Research Guides: Racial Justice Resources for Activists, Advocates &amp; Allies: Racism

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Racism

Four Levels of Racism

The most common understanding of racism in our country is limited to the “interpersonal” level of racism—the personal prejudice and intentional bias in our individual interactions across different races. A different and emerging explanation of racism contends that interpersonal racism is actually a symptom of a more fundamental system of racism—an array of cultural norms and institutional policies and practices that routinely produce racially inequitable outcomes, often without individual intent or malice.

Internalized racism lies within individuals. This type of racism comprises our private beliefs and biases about race and racism, influenced by our culture. This can take many different forms including: prejudice towards others of a different race; internalized oppression—the negative beliefs about oneself by people of color; or internalized privilege—beliefs about superiority or entitlement by white people.

Interpersonal racism (personally mediated) occurs between individuals. This is the bias that occurs when individuals interact with others and their personal racial beliefs affect their public interactions.

Institutional racism occurs within institutions and systems of power. This refers to the unfair policies and discriminatory practices of particular institutions (schools, workplaces, etc.) that routinely produce racially inequitable outcomes for people of color and advantages for white people. Individuals within institutions take on the power of the institution when they reinforce racial inequities.

Structural racism is racial bias among institutions and across society. This involves the cumulative and compounding effects of an array of societal factors, including the history, culture, ideology and interactions of institutions and policies that systematically privilege white people and disadvantage people of color.

(Race Forward)

History of racism in the U.S.

All American News (1944) | Former Slaves Speak: The All-American News Company produced its first newsreels from headquarters in Chicago in the fall of 1942. A November 14, 1942, issue of the Motion Picture Herald reports that the new company was “headed by [Emmanuel] M. Glucksman, former Universal short subject producer and exhibitor” (p. 9) and were “some of the best and first consciously produced, positive images of black people” living their daily lives, contributing to the war effort, and making history

Found Voices: Slave Narratives Pt 1: These are actual slave recordings done in the 1930's and recently digitized.

History of Racism in the United States: Overview and Timelines
The history of the United States is often taught from the perspective of the dominant culture (that is, from a colonizer’s perspective), without acknowledgement of the racist policies and actions of the U.S. government. These policies include the genocide of Native Americans and the continued breaking of numerous treaties with Native American nations; internment of U.S. citizens of Japanese descent during World War II; constitutional encoding of enslavement of Africans and others until the passage of the 13th Amendment; the post 13th Amendment imposition of Jim Crow and Sundown laws; and racial profiling of Latinx and African Americans and other people of color that continue today.
It's More Than Racism: Isabel Wilkerson Explains America's 'Caste' System
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson says racism is an insufficient term for the systemic oppression of Black people in America. Instead, she prefers to refer to America as having a "caste" system. Wilkerson describes caste an artificial hierarchy that helps determine standing and respect, assumptions of beauty and competence, and even who gets benefit of the doubt and access to resources.
Race and Power: Legacies of Colonialism
Free article and chapter collections from Cambridge Core
Race and Power: Reckoning with the Past
Free article and chapter collections from Cambridge Core
Race and Power: Slavery
Free article and chapter collections from Cambridge Core

Slave Codes: Crash Course Black American History #4: Slave codes were a method of protecting the investment of white enslavers in the Colonies by restricting the lives of enslaved people in almost every imaginable way. The codes restricted enslaved people’s ability to move around, or engage in commerce that could make them financially independent - they restricted the very opportunities that would allow them to live with even relative freedom. Today, we'll learn about how Colonies put laws in place to restrict the movement and freedoms of both enslaved people and free Black people alike.

Slavery to Mass Incarceration
The myth of racial difference created to sustain American slavery persists today. Slavery did not end in 1865, it evolved.

Slavery--The Peculiar Institution (Library of Congress)
The European, American, and African slave traders engaged in the lucrative trade in humans, and the politicians and businessmen who supported them, did not intend to put into motion a chain of events that would motivate the captives and their descendants to fight for full citizenship in the United States of America. But they did. When Thomas Jefferson penned the words, "All men are created equal," he could not possibly have envisioned how literally his own slaves and others would take his words. African Americans repeatedly questioned how their owners could consider themselves noble in their own fight for independence from England while simultaneously believing that it was wrong for slaves to do the same.This exhibit explores the methods used by Africans and their American-born descendants to resist enslavement, as well as to demand emancipation and full participation in American society. Strategies varied, but the goal remained unchanged: freedom and equality.
Terror Lynching in America
Our history of racial terror casts a shadow across the U.S. landscape. We must engage it more honestly.

