So you want to be a better ally and need some resources about racism.
Now what?
If you’re struggling for what to do next, there’s no excuse. I’ve compiled a list of 100 links to resources about racism and how to talk about race. It’s based off things I’ve personally read, as well as many of the other lists out there at the moment.
Resources about racism: WHERE TO START?
The list below may feel overwhelming. It would be unreasonable for most people to try and read, watch and consume 100 resources about racism.
Mosyt of us (hopefully!) want to do something to better educate ourselves about being anti-racist. But it’s hard to know where to start.
My advice is to pick a format that works best for your style of learning. Do you prefer to read, watch or listen? (Tip: if the answer is listen, most of these books are available on Audible).
Challenge yourself to pick 3 links from the list below, and really take the time to take them in. Then talk about them with friends and family. Share what you’ve learned.
If you’re really stuck to know where to begin, start with:
Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race. – Reni Edo Lodge.
TED TALKS Resources About Racism
Let’s get to the root of racial injustice | Megan Ming Francis | TEDxRainier
The Dangers of Whitewashing Black History | David Ikard | TEDxNashville
No. You Cannot Touch My Hair! | Mena Fombo | TEDxBristol
The Muslim On The Airplane | Amal Kassir | TEDxMileHighWomen
Born a girl in the wrong place | Khadija Gbla | TEDxCanberra
Black In Bend: Being An Extreme Minority In Suburbia | Anyssa Bohanan | TEDxBend
FILM Resources About Racism
PODCAST Resources About Racism
Intersectionality Matters! hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw
Momentum: A Race Forward Podcast
Pod For The Cause (from The Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights)
Pod Save the People (Crooked Media)
READING LIST Resources About Racism
BOOKS EXPLORING RACISM AND BEING AN ANTI-RACIST
How to Be Anti-Racist by Ibrahim X. Kendi
Ibram X. Kendi uses a mix of personal experiences, history, and science to show how a person can go from being racist to anti-racist, and how we can all build a new anti-racist society.
White Fragility by Robin Diangelo
Robin Diangelo examines how white defensive responses to conversations about race and racism reinforce inequality and prevent meaningful dialogue. She then offers ways white people can work against white fragility to engage in more constructive ways.
So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
Ijeomo Oluo’s New York Times best seller shows people of all races how to have constructive and useful conversations about race in America. It answers questions about confronting friends and family members while providing a comprehensive education on this country’s racist heritage.
Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad
Widely recommended for white people who want to make change but don’t know where to start.
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
Michelle Alexander’s award winning book delves into mass incarceration and the truth about the United States’ thriving racial caste system.
Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittany Cooper
Brittney Cooper uses her own experience to talk about the power of black female rage and how it can drive revolution and change the world.
White Fragility: Why Its So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism – Robin Diangelo
Robin DiAngelo coined the term ‘White Fragility’ in 2011 to describe this process and is here to show us how it serves to uphold the system of white supremacy. Using knowledge and insight gained over decades of running racial awareness workshops and working on this idea as a Professor of Whiteness Studies, she shows us how we can start having more honest conversations, listen to each other better and react to feedback with grace and humility.
Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race – Reni Edo Lodge
Exploring everything from eradicated black history to the inextricable link between class and race, Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race is the essential handbook for anyone who wants to understand race relations in Britain today.
Don’t Touch My Hair – Emma Dabiri
From women’s solidarity and friendship to forgotten African scholars and the dubious provenance of Kim Kardashian’s braids, the scope of black hairstyling ranges from pop culture to cosmology, from prehistoric times to the (afro)futuristic
Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist
The story of how white-supremacist ideas migrated from the far-right fringe to the White House through the intensely personal saga of one man who eventually disavowed everything he was taught to believe, at tremendous personal cost.
White Rage by Carol Anderson
Anderson pulls back the veil that has long covered actions made in the name of protecting democracy, fiscal responsibility, or protection against fraud, rendering visible the long lineage of white rage. Compelling and dramatic in the unimpeachable history it relates, White Rage will add an important new dimension to the national conversation about race in America.
FICTION BOOKS
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi-Adichie
Fearless, gripping, spanning three continents and numerous lives, the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Americanah is a richly told story of love and expectation set in today’s globalized world.
Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid
When Emira is apprehended at a supermarket for ‘kidnapping’ the white child she’s actually babysitting, it sets off an explosive chain of events. Her employer Alix, a feminist blogger with the best of intentions, resolves to make things right.
