Breonna Taylor. George Floyd. Ahmaud Arbery. And so many more it hurts.
It’s been a long few weeks (and, if we’re being honest, a long too many years). We’ve seen too many black people be murdered by police officers with too few officers facing actual justice. We’ve seen black people and co-conspirators participate in protests and uprisings that get more criticism than the murder of black people.
I understand if, as a white person, you’re feeling uncomfortable talking about race, but your (our) discomfort is nothing compared to the terror, anger, and hurt being felt by BIPOC (black, indigenous, and people of color) in this country. So we owe it to our communities and ourselves to sit in this discomfort, learn, and commit to doing better.
I’ve pulled together some resources that I find helpful when talking about race, privilege, racism, and police brutality, as well as some resources for putting allyship into practice. Hopefully these help even a little bit.
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
This is a helpful place to start in recognizing your privilege. It walks you through a list of statements and asks you to reflect on whether they are true for you and then think about how these small privileges add up over the course of a day, a week, a month, a life.
This Google Doc of Anti-racism resources for white people
Sarah Sophie Flicker and Alyssa Klein put together this list of resources that white people can use to learn from books to articles to podcasts to videos to movies. It’s an extremely helpful list–if you’re looking for something to start conversations with friends or family, I’d start by sending them just one of the links in this doc to spark conversation.
This Google Doc about talking to kids about BLM
My incredible friend and badass school counselor Marissa wrote this guide on how to talk to your children (or the children in your life) about race, police brutality, and protest. It’s so kind and loving and helpful that honestly I would recommend reading it even if you don’t have kids in your life. Lots of these tactics are helpful for talking to anyone about race and grief.
Teen Vogue: Beyond the Hashtag: How to Take Anti-Racist Action in Your Life
An extremely accessible piece filled with links to learn more and take action. Zyahna Bryant includes concrete steps you can take to help including educating yourself, investing time and resources, and getting involved locally.
This site pulls links to petitions to sign, who to text or call to demand action, where to donate, advice for protestors, and additional helpful resources for learning.
If you’re looking to put your money where your mouth (and heart) is, here’s a great place to start. Bail funds are critical to justice at all times, not just now. Yes, it’s important to use our money to help bail out people who take to the streets to protest racism, but it’s also important to use our money to bail out people who are put in jail (often pre-trial or pre-hearing) simply because they can’t afford bail. I encourage you to donate to the bail fund in your community in addition to the ones that are in the news–they probably need your money more.
On police brutality/use of force/murder
Many of the conversations about racism right now are sparked because of police officers murdering black people. Here are some resources to help learn about this issue and help you better talk about why this is a problem and how we might fix it.
Rewire News: The Case for Delegitimizing the Police
As the headline says, this lays out the case for why we don’t need police. It discusses the history of police forces in the US–a history that’s so important to understanding how we got to where we are now. If you’re not convinced that we need to move away from policing, please start here. (NOTE: Rewire News is also an excellent resource in general for justice-focused reporting.)
Campaign Zero is a project dedicated to using data and policy to drive change at every level of government to end police violence. They’ve done amazing work gathering concrete data about different pieces of police violence. If you’re someone (like me) who likes to have data points to back up your arguments, this is an incredible site.
This is part of Campaign Zero and examines different police union contracts in states and cities across the country. The number one thing that police unions do is make it more difficult to hold officers accountable for misconduct. In this house we are pro-union, except for police unions, for this very reason. Check to see if your city’s police union contract makes it harder to charge officers.
This is part of Campaign Zero and examines different police department use of force policies. Use of force policies can be effective in helping to end police violence, but more departments don’t have policies that require de-escalation and related tactics. You can look up your city’s policies to see what tactics are included.
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