Resources That Make Race a Little Easier to Talk About

I have broken this list down into categories so it is easier to digest.The *’s indicate certain things, just scroll down a bit to see what everything means. Let me know if you have any questions, or if you want any more! 

Movies:

• Fruitvale Station**

• Blindspotting**

• Strong Island

• 13th**

• Whose Streets?

• Get Out/Us

• I Am Not Your Negro

• Hello, Privilege. It’s Me, Chelsea

• 12 Years A Slave

• Boyz N the Hood

• Dear White People (The movie, not the show)

• Let the Fire Burn 

• Selma

• Pretty much everything Spike Lee

• Do The Right Thing

• Blackkklansman 

• The Birth of a Nation (Nate Parker)***

• If Beale Street Could Talk

• Moonlight

• Sorry to Bother You

• Just Mercy

• Malcolm X

TV Shows:

• The Wire

• When They See Us

• Luke Cage

• Black-ish

• Insecure

• The People v. O.J.

• Atlanta

• Pose

• Little America

• America to Me 

• The Innocence Files

Notes:

• Fruitvale Station is one of my favorite films and deals directly with police brutality and race relations in America. I would rank this pretty high on the essential viewing list (2, ** equals VERY IMPORTANT)

• Blinspotting is another one of my favorite films and doesn’t get nearly enough credit. I see it left out of a lot of the conversations about films that cover race in America. BUT, this film is INCREDIBLE. It’s entertaining and provides insight into things some of us white people could never understand. It also has one of my favorite scenes of all time. 

• 13th this is ESSENTIAL. It’s a documentary that explains why racism exists and the systems put in place since the finding/founding of this country. WATCH THIS. 

• The Birth of a Nation ok, so I gave this one 3 ***. Not because I think it’s the best, but because the director of this film has rape allegations against him and I refuse to support him. However, this is a really great film about a historical figure that most white people definitely don’t know about. So, if you’d like to watch this do it illegally. Don’t put money back into that guys pockets. 

Books:

• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

• "So You Want to Talk About Race" by Ijeoma Oluo

• "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration In The Age of Colorblindness" by Michelle Alexander

• "White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism" by Robin DiAngelo

• "Two Faced Racism: Whites in the Backstage and Frontstage" by Leslie Picca and Joe Feagin

• "How to Be Less Stupid About Race: On Racism, White Supremacy and the Racial Divide" by Crystal Fleming

• "White Rage; the Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide" by Carol Anderson

• "Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present" by Harriet Washington

• The Hollywood Jim Crow: The Racial Politics of the Movie Industry by Maryann Erigha.

• How To Be Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi

• Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall

• My Vanishing Country by Bakari Sellers

• Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You: A Remix of the National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi & Jason Reynolds 

• History Teaches Us to Resist by Mary Frances Berry

Notes: 

• I have not yet read very many of these books, but they’re on my summer reading. I tried to pick books that dissect different institutionalized racism in America. From the medical industry to education to prison to the film industry. 

Podcasts:

• Code Switch

• The New York Times, 1619

• Yo, Is This Racist?

• Pod Save the People with DeRay

• Seeing White

• Mixed Company 

• Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay

• The United States of Anxiety

• 74 Seconds

• Still Processing

• Come Through with Rebecca Carroll

• The Stoop

• Wrongfully Convicted

• The Nod

• No Country For Young Women

• About Race

• Counter Stories

• Speaking of Racism 

Notes:

• I have also admittedly not listened to all of these podcasts, but podcasts are sooo easy and easily accessible! You can listen to them while you’re cleaning, working, laying in bed. A ton of these are funny too. I personally like Still Processing. 

*Disclaimer:

These are just my personal opinions and do not by any means cover ALL of what needs to be a part of the conversation. This is just a starting point. I am also going to be putting together a non-entertainment resource guide as well.