Anti-Racist Path
“As we mourn and seek justice for the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Nina Pop and Tony McDade (to name but a few), many black people such as myself are wondering: what will happen when the news cycle is over, the social justice memes are no longer posted, and the declarations for inclusivity, diversity and “doing the work” have died down? What happens when white people, momentarily awoken from the comfortable slumber of white privilege by this moment of unignorable protest, go back to sleep? How do we actually create an anti-racist world and rid ourselves of this sickness and system of white supremacy, when the people who benefit from it are not showing up to do the work?”
-Layla F. Saad, Do the work: an anti-racist reading list
Anti-Racist Path: Series for dialogue, skill-building, and action
Information about Anti Racist Path Series offerings for fall 2022 coming soon. Please contact Lynn Lammers with any questions or concerns.
This series invites you to commit or re-commit yourself to anti-racism. We will notice and name racism and envision what dismantling white supremacy looks like for each of us. As we begin this work, we’ll emphasize building emotional resilience and honoring the myriad of emotions that arise when we do the hard work of challenging white supremacy. Affinity space may be provided at certain points in the process.
All sessions will be held over Zoom.
There will be a limit of 40 participants.
We will keep a waitlist.
Throughout this series, participants will:
- Examine social identities with respect to power and privilege
- Identify and express processes of racial identity development
- Develop skills to recognize and navigate a full range of human emotions related to justice work
- Analyze the destructiveness and persistence of whiteness and white supremacy in individual, interpersonal, systemic, and cultural environments
- Engage in a community of co-learners to build capacity and support for continued action
Series facilitators: TBD
Spring 2022 Anti-Racist Path Series Timeline:
Orientation: Wednesday, March 2, 2022, 2-4pm
Asynchronous week (MSU spring break): Materials provided, engage at your own pace.
Session 1: Wednesday, March 16, 2022, 2-4pm
Session 2: Wednesday, March 23, 2022, 2-4pm
Session 3: Wednesday, March 30, 2022, 2-4pm
Session 4: Wednesday, April 6, 2022, 2-4pm
Session 5: Wednesday, April 13, 2022, 2-4pm
Session 6: Wednesday, April 20, 2022, 2-4pm
Registration Link: TBD
Books
(please consider supporting a Black-owned bookstore)
- Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad
- How to Be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi
- Teaching to Transgress by Bell Hooks
- Identity Consciousness Supervision by Robert Brown, Shruti Desi, and Craig Elliott (available online through MSU Library)
- Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
- The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore
- Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper
- Killing the Black Body by Dorothy Roberts
- Biased by Jennifer Eberhardt
- Everday Bias by Howard Ross
- Campus Uprisings by Ty-Ron M.O. Douglas, Kmt G. Shockley, Ivory Toldson
- Blackhood Against the Police Power by Tyron P. Woods
- The Source of Self-Regard by Toni Morrison
- Making All Black Lives Matter by Barbara Ransby
- The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
- Go Tell It On The Mountain by James Baldwin
- Race Matters by Cornel West
- Can We Talk About Race? By Beverly Daniel Tatum
- White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
- Campus Counterspaces by Micere Keels
- Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi
- My Grandmother's Hands by Resmaa Menakem
- Toxic Ivory Towers by Ruth Enid Zambrana
- Microaggressions and Marginality by Derald Wing Sue
- Critical Race Theory by Kimberle Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, Gary Peller, Kendall Thomas
- Breathe: A Letter to My Sons by Imani Perry
- We Want to Do More Than Survive by Bettina Love
- White Working Class by Joan Williams
- We Cast A Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin
Articles
- Combahee River Collective Statement
- Who Gets to Be Afraid in America? By Ibram X. Kendi
- What White Colleagues Need to Understand by Clarice Brazas and Charlie McGeehan
- When Feminism is White Supremacy in Heels by Rachel Cargle
- The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates
- What Does Systemic Racism Mean? by Melanie Woods
- Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Polite Racism of White Liberals by Jeanne Theoharis
- White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
- Invisible Labor by Eric Anthony Grollman
- #ShutdownSTEM’s resource list on anti-Blackness within academia
- Young, Gifted, @ Risk, and Resilience - A Video Toolkit To Support the Wellbeing of Students of Color by the National Center for Institutional Diversity
Podcasts
- NPR’s Code Switch
- New York Time’s 1619
- Intersectionality Matters! Hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw
- Good Ancestor Podcast with Layla Saad
Movies and Videos
- The Urgency of Intersectionality - TED Talk by Kimberlé Crenshaw
- 13th directed by Ava DuVernay
- When They See Us directed by Ava DuVernay
- Time: The Kalief Browder Story
- All the Way Home (1957) When a Black family moves next door
- The New Girl (1960) Racial integration in corporate America
- Merritt College: Home of the Black Panthers
- Jim Crow of the North (Racial covenants)
- Let’s Get to the Root of Racial Injustice (TEDx/Ranier)
- The Truth About the Confederacy (ACLU)
Local Black-led Organizations to Follow
- Black Lives Matter Lansing
- One Love Global Lansing
- Black Lives Matter Michigan
- MSU Black Student Alliance
- NAACP
National Organizations to Follow
Hashtags to Follow
- #blackintheivory
- #sayhername