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
A darkly comic and unflinchingly raw depiction of a young woman trying to navigate her way in the world, QUEENIE is about identity, independence and carving your own path.
On Beauty and White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Dealing – among many other things – with friendship, love, war, three cultures and three families over three generations, one brown mouse, and the tricky way the past has of coming back and biting you on the ankle, it is a life-affirming, riotous must-read of a book.
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo
From Newcastle to Cornwall, from the birth of the twentieth century to the teens of the twenty-first, Girl, Woman, Other follows a cast of twelve characters on their personal journeys through this country and the last hundred years. They’re each looking for something – a shared past, an unexpected future, a place to call home, somewhere to fit in, a lover, a missed mother, a lost father, even just a touch of hope.
Ordinary People – Diana Evans
Set in London to an exhilarating soundtrack, Ordinary People is an intimate study of identity and parenthood, sex and grief, friendship and ageing, and the fragile architecture of love.
The Vanishing Half – Brit Bennett
Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person’s decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.
An American Marriage – Tayari Jones
A masterpiece of storytelling, An American Marriage offers a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three unforgettable characters who are at once bound together and separated by forces beyond their control.
The Underground Railroad – Colson Whitehead
Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. All the slaves lead a hellish existence, but Cora has it worse than most; she is an outcast even among her fellow Africans and she is approaching womanhood, where it is clear even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a slave recently arrived from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they take the perilous decision to escape to the North.
Beloved Toni Morrison
It is the mid-1800s and as slavery looks to be coming to an end, Sethe is haunted by the violent trauma it wrought on her former enslaved life at Sweet Home, Kentucky. Her dead baby daughter, whose tombstone bears the single word, Beloved, returns as a spectre to punish her mother, but also to elicit her love.
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Unlovely and unloved, Pecola prays each night for blue eyes like those of her privileged white schoolfellows. At once intimate and expansive, unsparing in its truth-telling, The Bluest Eye shows how the past savagely defines the present. A powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity, Toni Morrison’s virtuosic first novel asks powerful questions about race, class, and gender with the subtlety and grace that have always characterised her writing.
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf – Ntozake Shange
Passionate and fearless, Shange’s words reveal what it is to be of color and female in the twentieth century. First published in 1975 when it was praised by The New Yorker for “encompassing…every feeling and experience a woman has ever had,” for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf will be read and performed for generations to come.
Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
When Janie, at sixteen, is caught kissing shiftless Johnny Taylor, her grandmother swiftly marries her off to an old man with sixty acres. Janie endures two stifling marriages before meeting the man of her dreams, who offers not diamonds, but a packet of flowering seeds
Passing – Nella Larsen
Married to a successful physician and prominently ensconced in Harlem’s vibrant society of the 1920s, Irene Redfield leads a charmed existence ― until a chance encounter with a childhood friend who has been “passing for white.” Passing offers fascinating psychological insights into issues of race and gender.
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Set in the deep American South between the wars, The Color Purple is the classic tale of Celie, a young black girl born into poverty and segregation. Raped repeatedly by the man she calls ‘father’, she has two children taken away from her, is separated from her beloved sister Nettie and is trapped into an ugly marriage. But then she meets the glamorous Shug Avery, singer and magic-maker – a woman who has taken charge of her own destiny. Gradually Celie discovers the power and joy of her own spirit, freeing her from her past and reuniting her with those she loves.
The Mothers by Brit Bennett
It’s the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken, seventeen-year-old beauty. Mourning her own mother’s recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor’s son. Luke Sheppard is twenty-one, a former football star whose injury has reduced him to waiting tables at a diner. They are young; it’s not serious. But the pregnancy that results from this teen romance – and the subsequent cover-up – will have an impact that goes far beyond their youth.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Okonkwo is the greatest wrestler and warrior alive, and his fame spreads throughout West Africa like a bush-fire in the harmattan. But when he accidentally kills a clansman, things begin to fall apart. Then Okonkwo returns from exile to find missionaries and colonial governors have arrived in the village. With his world thrown radically off-balance he can only hurtle towards tragedy.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with exuberant humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the thirties. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina of one man’s struggle for justice. But the weight of history will only tolerate so much.
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES / BIOGRAPHIES
The Autobiography of Malcolm X – Alex Haley
In this searing classic autobiography, originally published in 1965, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and Black empowerment activist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Human Rights movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American dream, and the inherent racism in a society that denies its nonwhite citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
As a Black woman she has known discrimination and extreme poverty, but also hope, joy, achievement and celebration. In this first volume of her six books of autobiography, Maya Angelou beautifully evokes her childhood with her grandmother in the American south of the 1930s.
