Okay, so you’ve posted an inspirational quote and maybe even black square on Tuesday, signed the petitions, donated, texted, and called. But your allyship should not end there. Anti-racist allyship isn’t a one and done thing. It’s not a one week performative act. It is an active learning process that takes a lifetime commitment on educating yourself. Here are a few essential media to consume in order to become a better ally to the Black community.
READ
Between the World and Me – Ta-Nehisi Coates
White Fragility – Robin Diangelo
How to be an Antiracist – Ibram X. Kendi
The New Jim Crow – Michelle Alexander
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America – Richard Rothstein
The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime and the Making of Modern Urban America – Khalil Gibran Muhammad
Sister Outsider – Audre Lorde
Me and White Supremacy: How to Recognise Your Privilege, Combat Racism and Change the World – Layla F. Saad
So You Want to Talk About Race – Ijeoma Oluo
An African American and Latinx History of the United States – Paul Ortiz
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definite History of Racist Ideas in America – Ibram X. Kendi
Bad Feminist – Roxane Gay
A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History – Jeanne Theoharis
White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son – Tim Wise
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir – Patrisse Khan-Cullors
Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower – Brittney Cooper
Heavy: An American Memoir – Kiese Laymon
Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria – Beverly Daniel Tatum
Locking Up Our Own – James Forman Jr
Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism – Safiya Umoja Noble
They Can’t Kill Us All – Wesley Lowery
Just Mercy – Bryan Stevenson
Racism without Racists – Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race – Jesmyn Ward
Women, Race, & Class – Angela Y. Davis
The Color of Money: Black Bank and the Racial Wealth Gap – Mehrsa Baradaran
Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race – Reni Eddo-Lodge
Citizen: An American Lyric – Claudia Rankine
Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement – Angela Y. Davis
The Fire Next Time – James Baldwin
Your Silence Will Not Protect You – Audre Lorde
Good Talk – Mira Jacob
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration – Isabel Wilkerson
On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope – DeRay McKesson
Americanah – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America – Jennifer Harvey
Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice that Shapes What We See, Think, and Do – Jennifer L. Eberhardt
America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege and the Bridge to a New America – Jim Wallis
The Hate U Give – Angie Thomas
I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness – Austin Channing Brown
The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century – Grace Lee Boggs
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color – Cherrie Moraga
Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism from the Inside Out – Ruth King
Black Feminist Thought – Patricia Hill Collins
When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold Story of Racial Inequality in Twentieth Century American – Ira Katznelson
White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide – Carol Anderson
What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker – Damon Young
Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do – Jennifer L. Eberhardt
Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot – Mikki Kendall
An American Marriage – Tayari Jones
Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
If Beale Street Could Talk – James Baldwin
And be sure to support Black businesses by purchasing books from Black-owned bookstores.
WATCH
When They See Us
Selma
13th
American Son
Dear White People
Black Power Mixtape: 1967-1975
Just Mercy
The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
Clemency
King in the Wilderness
I Am Not Your Negro
The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson
Fruitvale Station
If Beale Street Could Talk
The Hate U Give
See You Yesterday
LA 92
Becoming
Whose Streets?
Who Killed Malcom X
Strong Island
Blackkklansman
Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter Movement
Time: The Kalief Browder Story
Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise
Freedom Riders
LISTEN
The History of American Slavery
Momentum: A Race Forward Podcast
Brene with Ibram X. Kendi on How to be an Antiracist
