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.
LEARN
Anti-racism workshops by RISE: By following the Prophetic model, we are rooted in the Sunnah and reminded of the diversity of identities and how we show up. These workshops provide language, examples, tools, techniques and most importantly sisterhood in order to change a system. 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.
WATCH
TED Talks:
Racism has a cost for everyone
BLACK LIVES MATTER - Interview
How can we make racism a solvable problem and improve policing
How racism makes us sick
Movies and TV Series:
Hidden Figures
The film tells the story of African-American mathematician Katherine Johnson and her two colleagues, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, who assisted NASA in the Space Race.
When they see us
A harrowing dramatization of the Central Park Five case of 1989.
Fruitvale Station
The film tells the story of Oscar Grant III, a 22-year-old from Hayward, California, and his experiences on the last day of his life, before he was fatally shot by a BART cop in the early morning of New Year's Day.
Say Her Name: The Life and Death of Sandra Bland
The film explores the death of Sandra Bland, a politically active 28-year-old African American who, after being arrested for a traffic violation in a small Texas town, was found hanging in her jail cell three days later.
READ
Non-Fiction Books:
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
“It is in no small part thanks to Alexander’s account that civil rights organizations such as Black Lives Matter have focused so much of their energy on the criminal justice system.”
White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
”In this “vital, necessary, and beautiful book,” 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.’”
So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
“Widespread reporting on aspects of white supremacy — from police brutality to the mass incarceration of Black Americans — has put a media spotlight on racism in our society. Still, it is a difficult subject to talk about.”
Women, Race, & Class by Angela Davis
“A powerful study of the women’s liberation movement in the U.S., from abolitionist days to the present, that demonstrates how it has always been hampered by the racist and classist biases of its leaders.”
Autobiographies and Memoirs:
Between the World and Me by 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.”
Citizen, an American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
“Claudia Rankine’s bold new book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seemingly slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV — everywhere, all the time.”
How We Fight for Our Lives by Saeed Jones
“A stunning coming-of-age memoir. Jones tells the story of a young, black, gay man from the South as he fights to carve out a place for himself, within his family, within his country, within his own hopes, desires, and fears.”
Heavy by Kiese Laymon
“In Heavy, Laymon writes about growing up a hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson, Mississippi. From his early experiences of sexual violence, to his suspension from college, to time in New York as a college professor, Laymon charts his complex relationship with his mother, grandmother, anorexia, obesity, sex, writing, and ultimately gambling.”