- “Until All Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter“, Presbyterian Women, In April 2015, Freddie Gray Jr., a 25-year-old African-American man, was arrested by the Baltimore Police Department for allegedly possessing an illegal switchblade. A week later, Gray died of a spinal injury while in police custody. This PW blog post talks about a protest in Baltimore and some of the reasons for the Black Lives Matter movement.
- “A Jury of Your Peers“, Presbyterian Women, This PW blog post asks where the young black men are in Baltimore city’s jury pool.
- “DisGRACE: The Church Addresses Racism“, Presbyterian Women, Irene Pak Lee, a woman of color, and Mindy Douglas, a white woman, describe Montreat Conference Center’s DisGRACE Conference in October 2016, and they reflect on how people of color and people who are white experience racism in different ways and how to have effective conversations about racism.
- “Next Church Sarasota Statement“, A new confessional statement in response to the current state of the church and world, made possible by a partnership between NEXT Church and the Presbyterian Foundation. The Statement addresses many of today’s divisive issues including racism and other forms of injustice. The link also contains the associated Study Guide.
- “The Week After MLK Day“, February 2021, by Tony Caldwell. Do we truly want real peace, unity, and justice instead of a convenient silence? Then we must address the white supremacy in and around us. Red Letter Christians
- “How White People Got Made”, by Quinn Norton, exploring where the term “white people” comes from and which ethnic groups have and have not been able to become “white” through US history.
- “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” and other essays, Groundbreaking 1989 essay by Peggy McIntosh who lists the ways she’s beginning to recognize the way white privilege operates in her life.
- “Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person”, Gina Crosley-Corcoran, raised “the kind of poor that people don’t want to believe still exists in this country,” explores where race and class do and don’t intersect and how she’s come to understand her own white privilege.
- “The Injustice of This Moment Is not an ‘Aberration’”, Michelle Alexander contextualizes the US’s 2020 state of racism/white supremacy as an inevitable outcome of a collective narrative steeped in denial.
- “White Fragility”, Groundbreaking 2011 article by Robin DiAngelo, which led to a 2018 book of the same title, exploring why it can be so hard for white people to talk about race, and how the resulting silence and defensiveness functions to hold racial dynamics and racial oppression in place.
- “Understanding the Racial Wealth Gap”, 2017 study by Amy Traub, Laura Sullivan, Tatjana Mescheded, & Tom Shapiro analyzing the racial wealth gap that exists between white, black, and Latino households.
- “White mom to racists: ‘Don’t use my child to further your hate-filled ignorance’”, Rev. Edith Love models allyship in an article written in response to online racial abuse arising from her white teen son’s recent attack by a group of young teens who are black.
- “White Fragility in Students”, A call to action by Teaching While White founders Jenna Chandler-Ward and Elizabeth Denevi who share their experience in school after school where white students and adults lack the knowledge or skill to navigate racism and conversations about it and how that white deficit impacts students of color.
- “21 Racial Microaggressions You Hear on a Daily Basis”, Using a series of photographs by photographer Kiyum Kim, Heben Nigatu, elaborates on the term “microaggression.” Note that Ibram X. Kendi, in his recent book How to Be An Anti-Racist, calls us to consider using the term “racist abuse” as a more descriptive alternative.
- “Guide to Allyship”, Created by Amélie Lamont this site strives to be an ever-evolving and growing open source guide meant to provide you with the resources for becoming a more effective ally.
- “From Alt-Right to Groyper, White Nationalists Rebrand For 2020 And Beyond”, Report authored by the Institute For Research And Education On Human Rights (IREHR) on white nationalist marketing strategy known as “groyper.”
- “People of colour have to ‘code-switch’ to fit in with white norms”, from a longer series taking an in-depth look at racism in the UK in 2020 this article focuses on the double bind of code-switching. What is it? What toll does it take? What is the cost of not code-switching?
- “The Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture” by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun. From “Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups,” a detailed look at qualities and attributes of white supremacy culture often found in the workplace and other social organizations, along with antidotes for each.
- “Not Just Tulsa: Five Other Race Massacres That Devastated Black America” There is a long history of white terrorism destroying Black communities.
- “A History: The Construction of Race and Racism” A historical account of “race science” that, while widely discredited now, has still profoundly influenced how we think of each other and our societal structures and systems.
- “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King, Jr. An open letter to area white clergy making the case that people have a moral responsibility to take direct action rather than waiting potentially forever for justice to come through the courts.
- “New Projections Point to a Majority Minority Nation in 2044” by William H. Frey
- “Reflections from a Token Black Friend” by Ramesh A. Nagarajah. “I am a token black friend. The black one in the group of white people.”