Just Mercy – Bryan Stevenson
Bryan Stevenson grew up poor in the racially segregated South. His innate sense of justice made him a brilliant young lawyer, and one of his first defendants was Walter McMillian, a black man sentenced to die for the murder of a white woman – a crime he insisted he didn’t commit.
Between The World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Ta-Nehisi Coates’ attempt to answer those questions, presented in the form of a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son – and readers – the story of his own awakening to the truth about history and race through a series of revelatory experiences: immersion in nationalist mythology as a child; engagement with history, poetry and love at Howard University; travels to Civil War battlefields and the South Side of Chicago; a journey to France that reorients his sense of the world; and pilgrimages to the homes of mothers whose children’s lives have been taken as American plunder.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Rebecca Skloot’s fascinating account is the story of the life, and afterlife, of one woman who changed the medical world forever. Balancing the beauty and drama of scientific discovery with dark questions about who owns the stuff our bodies are made of, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is an extraordinary journey in search of the soul and story of a real woman, whose cells live on today in all four corners of the world.
Natives: Race & Class in the Ruins of Empire – Akala
Covering everything from the police, education and identity to politics, sexual objectification and the far right, Nativesspeaks directly to British denial and squeamishness when it comes to confronting issues of race and class that are at the heart of the legacy of Britain’s racialised empire.
The Good Immigrant compiled by Nikesh Shukla
Bringing together 21 exciting black, Asian and minority ethnic voices emerging in Britain today, The Good Immigrant explores why immigrants come to the UK, why they stay and what it means to be ‘other’ in a country that doesn’t seem to want you, doesn’t truly accept you – however many generations you’ve been here – but still needs you for its diversity monitoring forms.
My Name Is Why by Lemn Sissay
At the age of seventeen, after a childhood in a foster family followed by six years in care homes, Norman Greenwood was given his birth certificate. He learned that his real name was not Norman. It was Lemn Sissay. He was British and Ethiopian. And he learned that his mother had been pleading for his safe return to her since his birth. This is Lemn’s story: a story of neglect and determination, misfortune and hope, cruelty and triumph.
INTERSECTIONAL BOOKS ABOUT RACE & IDENTITY
Black Feminism Thought – Patricia Hill Collins
In spite of the double burden of racial and gender discrimination, African-American women have developed a rich intellectual tradition that is not widely known. In Black Feminist Thought, originally published in 1990, Patricia Hill Collins set out to explore the words and ideas of Black feminist intellectuals and writers, both within the academy and without.
Women Race and Class – Angela Davis
Tracing the intertwined histories of the abolitionist and women’s suffrage movements, Davis examines the racism and class prejudice inherent in so much of white feminism, and in doing so brings to light new pioneering heroines, from field slaves to mill workers, who fought back and refused to accept the lives into which they were born.
Aint I A Woman: Black Women & Feminism – Bell Hooks
In this classic study, cultural critic bell hooks examines how black women, from the seventeenth century to the present day, were and are oppressed by both white men and black men and by white women.
Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall
White feminists often fail to see how race, class, sexual orientation and disability intersect with gender. How can feminists stand in solidarity as a movement when there is a distinct likelihood that some women are oppressing others?
Sister Outsider; Essays and Speeches, – Audre Lorde
Presenting the essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider celebrates an influential voice in 20th-century literature. In this charged collection of 15 essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change.
A Burst of Light – Audre Lorde
From reflections on her struggle with cancer to thoughts on lesbian sexuality and African-American identity in a straight white man’s world, Lorde’s voice remains enduringly relevant. Those who practice and encourage social justice activism frequently quote her exhortation, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.
Taking Up Space: The Black Girls Manifesto For Change – Chelsea Kwakye & Ore Ogunbiyi
Chelsea Kwakye and Ore Ogunbiyi, two recent Cambridge graduates, wrote Taking Up Space as a guide and a manifesto for change: tackling issues of access, unrepresentative curricula, discrimination in the classroom, the problems of activism and life before and after university.
Slay In Your Lane – Elizabeth Uviebinené & Yomi Adegoke
Packed full of practical exercises, worksheets, questionnaires and actionable tips, Slay in Your Lane: The Journal will help you get ahead in everything from relationships to starting a successful side hustle, building your personal brand, knowing your worth at work, finances, self-care, and health.