A Timeline of Racial Progress in the U.S., and the Lack of It, Through the Years
Here are some, not all, of the seminal events in America's journey toward racial fairness. It shows progress that has been frustratingly slow and painfully hard-won. For example, the signing into law of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King occured in the same week. It seems as if it's a case of two steps forward, then one back, or perhaps even a step and a half forward, then one back.
Voices Remembering Slavery: Freed People Tell Their Stories
The recordings of former slaves in Voices Remembering Slavery: Freed People Tell Their Stories took place between 1932 and 1975 in nine states. Twenty-three interviewees discuss how they felt about slavery, slaveholders, coercion of slaves, their families, and freedom. Several individuals sing songs, many of which were learned during the time of their enslavement. It is important to note that all of the interviewees spoke sixty or more years after the end of their enslavement, and it is their full lives that are reflected in these recordings. The individuals documented in this presentation have much to say about living as African Americans from the 1870s to the 1930s, and beyond.

History of racism in the U.S.: books

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
Call Number: LANGSAM Stacks E169.1 .Z53 2003
ISBN: 9780060838652
Publication Date: 2005-08-02
A People's History of the United States is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of -- and in the words of -- America's women. factory workers. African Americans. Native Americans, working poor, and immigrant laborers. Revised and updated with two new chapters covering Clinton's presidency, the 2000 Election, and the "war on terrorism." A People's History of the United States features insightful analysis of the most important events in our history. Open-minded readers will prophet from Professor Zinn's account, and historians may view it as a step toward a coherent new version of American history
Caste: the origins of our discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
ISBN: 9780593230268
Publication Date: 2020-08-04
Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people's lives and behavior and the nation's fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more.
In the Wake : on Blackness and being by Christina Sharpe
ISBN: 9780822362838
Publication Date: 2016-11-14
Sharpe shows how the sign of the slave ship marks and haunts contemporary Black life in the diaspora and how the specter of the hold produces conditions of containment, regulation, and punishment, but also something in excess of them. In the weather, Sharpe situates anti-Blackness and white supremacy as the total climate that produces premature Black death as normative.

Racism web resources

26 simple charts to show friends and family who aren't convinced racism is still a problem in America
Data and research have extensively documented the ways in which Black Americans are underrepresented, overrepresented, or experience different treatment from their white counterparts. These 26 charts show the extent of racial disparities in America, in areas like employment, wealth, education, home ownership, healthcare, and incarceration.
158 Resources to Understand Racism in America
These articles, videos, podcasts and websites from the Smithsonian chronicle the history of anti-black violence and inequality in the United States
African American Experience in the United States: Racism and Anti-Racism (FDLP Libguide)
This guide contains freely available information from Federal, State, and Local Government resources; Libraries; Universities; Non-partisan organizations; and Museums.
Curriculum for White Americans to Educate Themselves on Race and Racism–from Ferguson to Charleston
Everyone has a role in ending racism, but the analogy shows how little sense it makes for only those facing the heel-end of oppression to do all the work. It’s time for White America to take on a far bigger role in taking off the boot. There are no doubt complexities that come with White Americans working for racial justice. White privilege can lead to a chronic case of undiagnosed entitlement, creating poor listeners, impatient speakers who talk over others, and people unaccustomed to taking orders. Nevertheless, the movement for racial justice needs more White Americans to get involved. And it’s our responsibility to help each other get involved–and get involved productively.
It's More Than Racism: Isabel Wilkerson Explains America's 'Caste' System
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson says racism is an insufficient term for the systemic oppression of Black people in America. Instead, she prefers to refer to America as having a "caste" system, she describes caste an artificial hierarchy that helps determine standing and respect, assumptions of beauty and competence, and even who gets benefit of the doubt and access to resources.

