SOME WEEKEND READING & LISTENING
change is a process. we know from experience. we also know that change happens with action. that while we think big — and long-term — as a business, we can start small in the meantime: we can educate ourselves. we can vote. we can listen.
Mindful of Race
Ruth King
"Racism is a heart disease," writes Ruth King, "and it's curable." Exploring a crucial topic seldom addressed in meditation instruction, this revered teacher takes to her pen to shine a compassionate, provocative, and practical light into a deeply neglected and world-changing domain profoundly relevant to all of us.
The New Jim Crow
Michelle Alexander
Seldom does a book have the impact of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. Since it was first published in 2010, it has been cited in judicial decisions and has been adopted in campus-wide and community-wide reads; it helped inspire the creation of the Marshall Project and the new $100 million Art for Justice Fund; it has been the winner of numerous prizes, including the prestigious NAACP Image Award; and it has spent nearly 250 weeks on the New York Times best seller list.
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You
Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi
The National Book Award winning history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society.
Biased (Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice that shapes what we see, Think and Do
Jennifer L. Eberhardt
"From one of the world’s leading experts on unconscious racial bias come stories, science, and strategies to address one of the central controversies of our timeHow do we talk about bias? How do we address racial disparities and inequities? What role do our institutions play in creating, maintaining, and magnifying those inequities? What role do we play? With a perspective that is at once scientific, investigative, and informed by personal experience, Dr. Jennifer Eberhardt offers us the language and courage we need to face one of the biggest and most troubling issues of our time. She exposes racial bias at all levels of society—in our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, and criminal justice system. Yet she also offers us tools to address it. Eberhardt shows us how we can be vulnerable to bias but not doomed to live under its grip. Racial bias is a problem that we all have a role to play in solving."
White Fragility
Robin Diangelo
The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality. In this “vital, necessary, and beautiful book” (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and “allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to ‘bad people’ (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.
Between the World and Me
Ta-Nehisi Coates
In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?
SALT
poetry BY Nayyirah Waheed
a beautiful expression of black culture, the darkness, the light, and all of the colors in between black and white. It is edgy, profound, and unapologetic in its brutal honesty.
- review by Lori Jenessa Nelson
CODE SWTICH
NPR podcast
Fearless conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, our podcast tackles the subject of race head-on. We explore how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and everything in between. This podcast makes ALL OF US part of the conversation — because we're all part of the story.
How to be an Antiracist
Ibram X. Kendi
From the National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning comes a refreshing approach that will radically reorient America on the urgent issues of race, justice, and equality.
CONSIDER SUPPORTING a BLACK OWNED BOOKSTORE WHEN YOU MAKE YOUR PURCHASE
California
Ashay By the BayVallejo, CA
The Collective Oakland
Oakland, CA
Eso Won BookstoreLos Angeles, CA
Legendary Coffee and BooksStockton, CA
Malik BooksLos Angeles, CA
Marcus BooksOakland, CA
Old Capitol Books Monterey, CA
Underground Books Sacramento, CA
Colorado
Shop at MatterDenver, CO
Connecticut
Burgundy BooksOld Saybrook, CT
Key Bookstore*Hartford, CT
People Get Ready*New Haven, CT
DC
Charnice Milton Community BookstoreWashington, DC
Loyalty Books*Washington, DC
Mahogany BooksWashington, DC
Sankofa Video, Books, & CafeWashington, DC
Solid State Books
Washington, DC
Florida
Cultured Books St. Petersburg, FL
Eden Books
Chiefland, FL
Pyramid BooksBoynton Beach, FL
Illinois
Afriware BooksMaywood, IL
Da Book JointChicago, IL
Semicolon Bookstore*Chicago, IL
Massachusetts
Frugal BookstoreBoston, MA
Susie’s StoriesRockport, MA
New York
Bronx Bound Books(Mobile Bookstore)
Café Con Libros*Brooklyn, NY (Libro.fm storefront)
The Lit. Bar*The Bronx, NY (Libro.fm storefront)
Sisters UptownNew York City, NY
Zawadi BooksBuffalo, NY
TEXAS
Beauty & Brains Books*Houston, TX
Black Pearl Books*Austin, TX
The Dock Bookshop*Fort Worth, TX
Online
AALBC
DTR 360 Books
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