Getting Started for White Folks VI: Reading Edition (Articles and Books)
Building on A Getting Started Guide For White Folks, this is the sixth of a series diving deeper into recommendations for white folks seeking a place to start, to listen, and most importantly, to act.
If you’re at the very beginning of your journey, I suggest reading these three books — in this order. When you’re both absorbing new information along with being given information contradictory to what you’ve been taught, I think that first learning about your whiteness, then diving in deeper into the dialogue around racism and finally learning the actions you must take to dismantle racism is a good order to absorb as much of the information as possible in the shortest time.
- Waking Up White, and Finding Myself in the Story of Race — Debby Irving
- So You Want to Talk About Race — Ijeoma Oluo
- How to Be an Antiracist — Ibram X. Kendi
Also, if you’re just getting started on this journey, take a quick look at Part I: The Basics.
Check out other posts in the series: A Getting Started Guide For White Folks Overview , Videos, Documentaries and Film Edition, Podcasts, Voices and Organizations, and Online Workshops.
Articles
- White Racial Identity and Anti-Racist Education: A Catalyst for Change — Sandra M. Lawrence & Beverly Daniel Tatum
- The Right Hand of Privilege — Dr. Stephen Jones
- Things that anti-racism allies need to stop doing — David Campt
- Letter to My Son — Ta-Nehisi Coates
- The Injustice of This Moment Is Not an ‘Aberration’ — Michelle Alexander
- White Fragility — Robin DiAngelo
- All articles by Ibram Kendi — The Atlantic
- All articles by Tim Wise — Medium
Getting Started Books
DON’T FORGET TO ORDER FROM BLACK-OWNED ONLINE BOOKSTORES
So You Want to Talk About Race — Ijeoma Oluo
This is truly a how-to book for all races. It’s an uncomfortable topic, rife with opportunities to step in it, so to avoid saying the wrong thing, we say nothing — and nothing changes. Oluo covers intersectionality, affirmative action and the East Asian “model minority.” If you read one book on this topic, this should be it.
More from Ijeoma —Check out CIIS’ podcast episode “So You Want To Talk About Race” Show notes |iTunes and follow her T: @IjeomaOluo | IG:@ijeomaoluo | F: Ijeoma.Oluo | Ijeoma Oluo
Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor — Layla Saad
From anti-racist educator and New York Times best-selling author Layla Saad, this eye-opening book challenges you to do the essential work of unpacking your biases, and helps white people take action and dismantle the privilege within themselves so that you can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on people of color, and in turn, help other white people do better, too.
More from Layla — Check out the Good Ancestor Academy, a series of inexpensive masterclasses on-demand. IG: @laylafsaad | Layla Saad
Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do — Jennifer Eberhardt
A leading expert on unconscious racial bias, Jennifer Eberhardt addresses one of the central controversies of our time. How 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. Eberhardt offers us the language and courage and tools to address racial bias at all levels of society — in our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, and criminal justice system.
More from Jennifer— Check out Commonwealth Club’s podcast episode “Understanding Bias” Show notes | iTunes
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism — Robin DiAngelo
Robin DiAngelo is an academic, lecturer and author of White Fragility, the best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality.
More from Robin— Check out Layla Saad’s Good Ancestor podcast episode “Robin DiAngelo on White Fragility” (Show notes | iTunes) as well as Robin’s videos “Deconstructing White Privilege” and “Why ‘I’m not racist’ is only half the story”
Waking Up White, and Finding Myself in the Story of Race — Debby Irving
Debby Irving is a racial justice educator and the author of the acclaimed book, Waking Up White: And Finding Myself in the Story of Race.
More from Debby— Watch “Finding Myself in the Story of Race”, listen to Next Economy Now’s “How White People Can Advocate For Racial Justice” (Show notes |iTunes) and sign up for her 21-Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge online workshop.
Anti-racism
DON’T FORGET TO ORDER FROM BLACK-OWNED ONLINE BOOKSTORES
How to Be an Antiracist — Ibram X. Kendi
Dr. Ibram X. Kendi is an academic, activist and New York Times best selling author and a leading voice in the antiracist movement in the United States. He’s authored How to Be an Antiracist and children’s book AntiRacist Baby as well as Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America and the young adult version Stamped.