Racism books

Algorithms of Oppression by Safiya Umoja Noble
ISBN: 9781479849949
Publication Date: 2018-02-20
A revealing look at how negative biases against women of color are embedded in search engine results and algorithms Run a Google search for "black girls"--what will you find? "Big Booty" and other sexually explicit terms are likely to come up as top search terms. But, if you type in "white girls," the results are radically different. The suggested porn sites and un-moderated discussions about "why black women are so sassy" or "why black women are so angry" presents a disturbing portrait of black womanhood in modern society. In Algorithms of Oppression, Safiya Umoja Noble challenges the idea that search engines like Google offer an equal playing field for all forms of ideas, identities, and activities. Data discrimination is a real social problem; Noble argues that the combination of private interests in promoting certain sites, along with the monopoly status of a relatively small number of Internet search engines, leads to a biased set of search algorithms that privilege whiteness and discriminate against people of color, specifically women of color. Through an analysis of textual and media searches as well as extensive research on paid online advertising, Noble exposes a culture of racism and sexism in the way discoverability is created online. As search engines and their related companies grow in importance--operating as a source for email, a major vehicle for primary and secondary school learning, and beyond--understanding and reversing these disquieting trends and discriminatory practices is of utmost importance. An original, surprising and, at times, disturbing account of bias on the internet, Algorithms of Oppression contributes to our understanding of how racism is created, maintained, and disseminated in the 21st century.
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
ISBN: 9780812993547
Publication Date: 2015-07-14
Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation's history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of "race," a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men--bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?
A Black Women's History of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry; Kali Nicole Gross
Call Number: LANGSAM & BLUE ASH stacks E185.86 .B475 2020
ISBN: 9780807001998
Publication Date: 2021-03-16
A vibrant and empowering history that emphasizes the perspectives and stories of African American women to show how they are-and have always been-instrumental in shaping our country
Caste: the origins of our discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
ISBN: 9780593230268
Publication Date: 2020-08-04
Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people's lives and behavior and the nation's fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more.
Darkwater by W. E. B. Du Bois; Herbert Apthekar (Introduction by)
Call Number: LANGSAM Stacks E185.61 .D83 1975
ISBN: 9780527253004
Publication Date: 1975-01-01
These are the things of which men think who live: of their own selves and the dwelling place of their fathers; of their neighbors; of work and service; of rule and reason and women and children; of Beauty and Death and War.
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
Call Number: CLER Stacks E185.61 .B195 1993
ISBN: 9780679744726
Publication Date: 1992-12-01
At once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin's early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is an intensely personal and provocative document from the iconic author of If Beale Street Could Talk and Go Tell It on the Mountain. It consists of two "letters," written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort Americans, both black and white, to attack the terrible legacy of racism
The Fire This Time: a new generation speaks about race by Jesmyn Ward
ISBN: 9781501126369
Publication Date: 2016-08-02
Envisioned as a response to The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin's groundbreaking 1963 essay collection, these contemporary writers reflect on the past, present, and future of race in America.
Hitler's American Model by James Q. Whitman
ISBN: 9780691172422
Publication Date: 2017-02-21
While Jim Crow segregation was one aspect of American law that appealed to Nazi radicals, it was not the most consequential one. Rather, both American citizenship and antimiscegenation laws proved directly relevant to the two principal Nuremberg Laws—the Citizenship Law and the Blood Law. Whitman looks at the ultimate, ugly irony that when Nazis rejected American practices, it was sometimes not because they found them too enlightened, but too harsh.
How I Shed My Skin by Jim Grimsley
Call Number: SearchOhio
ISBN: 9781616205348
Publication Date: 2016-02-23
More than sixty years ago, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that America's schools could no longer be segregated by race. Critically acclaimed novelist Jim Grimsley was eleven years old in 1966 when federally mandated integration of schools went into effect in the state and the school in his small eastern North Carolina town was first integrated. Until then, blacks and whites didn't sit next to one another in a public space or eat in the same restaurants, and they certainly didn't go to school together. Going to one of the private schools that almost immediately sprang up was not an option for Jim: his family was too poor to pay tuition, and while they shared the community's dismay over the mixing of the races, they had no choice but to be on the front lines of his school's desegregation. What he did not realize until he began to meet these new students was just how deeply ingrained his own prejudices were and how those prejudices had developed in him despite the fact that prior to starting sixth grade, he had actually never known any black people. Now, more than forty years later, Grimsley looks back at that school and those times--remembering his own first real encounters with black children and their culture.