- “Being Antiracist” from the National Museum of African American History and Culture. “To create an equal society, we must commit to making unbiased choices and being antiracist in all aspect of our lives.
- “Ahmaud Arbery Holds Us Accountable” by Jim Barger, Jr. “I and all of the other people in my community and in this nation failed to protect our neighbor, Ahmaud Arbery. In short, we loved ourselves more than we loved him.”
- “For Our White Friends Desiring to Be Allies” by Courtney Ariel. Listen more, talk less. Resist the need to respond to a person of color’s opinion with a better or different insight. Educate yourself about systemic racism in this country.
- “75 Things White People Can Do For Racial Justice” by Corrine Shutack. Read it. Try doing a few things each week.
- “Witness Now, Before It Is Too Late” by Dr. Brian K. Blount. “White Christians are not witnessing. Not enough.”
- “Performance Allyship Is Deadly (Here’s What to Do Instead)” by Holiday Philips. Activism can’t begin and end with a hashtag.
- “The Long History of Racism Against Asian Americans in the U.S.” African Americans are not the only ethnicity to suffer from systemic racism in America.
- “What Does It Mean To Be Antiracist?” by Anneliese A. Singh. “In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist – we must be anti-racist.” – Angela Davis
- We Have to Stop Thinking About Racism as Someone Who Says The N-Word’“Racism is a white problem. It was constructed and created by white people and the ultimate responsibility lies with white people.”
- “Covid-19 Fueling Anti-Asian Racism and Xenophobia Worldwide” “Racism and physical attacks on Asians and people of Asian descent have spread with the Covid-19 pandemic, and government leaders need to act decisively to address the trend.”
- “Who Gets to Be Afraid in America?” by Ibram X. Kendi. “All Americans seem to be thinking about is their fear of us—not our fear of their fear.”
- “Facing Racism: A Vision of the Intercultural Community” the PC(USA) churchwide anti-racism policy
- Facing Racism Study Guide, PC(USA) resource
- Resolution of the 223rd General Assembly of the PC(USA) on environmental racism. (Recommendation and Rationale sections) Also see a longer study guide on environmental racism from the National Council of Churches.
- The Time Was Yesterdayby Larissa Kwong Abazia from Justice Unbound
- “The Case for Reparations”by Ta-Nehisi Coates, discusses the history of discrimination in the US outside of the context of Jim Crow specifically, mostly to do with housing.
- “What is Owed?” from the NY Times Magazine. Nikole Hannah-Jones explains the history of economic injustice and argues that if black lives are to truly matter in America, the nation must finally pay its debts.
- “What White Churches Can Do About Racism” from the Presbyterian Mission
- “Six Ways White People Can Dismantle White Supremacy” from Justice Unbound
- “Black Lives Matter” statement from the Presbyterian Historical Society
- Reflections on systemic racism in higher education, July 2020 • James H. Johnson, Jr., Ph.D., Higher Education Works
- What it means to be anti-racist, June 2020 • Anna North, Vox
- Jim Crow Laws, updated June 2020 • History.com editors, History.com
- Justice Too Long Delayed, June 2020 • Timothy Dalrymple, Christianity Today
- Your Black Colleagues May Look Like They’re Okay—Chances Are They’re Not, May 2020 • Danielle Cadet, Refinery29
- America’s racial contract is showing, May 2020 • Adam Serwer, The Atlantic
- Performative Allyship Is Deadly (Here’s What to Do Instead), May 2020 • Holiday Phillips, Medium
- White Fragility in Students, February 2020 • Jenna Chandler-Ward & Elizabeth Deveni, Teaching While White
- 21 Racial Microaggressions You Hear On A Daily Basis, November 2019 • Heben Nigatu, BuzzFeed
- America wasn’t a democracy, until black Americans made it one, August 2019 • Nikole Hannah-Jones, New York Times
- Balancing the Ledger on Juneteenth, June 2019 • Vann R. Newkirk II, The Atlantic
- A House Still Divided, October 2018 • Ibram X. Kendi, The Atlantic
- The Myth of the Kindly General Lee, June 2017 • Adam Serwer, The Atlantic
- Frederick Douglass, Refugee, February 2017 • David W. Blight, The Atlantic
- Black lives and the police, August 2016 • Darryl Pinckney, The New York Review of Books
- The Average Black Family Would Need 228 Years to Build the Wealth of a White Family Today, August 2016 • Joshua Holland, The Nation
- 50 states, 50 different ways of teaching America’s past (article with embedded videos) from CBSNews.com