Unlearning Racism
Recommended Videos
Responding to Racism from a Spiritual Perspective
Video of a Panel Discussion at the San Francisco Integral Yoga Institute. Live via Zoom with Rev Kamala Itzel Hayward and Mazin Jamal Mahgoub. How do we as spiritual practitioners respond to racial injustice? How do we stand with and support all those working for deep and lasting change without losing our peace and being drawn into endless cycles of anger, hatred and violence?
Love and Rage: The Path of Freedom Through Anger
An interview with author Lama Rod Owens explores the power and uses of ange. He discusses his new book "Love & Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger". This video explores spirituality at the intersection of rage and anger. How do we make the changes we need to bring a more free and just society?
We Need to Talk About Race.
A Holy Post sponsored youtube video that gives a basic explanation of the issues surrounding systemic racism primarily focusing on inequality of wealth and opportunity. The speaker is the Christian animator and entrepreneur Phil Vischer. Great for giving someone with little knowledge a basic understanding of the history of racism in the U.S.
UCBerkeley Conversations: Race and the Criminal Justice System
As America reckons with how racial inequities permeate its core institutions, one such institution stands above — or below — the rest: the criminal justice system. During a live streamed event Monday, August 3rd, four UC Berkeley professors examined the system’s inextricable links to race and agreed that meaningful reforms must acknowledge that reality.
This youtube video features Late Night talk show host James Corden being schooled by one of his coworkers in white fragility and becoming an ally against racism. Funny yet provocative.
THE CANARY EFFECT: A Documentary
The Canary Effect is a 2006 documentary film that looks into the effects that the United States and its policies have on the Indigenous peoples (Native Americans) who are residents. It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and won the Stanley Kubrick Award at the 2006 Traverse City Film Festival (Michael Moore hosts).
PODCAST: STATE OF THE UNION (YOGA) ADDRESS
Shankari Christina Goldstein joins Jivana Heyman for an Accessible Yoga Community Conversation to discuss the State of Union (Yoga) Address, a groundbreaking six-part series created by Shankari and Jonathan Christopher Miles, as an act of conscious protest to uplift and amplify BIPOC and their voices within the yoga community. They'll discuss racism in the yoga community and how to move the conversation forward, including addressing spiritual bypassing, the importance of righteous anger, and more.
Thoughtful Articles
97 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice
Equality includes you. This list of actions we can take to address racial justice is "continually updated to ensure each item is accurate and needed today."
American Racism in the ‘White Frame’
This interview with a well respected and super credentialed social science/racism researcher Joe Feagin shines the light on the many ways whites and our society hide our racism.
White Privilege: Unpacking the Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh
This manifesto written in 1990 by a professor of Women's Studies at Wellesley College is amazingly thorough yet succinct in outlining the societal constructs that keep racism in place. One of the most disturbing things about the piece is that it was written in 1990 and we have seen little or no change in this 30 year period. (Download)
Race and Ethnicity: How are They Different?
This short article from National Geographic defines and further explains the concepts of race and ethnicity. It also further explains the science and genetic research that underpins the fact that race is a societal method to defend prejudice and discrimination. DNA reveals what skin color obscures: Race is a construct. There is no scientific evidence that supports using race as a way to define differences among people.
Great Books on Race
Restorative Yoga for Ethnic and Race-Based Stress and Trauma by Gail Parker
"Presenting ways in which Restorative Yoga can contribute to healing emotional wounds, this book invites yoga teachers, therapists and practitioners to consider the psychological impact of ethnic and race-based stress and trauma. It aids in the process of uncovering, examining, and healing one's own emotional wounds and offers insight into avoiding wounding or re-wounding others." Available at drgailparker.com.
How to Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
The author explores the concept of antiracism and reenergizes and reshapes the conversation about racial justice in America--but even more fundamentally, he points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. Instead of working with the policies and system we have in place, he asks us to think about what an antiracist society might look like, and how we can play an active role in building it.
Mindful of Race by Ruth King
Understanding how we have been conditioned to think and react is at the root of both racial distress and racial healing. Drawing on her expertise as a meditation teacher and diversity consultant, King helps readers of all backgrounds examine with fresh eyes the complexity of racial identity and the dynamics of oppression. She offers guided instructions on how to work with intense emotions mindfully and shows us how to cultivate a culture of care from a less tangled place to a place of greater clarity and compassion.
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo
The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality.
A BUDDHIST TEACHER’S MEDITATIONS ON CONFRONTING WHITE SUPREMACY
Lama Rod Owensis a Buddhist teacher and activist. His new book is Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger. In this inspiring interview he states “For me, we have to bring ethics back into secular mindfulness. Ethics means this is what is conducive to liberation, or another way of putting that is, this is what’s conducive to the reduction of violence. This is what is conducive to actually beginning to undo systematic white supremacy.” He goes on to outline how Buddhist philosophy requires us to be authentic, consistent in how we show up not just on the mat, but in our lives.
Skill in Action: Radicalizing Your Yoga Practice to Create a Just World by Michelle Cassandra Johnson
Skill in Action asks readers to explore the deeply transformational practice of yoga, and become social change agents so that they can create a world that is just for all. The book explores liberation for ourselves and others, while asking us to engage in our own agency, whether that manifests as activism, volunteer work, or changing our relationships with others and ourselves. Skill in Action clearly defines power and privilege, oppression, liberation and suffering, and invites readers to take steps to make changes in their lives to create a world that allows all of us to be free. The end of each chapter includes a sample practice so that readers can put the wisdom gained from the book into action in their lives.
THE NEW JIM CROW: MASS INCARCERATION IN THE AGE OF COLORBLINDNESS By Michelle Alexander
The New Jim Crow is a stunning account of the rebirth of a caste-like system in the United States, one that has resulted in millions of African Americans locked behind bars and then relegated to a permanent second-class status—denied the very rights supposedly won in the Civil Rights Movement. Since its publication in 2010, the book has appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for more than a year; been dubbed the “secular bible of a new social movement” by numerous commentators, including Cornel West who wrote the forward of the book; and has led to consciousness-raising efforts in universities, churches, community centers, re-entry centers, and prisons nationwide. The New Jim Crow tells a truth our nation has been reluctant to face.
LIES MY TEACHER TOLD ME by James Lowen
In Lies My Teacher Told Me, James Loewen studies the biases of high school American history class. He begins by noting a strange problem: even though Americans love history (as evidenced by the popularity of historical novels and Hollywood movies), American students hate history classes. The source of the problem, he decides, is the history textbook itself: textbooks give a dull, culturally biased account of the past, often alienating readers (particularly Native American, African American, Latino, and female readers). One of the key problems with textbooks is their willingness to gloss over unsavory details of historical figures’ lives in order to paint a more optimistic picture. Lowen exposes the lies and omissions of the culturally and racially biased portrait of our past in US history books and schools.
Killing Rage by Bell Hooks
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.
Useful Websites
ANTI-RACISM DAILY: Subscribe to Nicole Cardoza’s daily newsletter that offers information, resources and actions to dismantle white supremacy. You can also visit the Archives pages to find past entries devoted to such topics as Education, Environment, Social Justice, Politics. A wonderful resource and inspiration for equity work. Antiracismdaily.com
Whose Land Am I On?
This is an interactive map of North America. Click on an area and it will identify the indigenous peoples who lived(s) there. It has more information about the Canadian tribes. It also tracks treaties and movements of peoples off of their land in Canada. https://www.whose.land/en/
“When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speakup. You have to say something; you have to do something.”
John Lewis