Syllabus for White People

This list was pulled from Google Docs. It had to be scrubbed of CSS and other ugly formatting to be usable here, which inadvertently removed some useful formatting. URLs were manually cleaned, so may have been broken. As we elaborate this list, it can be improved to expand from the liberal/reformist, USA, post-election focus.

Disclaimer: this is long! You won’t read it in a day, but if you commit to reading consistently, you will make your way through it!

Note: Many of these sources are not from traditional news media outlets. This is intentional, as those outlets often times only feature the most heard voices and partially got us into this mess in the first place. In an effort to unlearn systemic racism and understand how we ourselves are complicit, we have chosen a variety of forms of content on top of traditional news articles, including blog posts, scholarly articles, fiction books, movies. We have organized the material thematically and chronologically, so if you are overwhelmed with the length of the document, pick a couple from each section and then move on. I ask you to read through this syllabus with an open mind and heart. If you have any thoughts on additional materials or just in general, please use the comment feature! Thanks.

Radical Reading
Revolutionary Solidarity: A Critical Reader for Accomplices
Accomplices Not Allies: Abolishing the Ally Industrial Complex

General Knowledge (CW: Liberal)
Debunking the Progress Narrative” (The Atlantic)
America will never be ‘Post Racial’” (The Atlantic)
The Case for Reparations” (The Atlantic)
History white people need to learn” (Salon)
How the Government Betrayed a Landmark Civil Rights Law” (Pro Publica)
The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism” (Audre Lorde) How exactly do white supremacy and systemic racism operate? How have we been complicit in reproducing racist ideology?
White Privilege” (Peggy MacIntosh)
The White Racial Frame” (Joe Feigen, an abridged version of his book of the same title)
Intentions Don’t Really Matter” (Everyday Feminism)
The Privilege of Politeness” (Naamen Gobert Tilahun)
Objectivity Can Be Oppressive” (Everyday Feminism)
Enough with the White Male Rage Narrative” (The Guardian)
Here Are 4 Ways to Navigate Whiteness and Feminism – Without Being a White Feminist “ (Everyday Feminism)

A history of #BlackLivesMatter
A Herstory of the Black Lives Matter movement (Feminist Wire)
5 Ways of Understanding Black Lives Matter (YouTube)
From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation (Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor) Black Lives Matter founders describe paradigm shift in the movement (NPR)
Black Lives Matter syllabus How did white liberal culture, as well as systemic racism and white supremacy, directly contribute to Donald Trump’s election?
Donald Trump and the Central Park Five: the racially charged rise of a demagogue” (The Guardian)
Donald Trump is moving to the White House, and liberals put him there” (The Guardian)
5 reasons Trump will win” (Michael Moore) #

The GOP’s Attack on Voting Rights Was the Most Under-Covered Story of 2016” (The Nation)
Republicans and the White Working Class” (Mother Jones) #
Democrats, Trump, and the Ongoing, Dangerous Refusal to Learn the Lesson of Brexit (The Intercept)
The Smug Style in American Liberalism” (Vox)
2 charts explaining how racism elected Trump (Vox)
The real reason we have an Electoral College: to protect slave states (Vox)
MOURNING FOR WHITENESS - Toni Morrison (New Yorker)

Action
A list of pro-women, pro-immigrant, pro-earth, anti-bigot organizations to donate to
How to be an anti-racist ally
Shaun King’s 25 part plan to reducing police brutality in America
Bystander's guide to standing up to harassment
“Anti-Muslim hate will increase. Here is how to not be a bystander.”
How to Financially Protest DT
How to Protest Islamophobia
What can Democrats do, if anything, stop DT’s disastrous climate plans?
Black Lives Matter Platform
The DJT Resistance
Volunteer for the ACLU
Call your representatives and demand they stand up to DT!
Resources for non-Black Asians on Anti-Blackness #

Longer form: Non-fiction books
The New Jim Crow (Michelle Alexander)

For a nuanced counterargument to some of Alexander’s thesis, read “The Truth About Our Prison Crisis” (New York Review of Books)
A People’s History of the United States (Howard Zinn)
Racism Without Racists (Eduardo Bonilla-Silva) Dog Whistle Politics (Ian Haney-Lopez)
At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance (Danielle McGuire)
Punished (Victor Rios)
When Affirmative Action Was White (Ira Katznelson)
What’s the Matter with Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America (Thomas Frank)
Haymarket Book’s reading list (includes books on Islamophobia and American empire, which are topics not adequately represented above)

Memoir/Essay
The Souls of Black Folk (W. E. B. Du Bois)
The Fire Next Time (James Baldwin)
Invisible Man Got the Whole World Watching (Mychal Denzel Smith)
Citizen (Claudia Rankine)
Between the World and Me (Ta-Nehisi Coates)

Movies
13th (available on Netflix)
Requiem for the American Dream (available on Netflix)

Fiction books
Beloved (Toni Morrison)
The Bluest Eye (Toni Morrison)
How To Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America (Kiese Laymon)
Octavia’s Brood (Walidah Imarisha)
Kindred (Octavia Butler)

Resources for parents looking to talk to their children about DJT
This great list of children’s books to help kids understand the fight for racial equality