How to Be Less Stupid about Race: on racism, White supremacy, and the racial divide by Crystal Marie Fleming
Call Number: OhioLINK
ISBN: 9780807050774
Publication Date: 2018-09-18
A unique and irreverent take on everything that's wrong with our "national conversation about race"--and what to do about it How to Be Less Stupid About Race is your essential guide to breaking through the half-truths and ridiculous misconceptions that have thoroughly corrupted the way race is represented in the classroom, pop culture, media, and politics. Centuries after our nation was founded on genocide, settler colonialism, and slavery, many Americans are kinda-sorta-maybe waking up to the reality that our racial politics are (still) garbage. But in the midst of this reckoning, widespread denial and misunderstandings about race persist, even as white supremacy and racial injustice are more visible than ever before. Combining no-holds-barred social critique, humorous personal anecdotes, and analysis of the latest interdisciplinary scholarship on systemic racism, sociologist Crystal M. Fleming provides a fresh, accessible, and irreverent take on everything that's wrong with our "national conversation about race." Drawing upon critical race theory, as well as her own experiences as a queer black millennial college professor and researcher, Fleming unveils how systemic racism exposes us all to racial ignorance--and provides a road map for transforming our knowledge into concrete social change. Searing, sobering, and urgently needed, How to Be Less Stupid About Race is a truth bomb for your racist relative, friend, or boss, and a call to action for everyone who wants to challenge white supremacy and intersectional oppression. If you like Issa Rae, Justin Simien, Angela Davis, and Morgan Jerkins, then this deeply relevant, bold, and incisive book is for you.
In the Wake : on Blackness and being by Christina Sharpe
ISBN: 9780822362838
Publication Date: 2016-11-14
Sharpe shows how the sign of the slave ship marks and haunts contemporary Black life in the diaspora and how the specter of the hold produces conditions of containment, regulation, and punishment, but also something in excess of them. In the weather, Sharpe situates anti-Blackness and white supremacy as the total climate that produces premature Black death as normative.
Killing Rage: ending racism by Bell Hooks
Call Number: LANGSAM Stacks E185.615 .H645 1995
ISBN: 9780805037821
Publication Date: 1995-09-15
"One of our country's premier cultural and social critics, bell hooks has always maintained that eradicating racism and eradicating sexism must go hand in hand. But whereas many women have been recognized for their writing on gender politics, the female voice has been all but locked out of the public discourse on race. Killing Rage speaks to this imbalance. These twenty-three essays are written from a black and feminist perspective, and they tackle the bitter difficulties of racism by envisioning a world without it. They address a spectrum of topics having to do with race and racism in the United States: psychological trauma among African Americans; friendship between black women and white women; anti-Semitism and racism; and internalized racism in movies and the media. And in the title essay, hooks writes about the "killing rage"--the fierce anger of black people stung by repeated instances of everyday racism--finding in that rage a healing source of love and strength and a catalyst for positive change."
Me and White Supremacy: combat racism, change the world, and become a good ancestor by Layla F. Saad’s
Call Number: Ebook
ISBN: 9781728209821
Publication Date: 2020
this eye-opening book challenges you to do the essential work of unpacking your biases, and helps white people take action and dismantle the privilege within themselves so that you can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on people of color, and in turn, help other white people do better, too.
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
Call Number: HV9950 .A437 2010
ISBN: 9781595581037
Publication Date: 2010-01-05
Despite the triumphant dismantling of the Jim Crow Laws, the system that once forced African Americans into a segregated second-class citizenship still haunts America, the US criminal justice system still unfairly targets black men and an entire segment of the population is deprived of their basic rights. Outside of prisons, a web of laws and regulations discriminates against these wrongly convicted ex-offenders in voting, housing, employment and education. Alexander here offers an urgent call for justice.
Nice racism : how progressive White people perpetuate racial harm by Robin DiAngelo
Call Number: LANGSAM Stacks HT1521 .D485 2021
ISBN: 9780807074121
Publication Date: 2021-06-29