BOOKS FOR KIDS
The ABCs of Diversity: Helping Kids (and Ourselves!) Embrace Our Differences
Something Happened in Our Town: A Child’s Story About Racial Injustice
Whoosh! Lonnie Johnson’s Super-Soaking Stream of Inventions
Saturday by Oge Mora (age 3-5)
Last Stop on Market Street (age 3-5)
Each Kindness, by Jacqueline Woodson (age 5-8)
The Youngest Marcher,” by Cynthia Levinson (age 5-8)
Resist: 35 Profiles of Ordinary People Who Rose Up Against Tyranny and Injustice,” by Veronica Chambers (age 9-12)
Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness by Anastasia Higginbotham (age 9-12)
All American Boys,” by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely (age 12+)
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You” by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi (age 12+)
(A Twitter thread with more kids recommendations)
BOOKS FOR TEENAGERS
The Hate U Give – Angie Thomas
Sixteen-year-old Starr lives in two worlds: the poor neighbourhood where she was born and raised and her posh high school in the suburbs. The uneasy balance between them is shattered when Starr is the only witness to the fatal shooting of her unarmed best friend, Khalil, by a police officer. Now what Starr says could destroy her community. It could also get her killed.
Noughts & Crosses – Malorie Blackman
Sephy is a Cross: she lives a life of privilege and power. But she’s lonely, and burns with injustice at the world she sees around her. Callum is a nought: he’s considered to be less than nothing – a blanker, there to serve Crosses – but he dreams of a better life. They’ve been friends since they were children, and they both know that’s as far as it can ever go. Noughts and Crosses are fated to be bitter enemies – love is out of the question.
Harbor Me by Jacqueline Woodson
It all starts when six kids have to meet for a weekly chat–by themselves, with no adults to listen in. There, in the room they soon dub the ARTT Room (short for “A Room to Talk”), they discover it’s safe to talk about what’s bothering them–everything from Esteban’s father’s deportation and Haley’s father’s incarceration to Amari’s fears of racial profiling and Ashton’s adjustment to his changing family fortunes.
This Book Is Anti-Racist: 20 Lessons on How to Wake Up, Take Action, and Do The Work by Tiffany Jewell and Aurelia Durand
Gain a deeper understanding of your anti-racist self as you progress through 20 chapters that spark introspection, reveal the origins of racism that we are still experiencing and give you the courage and power to undo it. Each chapter builds on the previous one as you learn more about yourself and racial oppression. 20 activities get you thinking and help you grow with the knowledge. All you need is a pen and paper.
Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
Told in vivid and emotional poetry, this is the story of a childhood spent between New York and South Carolina, and of never truly feeling at home in either place. Of growing up as an African-American girl in the 1960s and 1970s, in the wake of the Civil Rights movement.
Dear White People by Justin Simien
With decision-making trees to help you decide when it’s the right time to wear Blackface (hint: probably never) and quizzes to determine whether you’ve become the Token Black Friend™, Dear White People is the ultimate silly-yet-authoritative handbook to help the curious and confused navigate racial microaggressions in their daily lives.
Brit-ish – Afua Hirsch
Highly personal and yet instantly universal, this is a book that millions will instantly relate to. Hirsch places her own lifelong search for identity and a sense of Britishness against the backdrop of our national identity crisis. Part historical exploration, part journalistic expose of racism and class disadvantage in modern Britain, this is a book searching for answers to some very big questions.
BOOKS FOR PARENTS
I Am Not Your Baby Mother – Candice Brathwaite
Candice Brathwaite is the hugely popular influencer and founder of Make Motherhood Diverse – an online initiative that aims to encourage a more accurately representative and diverse depiction of motherhood in the media.
FURTHER RESOURCES ABPUT RACISM:
- Why is saying ‘all lives matter’ so controversial?
- 75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice
- Anti-Racism Project
- Jenna Arnold’s resources (books and people to follow)
- Rachel Ricketts’ anti-racism resources
- Resources for White People to Learn and Talk About Race and Racism
- Save the Tears: White Woman’s Guide by Tatiana Mac
- Showing Up For Racial Justice’s educational toolkits
- “Why is this happening?” — an introduction to police brutality from 100 Year Hoodie
- Zinn Education Project’s teaching materials
If you have additional resources about racism, please drop them in the comments below or DM me and I will add them.