More from Ibram— Watch “How to be an Antiracist” and listen to Commonwealth Club’s podcast episode “How to Be an Antiracist” (Show notes | iTunes) and follow T: @DrIbram|IG: @ibramxk | F: ibramxkendi | Ibram X. Kendi
Mass Incarceration
DON’T FORGET TO ORDER FROM BLACK-OWNED ONLINE BOOKSTORES
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness — Michelle Alexander
Michelle Alexander is a writer, civil rights advocate, academic and author of the New York Times Bestseller, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, which identified how mass-incarceration policies have been a disaster for communities of color.
More from Michelle— Watch “The future of race in America” and listen to “Mass Incarceration, Then and Now” (Show notes | iTunes)
Are Prisons Obsolete? — Angela Davis
Angela Davis is a legendary activist and academic who has dedicated her life to fighting for social justice. She is the author of multiple books of which Women, Race and Class should be required reading for anyone calling themselves a feminist. This out of print book is still highly relevant and currently available for free online.
More from Angela —Listen to CIIS’ “Angela Davis: A Life of Activism” (Show notes |iTunes) and City Arts and Lectures’ “Angela Davis & Ibram X. Kendi” (Show notes |iTunes)
Memoirs
DON’T FORGET TO ORDER FROM BLACK-OWNED ONLINE BOOKSTORES
I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made For Whiteness — Austin Channing Brown
From a leading voice on racial justice, an eye-opening account of growing up Black, Christian, and female that exposes how white America’s love affair with “diversity” so often falls short of its ideals.
More from Austin — T: @austinchanning | IG: @austinchanning | F: austinchanningbrown
Between the World and Me — Ta-Nehisi Coates
This profound and beautiful book will change you forever. In a series of letters to his son, sharing the experiences of his life combined with history, Coates powerfully outlines what it means to be black in America today. This a must-read.
More from Ta-Nehisi— Read “Letter to My Son” or follow on Instagram @tanehisipcoates
History of Race in America
DON’T FORGET TO ORDER FROM BLACK-OWNED ONLINE BOOKSTORES
White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide — Carol Anderson
From the Civil War to our combustible present, acclaimed historian Carol Anderson reframes our continuing conversation about race, chronicling the powerful forces opposed to black progress in America. As Ferguson, Missouri, erupted in August 2014, and media commentators across the ideological spectrum referred to the angry response of African Americans as “black rage,” historian Carol Anderson said it was, “white rage at work. With so much attention on the flames,” she argued, “everyone had ignored the kindling.”
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America — Ibram X. Kendi
Dr. Ibram X. Kendi is an academic, activist and New York Times best selling author and a leading voice in the antiracist movement in the United States. He’s authored How to Be an Antiracist and children’s book AntiRacist Baby as well as Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America and the young adult version Stamped.
More from Ibram — Watch “How to be an Antiracist” and listen to Commonwealth Club’s podcast episode “How to Be an Antiracist” (Show notes | iTunes) and follow T: @DrIbram|IG: @ibramxk | F: ibramxkendi | Ibram X. Kendi
Dying of Whiteness — Jonathan Metzl
In the era of Donald Trump, many lower- and middle-class white Americans are drawn to politicians who pledge to make their lives great again. But as Dying of Whiteness shows, the policies that result actually place white Americans at ever-greater risk of sickness and death. Physician Jonathan M. Metzl’s quest to understand the health implications of “backlash governance” leads him across America’s heartland. Interviewing a range of everyday Americans, he examines how racial resentment has fueled pro-gun laws, resistance to the Affordable Care Act, and cuts to schools and social services and shows these policies’ costs: increasing deaths by gun suicide, falling life expectancies, and rising dropout rates.
White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America — Nancy Isenberg
In her groundbreaking bestselling history of the class system in America, Nancy Isenberg takes on our comforting myths about equality, uncovering the crucial legacy of the ever-present, always embarrassing — if occasionally entertaining — poor white trash. Surveying political rhetoric and policy, popular literature and scientific theories over four hundred years, Isenberg upends assumptions about America’s supposedly class-free society — where liberty and hard work were meant to ensure real social mobility. Marginalized as a class, white trash have always been at or near the center of major political debates over the character of the American identity.
Let me know what I’ve missed! I want to publish rather than wait for this to be perfect, so I’m sure there are some really obvious holes and I’d love suggestions and feedback.
