Stronger Together

The YMCA is stronger together! At the Y, we are committed to being a positive force for change. As an organization focused on addressing the most critical needs of our community and dedicated to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion for all, we know that we must begin to address how to undo racism and become “anti-racists” at an individual, organizational, and societal level. As we embark on this journey together, we know that we have much work to do.

Resources for Anti-Racism, Equality, Justice, and Cultural Competence

READINGS
  • Alexander, Michelle (2010). The New Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New York, NC: The New Press.
  • Baradaran, Mehrsa (2015). How the other half banks: Exclusion, exploitation, and the threat to democracy. Harvard University Press.
  • Bell, Derrick (1992). Faces at the Bottom of the Well. The Permanence of Racism. Basic Books.
  • Blackmon, Douglas A. (2007). Slavery by another name. The re-enslavement of Black-Americans in the Civil War to World War II. New York: Anchor Books.
  • Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo (2006). Racism Without Racist: Colorblind racism and the persistence of inequality in the United States. Rowman and Littlefield.
  • Brown, Claude (1965). Manchild in the Promised Land. New York, NY: Touchstone Press.
  • Butterfield, Fox (1995). All God’s Children: The Bosket Family and the American Tradition of Violence. New York: Harper Perennial.
  • Contreras, Randol (2013). The Stick-Up Kids: Race, Drugs, Violence and the American Dream. University of California Press.
  • Darity, William A. and A. Kirsten Mullen (2020). From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century. University of North Carolina Press.
  • DiAngelo, Robin (2018). White Fragility: Why it’s so hard for white people to talk about racism. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
  • Dyson, Michael Eric (2017). Tears we cannot stop: a sermon to white America (First edition. ed.). New York: St. Martin’s Press.
  • Forman, James (2017). Locking up our own: crime and punishment in Black America (First edition. ed.). New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
  • Gilmore, Ruth Wilson (2007). Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California. University of California Press.
  • Haney-López, I. (2014). Dog whistle politics: how coded racial appeals have reinvented racism and wrecked the middle class. Oxford ;: Oxford University Press.
  • LeBlanc, Adrian Nicole (2003). Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age In the Bronx. New York: Scribner.
  • Quam, H.L.T. (2019). Cedric J. Robinson on racial capitalism, Black internationalism, and cultures of resistance. Pluto Press.
  • Kendi, Ibram X. (2016). Stamped from the Beginning: The definitive history of racist ideas in America. New York: Nation Books.
  • Kendi, Ibram X. (2019). How to be an antiracist. New York, NY: Ibram X. Kendi/Penguin Random House.
  • Lowery, Wesley (2016). They can’t kill us all: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a new era in America’s racial justice movement. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company.
  • Riis, Jacob A. (1890/2004). How The Other Half Lives. New York: Barnes & Nobles Books.
  • Rios, Victor (2011). Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys. New York: New York University Press.
  • Rochester, Shawn D. (2017). The Black Tax: The Cost of Being Black in America. Good Stewart Press.
  • Rosenberg, Paula S. (2016). Race, Class and Gender in the United States: An Integrated Study. 10th Edition. New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
  • Rothstein, Richard (2017). The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation.
  • Stevenson, Bryan (2014). Just Mercy: A story of justice and redemption. Spiegel & Grau Press.
  • Tatum, Beverly D. (1997). Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? and other conversations about race (First edition. ed.). New York: BasicBooks.
  • Taylor, Keeanga Y. (2016). From #BlackLivesMatter to Black liberation. Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books.
  • Vigil, James Diego (2002). A Rainbow of Gangs: Street Cultures in the Mega-City. Austin: University of Texas Press.
  • Zweigenhaft, Richard L. & G. William Domhoff (1991). Blacks in the White Establishment: A Study of Race and Class in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
  • Wilkerson, Isabella (2011). The warmth of other suns: the epic story of America’s great migration (First Vintage books edition. ed.). New York: Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
  • X, Malcolm, & Haley, A. (1999). The autobiography of Malcolm X (First Ballantine books edition. ed.). New York: Random House Publishing Group Ballantine Books.
National Organizations
  • Equal Justice Initiative  – https://eji.org/
  • Advancement Project – https://advancementproject.org/
  • Color of Change – https://colorofchange.org/
  • Dream Defenders – https://dreamdefenders.org/
  • Innocence Project – https://www.innocenceproject.org/
  • NAACP Legal Defense Fund – https://www.naacpldf.org/
  • Southern Poverty Law Center – https://www.splcenter.org/
  • Sentencing Project – https://www.sentencingproject.org/
  • National Fair Housing Alliance – https://nationalfairhousing.org/
  • Race Forward – https://www.raceforward.org/
  • Center for media justice – https://mediajustice.org/
  • UnidosUS – https://www.unidosus.org/
Local Organizations

Links and Websites

Alternative News Outlets 

  • Black Agenda Report – blackagendareport.com
  • Black Radio Talk Network – blacktalkradionetwork.com
  • Common Dreams – commondreams.org
  • Democracy Now! – democracynow.org
  • Jacobin – jacobinmag.com
  • The Intercept – theintercept.com
  • The Real News – therealnews.com
  • The Young Turks – tyt.com

Podcasts

  • 1619 – https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/podcasts/1619-podcast.html
  • Code Switch – https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch
  • Floodlines – https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/floodlines
  • Reveal – https://www.revealnews.org/episodes
  • Scene on Radio – https://www.sceneonradio.org/
  • Speaking of Racism – http://speakingofrace.ua.edu/podcast
  • The Diversity Gap – https://www.thediversitygap.com/podcast-1
  • Wrongful Conviction – https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com

Documentary Films

  • 13th (2016, Kandoo Films)
  • I am not Your Negro (2016, Velvet Film)
  • Central Park Five (2012, PBS)
  • Charm City (PBS – Independent Lens)
  • LA 92 (2017, Tribeca Films)
  • Race: The Power of an Illusion (2003, PBS)
  • Teach Us All (2017, Array Releasing)
  • The Talk: Race in America (PBS)
  • The House I Live In (2012, MindInMotion)
  • The People’s Report (2013, Hearts and Minds)
  • Which Way Home? (2009, HBO)
  • Who’s Streets? (2017, Magnolia Pictures)

Feature Films for Adults

  • Fences (2016, Paramount Pictures)
  • Fruitvale Station (2013, Significant Productions)
  • If Beale Street Could Talk (2018, Plan B Entertainment)
  • Just Mercy (2109, Participant)
  • Night Catches Us (2010, SimonSays Entertainment)
  • Planet of the Apes (2017, 2018, 20th Century Fox)
  • The Matrix (1999, Warner Bros.)
  • When They See Us (2019, Netflix)

Feature Films for Children and Family

  • Akeelah and the Bee (2006, Lionsgate Films)
  • Avatar (2009, 20th Century Fox)
  • Coco (2017, Walt Disney Pictures)
  • Hidden Figures (2016, Fox 2000 Pictures)
  • Mad Hot Ballroom (2005, Nickelodeon Movies)
  • On the Way to School (2014, Dreamworks Pictures)
  • Osama (2003, Barmak Film)
  • Raising Victor Vargas (2002, StudioCanal)
  • The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (2019, British Film Institute Potboiler Productions)
  • The Hate You Give (2108, Fox 2000 Pictures)
  • The Secret Life of Bees (2008, Searchlight Pictures)
  • Whale Rider (2002, South Pacific Pictures)

Our Mission

To empower youth, foster healthy living, and promote strong communities.