Challenging Anti-Blackness Resources
In the wake of the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, Oluwatoyin Salau, Riah Milton, Dominique Fells, and so many others, we have been reminded of the anti-Blackness that exists in our community. As an organization of Muslim women committed to building sisterhood and advancing social equity, Reviving Sisterhood is opening space for our community to learn and grow as anti-racist activists, advocates, and allies.
We know that our sisters are drawn together by the simple fact that we are Muslim women, but these two identities do not capture the fullness of who we are as Black, Brown, working class, immigrants, refugees, first-generation college students, mothers, survivors of gender-based violence, Deaf, Deaf+, Sunni, Shia, Hanafi, and more. Reviving Sisterhood seeks to bring us together in sisterhood so that we may see one another with all of the identities that we hold, whether those identities present us with increased opportunities for access or increased barriers.
History
To fully face the present, we must know our history. In this country, our stories are silenced and the history books tell someone else's narrative. Here are some resources that will help you understand where we came from and how we got to where we are.
Assessing Implicit Biases
White supremacy and anti-Blackness exist at all levels of society, from institutions to systems to individuals. That means that anti-racism work is also internal work, requiring us to recognize, understand, and un-learn implicit biases that reinforce oppressive paradigms.
What Is Abolition?
For some of us, abolishing the police may be an uncomfortable idea. But abolition is not a new concept — our communities have been researching, implementing, and advocating for community-led safety solutions for decades. Use these resources to learn what a police-free society looks like and how we can get there together.
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For Non-Black POC
We know that people of color have internalized anti-Blackness, all too often perpetuating patterns and systems of violence against their Black sisters and brothers. These resources are tailored specifically to those who identify as non-Black POC. In order to cultivate true solidarity, we must educate ourselves and our communities about our place in and our relationship to this work.
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#BLACKISLAmSYLLABUS RESOURCES:
Take Action
MAKE CALLS OR EMAILS:
Recognize the importance of reparations for slavery in the fight for racial justice, and take action by urging your U.S. House Representative to support a commission to study and develop reparation proposals for African Americans. Read more about the H.R. 40 bill here.
See where your state is at on taking action to prevent police violence here — plus, you can find your representative and see how they’re voting on the subject.
Find your local, county, state, and/or federal representatives and call or email to support criminal justice reform, allocation of taxpayer funds towards community services, and call for civilian oversight of police.
sUPPORT PROTESTERS:
Organize Supplies
Open your home
Offer child care
Be an emergency contact
Sources
Muslim ARC (Muslim Anti Racism Collaborative):
A human rights education organization whose work consists of raising awareness and training Muslim communities on issues of racial justice. In order to uproot racism, they focus on developing and delivering education on internalized, interpersonal, and institutional racism.
A campaign that honors the work of abolitionists who have come before us, and those who organize now. They refuse to allow the blatant co-optation of decades of abolitionist organizing toward reformist ends that erases the work of Black feminist theorists.
A project that provides teachers, professors, researchers, journalists, and people interested in learning more about Islam with resources on Black Muslims to promote a more inclusive approach to the study of Islam.
An organization that wants to share various stories of our nation’s 40 million immigrants and put a human face to the current immigration debate.
A global organization in the US, UK, and Canada, whose mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.
A premier resource for sustainable fashion and lifestyle content, annually reaching 50M highly engaged readers across web, newsletter, and social.
A premier nonprofit public interest environmental law organization. They wield the power of law and the strength of partnership to protect people’s health, to preserve magnificent places and wildlife, to advance clean energy, and to combat climate change.
A nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization that seeks to create and sustain a sense of national urgency about the U.S. criminal justice system.
Providing researchers with access to millions of scientific documents from journals, books, series, protocols, reference works, and proceedings.
A political and literary forum — a public space for discussion of ideas and culture. Independent and nonprofit, animated by hope and committed to equality, they believe in the power of collective reasoning and imagination to create a more just world.
Home to tenacious muckraking, provocative commentary, and spirited debate about politics and culture, The Nation empowers readers to fight for justice and equality for all.
Apala (Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL - CIO): The first and only national organization of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) workers, most of who are union members, and our allies advancing worker, immigrant, and civil rights.
Critical Resistance seeks to build an international movement to end the Prison Industrial Complex by challenging the belief that caging and controlling people makes us safe.
A digital magazine for and by LGBTQIA+ Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) based in the United States. They publish reported articles, features, personal essays, and critical analyses of current events, politics, entertainment, culture, sexuality, health, and more.
An online magazine of cultural and literary criticism and a space for discussion that aspires to enrich cultural and public life.
This blog belongs to the Urban History Association which supports a variety of activities to enhance the visibility of the study of the history of the city. Majority of members are from the United States and Canada.
DoSomething’s millions of members represent every US area code and 131 countries. Using their digital platform, DoSomething members join their volunteer, social change, and civic action campaigns to make real-world impact on causes they care about.
A newspaper published in New York City and edited by Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, which is distributed in the United States and many other countries.
A subscription television channel owned by A&E Networks. It emitted documentaries and fiction series of historical genre as part of its programming and now has broadcast programming unrelated to history too.
Meets the needs of our current moment. A comprehensive series on the first 50 years of border history will be dropping in the fall of 2020, as well as a re-organization of the website to be accompanied with a series of resource pages to better support educators, activists, and the general public, and to lift up the good work of others.
A global community, welcoming people from every discipline and culture who seek a deeper understanding of the world. They believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and, ultimately, the world.