanic'”
• A Conversation with Asian-Americans on Race (NY Times video)
• Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders: Facts, Not Fiction: Setting the Record Straight (report)
• “Model Minority Stereotype for Asian Americans” (University of Texas Counseling and Mental Health Center)
• “The Professional Burdens of Being a ‘Model Minority.’”
• “‘Model Minority’ Myth Again Used As A Racial Wedge Between Asians And Blacks”
• “Asian-Americans Have Highest Poverty Rate In NYC, But Stereotypes Make The Issue Invisible”
• Ending Anti-Blackness Needs to Be a Top Priority for Asian Americans – Here’s Why
• “Dear Mom, Dad, Uncle, Auntie: Black Lives Matter to Us, Too.” (“Open Letter Project on Anti-Blackness” video)
• Mass Incarceration Since 1492: Native American Encounters With Criminal Injustice
• A Conversation With Native Americans on Race (NY Times video)
• Maulian Dana’s TED Talk “Indigenous Peoples in Maine are not Mascots” (video)
• Proud To Be (Mascots) (video)
• “Teaching kids about Thanksgiving or Columbus? They deserve the real story”
• excerpt from Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Dina Filio-Whitaker’s introduction to “All the Real Indians Died Off” and 20 Other Myths About Native Americans
• Zeroing In on Place and Race: Youth Disconnection in America’s Cities
• “Where are you ‘really’ from? Try another question”
• “Report: Undocumented Immigrants in US Contribute More Than $11.6 Billion to State and Local Taxes”
• 8 Of the Most Vicious Myths About Illegal Immigrants
• “A People’s History of Muslims in the United States” by the Zinn Education Project
• “Between Muslim and White: The Legal Construction of Arab American Identity” by Khaled A. Beydoun
• An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
• Brown Is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority by Steve Phillips
• Killing the American Dream: How Anti-Immigration Extremists are Destroying the Nation by Pilar Marrero
• Undocumented: How Immigration Became Illegal by Aviva Chomsky (video interview here)
• State Out of the Union: Arizona and the Final Showdown Over the American Dream by Jeff Biggers
• We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future by Deepa Iyer
• The Making of Asian America: A History by Erika Lee
• Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America by Juan Gonzalez (website for his film of same name here)
• Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People by Helen Zia
• The Chinese Exclusion Act (PBS film)
• “Order 9066” (Podcast series about Japanese internment)
• A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn

7. Intersectionality is extremely important because we can’t talk about race in isolation, as if it’s separate from gender, sexual orientation, class, etc. Doing so usually defaults to normative identities as this classic text on the issue shows in its title: All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women’s Studies. In addition to the foundational work by Kimberlé Crenshaw, here are some additional sources to help explain the importance of intersectionality:

• “The Urgency of Intersectionality” (TedTalk video by Kimberlé Crenshaw)
• “What Flowers Are We Watering? On Black Girls and “The Bluest Eye”’s Enduring Resonance”
• “How To Do Intersectionality”
• “How Does Race Affect the Gender Wage Gap?”
• “What Are We Celebrating?: What Everyone Should Know About Intersectionality and History”
• “Here’s What White Feminism Is – And Why We Really Need to Talk About It”
• “Here Are 4 Ways to Navigate Whiteness and Feminism – Without Being a White Feminist (TM)”
• “Why Racial Justice Work Needs to Address Settler Colonialism and Native Rights”
• America’s secret history of forced sterilization: Remembering a disturbing and not-so-distant past
• “Our New Video Series ‘#RaceAnd’ Captures the Essence of Intersectionality” (videos by Race Forward)
• “‘We’re all just different!’ How Intersectionality is Being Colonized by White People”
• “5 Signs Your Idea of ‘Intersectionality’ Is Anti-Black Racism In Disguise”

8. Take action! (Also see the list of links to Social Justice Organizations on the side – many have action plans.)

• The BREATHE Act (Movement for Black Lives)
• “Bryan Stevenson on how America can heal” interview by Ezra Klein
• Priya Vulchi and Winona Guo’s TED Talk “What it takes to be racially literate” (video)
• A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement by Alicia Garza
• “An Interview with the Founders of Black Lives Matter: Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi” (TED video)
• “Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor on the Urgency of Fighting Against the Racist Right-Wing” (interview)
• “White Anti-Racism Must Be Based in Solidarity, Not Altruism”
• Principles for Racially Equitable Policy Platforms (Race Forward)
• Speak Up: Responding to Everyday Bigotry (SPLC)
• “What Does Black Leadership Look Like to You?”
• “Creating Change panel addresses Black Feminism” (video) 
• Poor People’s Campaign
• National Equity Atlas
• Racial Equity Resource Guide
• Mass Freedom
• Documenting Hate
• How to Be a Racial Justice Hero, on MLK Day and All Year Long
• Eradicate Institutional Racism (A Campus Toolkit)
• “How America Spreads the Disease that is Racism by not Confronting Racist Family Members and Friends”
• “What Biracial People Know”
• We Absolutely Could Give Reparations To Black People. Here’s How.
• Racial Justice Is the Key to Democracy Reform
• Black Youth Project: Agenda to Build Black Futures
• “High School Students Write Racial Literacy Textbook” and their related Ted Talk “What It Takes To Be Racially Literate”
• “Teachers Must Not Only Be Non-Racist, But Anti-Racist”
• “How To Be A Racial Transformer”
• Principals Share Advice on Addressing Racial Bias in Schools
• “Mulatto: It’s Not a Cool Word”
• Living Room Conversations
• “How Interracial Love Is Saving America”
• Take “The 21-Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge.” Note that the website has a wide range of resources.
• Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Y. Davis (see excerpt here)
• “This App Can Tell You the Indigenous History of the Land You Live On”
• Community Action Partnership: Racial Equity

9. Many activists, scholars, and organizations have put together recommended reading lists.

• “‘Every Work of American Literature Is About Race’: Writers on How We Got Here”
• #BlackLivesMatterSyllabus
• “46 New Books by Women of Color”
• “18 Books Every White Ally Should Read”
• Essential Readings in Indigenous and American Indian Studies
• Introduction To The #Blackpanthersyllabus
• #ImmigrationSyllabus
• Teaching (by New South Negress)
• Melissa Harris-Perry Syllabi
• 6 Scholars Who Are ‘Reimagining Black Politics’
• The Most Important Writing From People Of Color In 2015
• Curriculum for White Americans to Educate Themselves on Race and Racism–from Ferguson to Charleston
• Ferguson Syllabus
• Catalyst Project “Study and Struggle” group on Black Liberation
• Teaching #BlackLivesMatter library guide
• “What to read after watching Beyoncé’s ‘Lemonade’”
• Lemonade Syllabus
• Lemonade Syllabus for young readers (divided into different age groups)
• “10 Books I Wish My White Teachers Had Read”
• “13 books Ta-Nehisi Coates thinks you should read”
• Colin Kaepernick Syllabus
• Syllabi on: #BlackLivesMatter, Critical Race Theory, and Global Justice and Economic Justice