Writing directly to white people as a white person, DiAngelo identifies many common white racial patterns and breaks down how well-intentioned white people unknowingly perpetuate racial harm. These patterns include: * rushing to prove that we are "not racist" * downplaying white advantage * romanticizing Black, Indigenous and other peoples of color (BIPOC) * pretending white segregation "just happens" * expecting BIPOC people to teach us about racism * carefulness * and feeling immobilized by shame. DiAngelo explains how spiritual white progressives seeking community by co-opting Indigenous and other groups' rituals create separation, not connection. She challenges the ideology of individualism and explains why it is OK to generalize about white people, and she demonstrates how white people who experience other oppressions still benefit from systemic racism. Writing candidly about her own missteps and struggles, she models a path forward, encouraging white readers to continually face their complicity and embrace courage, lifelong commitment, and accountability.
Not Guilty by Jabari Asim (Editor)
Call Number: HV9950 .N68 2001
ISBN: 9780060185381
Publication Date: 2001-10-16
Not Guilty is an anthology of twelve original essays by some of America's most influential young black male writers and critics dealing with how they see this country and how this country sees them. American society, past and present, has a contentious relationship with black men. The greatest evidence of this hostility is the use of racial profiling by law enforcement. Incidents involving Amadou Diallo, Patrick Dorismond, Rodney King, Abner Louima, and the New Jersey State Police all highlight this problem. With the Diallo case as a springboard for exploration, essays range from discussions on encounters with police to hesitating to purchase a luxury car for fear of police suspicion to historical examinations of race relations in the United States. The contributors -- poets, journalists, lawyers, writers, and professors -- are as varied as the contents of their essays. Each presents an honest, personal, and erudite examination on life as a black man in America.
Racism : essential readings by Ellis Cashmore (Editor); James Jennings (Editor)
Call Number: LANGSAM Stacks HT1521 .R338 2001
ISBN: 0761971971
Publication Date: 2002-02-05
This unique collection brings together selections from the work that has defined our understanding of racism. Every significant contribution to the analysis of racism over the past 50 years are comprised in this one book, including extracts from Myrdal′s An American Dilemma, Cox′s Marxist theory, Carmichael and Hamilton′s introduction of the term `institutional racism′ and recent textual analyses. Ordered chronologically, so that the reader can work through the narrative of changes coherently, each contribution is introduced by the editors and the whole collection is bound together by introductory and concluding chapters. The result is an unparalleled teaching and study resource. No other book presents the highlights, range and complexity of the various attempts to unravel racism, in such a comprehensive and panoramic way.
Reproducing Racism by Daria Roithmayr
Call Number: LANGSAM Stacks E184.A1 R4467 2014
ISBN: 9780814777121
Publication Date: 2014-01-20
Argues that racial inequality reproduces itself automatically over time because early unfair advantage for whites has paved the way for continuing advantage This book is designed to change the way we think about racial inequality. Long after the passage of civil rights laws, blacks and Latinos possess barely a nickel of wealth for every dollar that whites have. Why have we made so little progress? Legal scholar Daria Roithmayr provocatively argues that racial inequality lives on because white advantage functions as a powerful self-reinforcing monopoly, reproducing itself automatically from generation to generation even in the absence of intentional discrimination. Drawing on work in antitrust law and a range of other disciplines, Roithmayr brilliantly compares the dynamics of white advantage to the unfair tactics of giants like AT&T and Microsoft. With penetrating insight, Roithmayr locates the engine of white monopoly in positive feedback loops that connect the dramatic disparity of Jim Crow to modern racial gaps in jobs, housing and education. Wealthy white neighborhoods fund public schools that then turn out wealthy white neighbors. Whites with lucrative jobs informally refer their friends, who refer their friends, and so on. Roithmayr concludes that racial inequality might now be locked in place, unless policymakers immediately take drastic steps to dismantle this oppressive system.
Say It Loud!: on race, law, history, and culture by Randall Kennedy
Call Number: LANGSAM Cohen KF4757 .K46 2021
ISBN: 9780593316047
Publication Date: 2021-09-07
A collection of provocative essays exploring the key social justice issues of our time--from George Floyd to antiracism to inequality and the Supreme Court. Kennedy is "among the most incisive American commentators on race" (The New York Times). Informed by sharpness of observation and often courting controversy, deep fellow feeling, decency, and wit, Say It Loud! includes: The George Floyd Moment: Promise and Peril * Isabel Wilkerson, the Election of 2020, and Racial Caste * The Princeton Ultimatum: Antiracism Gone Awry * The Constitutional Roots of "Birtherism" * Inequality and the Supreme Court * "Nigger": The Strange Career Continues * Frederick Douglass: Everyone's Hero * Remembering Thurgood Marshall * Why Clarence Thomas Ought to Be Ostracized * The Politics of Black Respectability * Policing Racial Solidarity In each essay, Kennedy is mindful of complexity, ambivalence, and paradox, and he is always stirring and enlightening. Say It Loud! is a wide-ranging summa of Randall Kennedy's thought on the realities and imaginaries of race in America.