Anti-Racism Resources

Anti-Racism Resources

Where do I start?

These resources have been compiled by the Natural Dharma Fellowship Committee on Inclusion and Equity. They are intended to support individuals, groups, and communities in working to overcome the damage done by racism and healing the divisions that separate us from our true nature.

There are many places to start below.  [NOTE: This list of resources is not comprehensive, and it is not routinely updated.


What can I do right now?

75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice

Justice in June — Resources for investing 10 minutes a day, 25 minutes a day, 40 minutes a day.

Books (alphabetical by author)

Buddhist Practice and Racism

  • Ruth King, Mindful of Race
  • Rhonda V. Magee, The Inner Work of Racial Justice
  • Lama Rod Owens, Love and Rage
  • Zenju Earthlyn Manual, The Way of Tenderness: Awakening through Race, Sexuality, and Gender

Books on Racism for Individual or Group Study

  • Robin D’Angelo, White Fragility, (by a white woman for white people)
  • Debby Irving, Waking Up White
  • Ibramin X. Kendi, How to be an Anti-Racist
  • Resmaa Menaken, My Grandmother’s Hands
  • Ijeoma Oluo, So You Want to Talk About Race
  • Layla Saad, Me and White Supremacy

Podcasts

Podcasts for individual listening or group study

These are engaging, well researched and, provide essential historical context for the current situation.

  • On Being (Krista Tippet)
  • Scene on Radio — “Seeing White” series: John Bieman with Chenjerai Kumanyika, Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University
  • Uncivil — Chenjerai Kumanyika (revisiting Civil War history)
  • The 1619 Project — New York Times (also available as a PDF from the NYT web site)
  • Ten Percent Happier Episodes:
    • #253 Lama Rod Owens
    • #257 Spring Washam on the Bodhisattva Harriet Tubman
    • Waking Up to the Distortion of Racism — Zenju Earthlyn Manuel
    • #256 White People, Drop the Shame — Shelly Graf
    • Antidote to Fear (Practice)

Podcasts offering African American perspectives

  • 1619 (NYT)
  • Code Switch (NPR)
  • Pod Save the People (Crooked Media)
  • Still Processing (New York Times, “NYT”)
  • The Ezra Klein Show (Vox):
    • 6/4 — Ta-Nehisi Coates is hopeful
    • 5/11 — Why the coronavirus is so deadly for Black America
    • 2/27 — Tracy K. Smith changed how I read poetry
    • 10/7/19 — Ibram X. Kendi wants to redefine racism

Diving Deeper into American History and Racial Justice Issues

American History / History of Racism

  • Douglas A. Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans
  • Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, (a history of Racism)
  • Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns (a history of the Great Migration)

Law, Criminal Justice, and Imprisonment

  • Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow
  • Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy

Excellent Short Videos (in no special order)


Enjoy the Journey with Committee Favorites

Movies

  • If Beale Street Could Talk
  • Get Out
  • Moonlight
  • Do the Right Thing
  • 13th (Documentary, Netflix)
  • When They See Us (Series about the Central Park Five — Netflix)
  • I Am Not Your Negro
  • Just Mercy

Memoirs, Reflections

  • The Autobiography of Malcom X, as told to Alex Haley
  • Becoming Ms. Burton, Susan Burton
  • Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
  • Becoming, Michelle Obama
  • The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin

Illuminating Novels and Poetry by African Americans and People of Color

— because sometimes it’s nice to read some fiction or poetry, and you’re still learning.

  • You can’t go wrong by reading or re-reading the collected works of Toni Morrison. Beloved, Song of Solomon, The Bluest Eye, Sula, everything else — they’re transcendent, all of them. You’ll be glad you read them.”Barack Obama
  • Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neal Hurston
  • The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin (sci-fi, 3 time Hugo Award Winner)
  • Everywhere You Don’t Belong, Gabriel Bump (a fresh, fierce original novel about growing up on the south side of Chicago)
  • The Hate You Give, Angie Thomas (A powerful young adult novel about a Black teenaged girl navigating two worlds)
  • A Lesson Before Dying, and A Gathering of Old Men, Ernest J. Gaines
  • Sing Unburied Sing, Jesmyn Ward (The story a black family with a white son-in-law living in rural Mississippi.)
  • Magical Negro, Morgan Parker (poetry)
  • Life on Mars, Tracy K. Smith (poetry)

Get Involved in the Struggle for Racial Justice:


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