Anti-Racism Information and Resources

 

 

For many people, education is the first step towards understanding why the NYAC Anti-Racism Movement is as critical to our vitality as a Church, a necessary response to our Christian calling. Our Conference is on a pathway that will require all of us learn more and grow in our journey as Anti-Racists.

With this in mind, we'll post a range of educational information and resources for your use and sharing here. Please check back often for updates. links to events, and other materials. 

All that will be offered here is designed to help build the knowledge and understanding needed to champion the cause with an understanding that at its core, anti-racism is all about human rights, social justice, and the right all people to live free of oppression at the hands of the state.

Framing Resources 

Harvard Implicit Bias Test
The Harvard Implicit Association Test (IAT) measures the strength of associations between concepts (e.g., black people, gay people) and evaluations (e.g., good, bad) or stereotypes (e.g., athletic, clumsy). The main idea is that making a response is easier when closely related items share the same response key.

Institutionalized Racism: A Syllabus
The information from Jstor, the digitized library of academic journals, is a teaching tool that aims to further understanding of the larger impact of George Floyd’s death in the context of institutionalized racism in America. 

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack and Notes for Facilitators
This essay, written by Peggy McIntosh (feminist, anti-racism activist, scholar, speaker, and Senior Research Scientist of the Wellesley Centers for Women) and published in Peace and Freedom magazine in 1989, details the many ways in which white people—male and female—are given unacknowledged advantages.

Stanford Scholars Examine Racism, Social Change and How to Build a More Just Future
For this report, Stanford University researchers examined a set of complex and challenging questions about inequality in American society.

The History of White People in America
PBS’ Independent Lens in partnership with WORLD Channel, created an animated musical series about America’s reckoning with race and injustice. The History Of White People In America takes the audience on a journey through American history, starting in the 17th century, and in particular looks at how the crafting of the idea of the white race—of whiteness—helped shape the nation’s history, designating other groups for subjugation and having wide-ranging ramifications on social class and life experience that exist to this day.

Talking About Race
Talking about race, although hard, is necessary. The National Museum of African American History and Culture's series "Talking About Race" helps by providing tools and guidance to empower your journey and inspire conversation.

Historical Foundations of Race
Although this resource is apart of the National Museum of African American History and Culture's series, Talking About Race, it deserves a  deeper observation for its thoughtful assessment of race as societal construct/a human invention created gives or deny benefits and privileges.

158 Resources to Understand Racism in America
This collection of articles, videos, podcasts and websites from the Smithsonian chronicle the history of anti-black violence and inequality in the United States. The collection includes a range of materials (including videos) that can be downloaded, embedded and shared. 

How I Learned About the “Cult of the Lost Cause”
In this article, published in Smithsonian Magazine, the mayor of New Orleans offers his reading list for anyone looking to better understand the real history of Confederate monuments. 

Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror
The video project from the Equal Justice Initiative was produced (with the support of Google) to illustrate the stories of families impacted by lynching, a tool of racial control established after the end of slavery to establish white supremacy and suppress Black civil rights. 

Remembering ‘Red Summer,’ when white mobs massacred Blacks from Tulsa to D.C.
National Geographic Magazine explores the reign of racial terror after World War I, when whites Americans
rose up to quash prosperous Black communities. The article is part of Nat Geo's Race in America series chronicling the journey of racial, ethnic, and religious groups across the United States. 

Elaine Massacre: The Bloodiest Racial Conflict in U.S. History
This video from the NY Post chronicles the time American streets ran with blood in 1919 during what would become known as "Red Summer." A staggering 237 people were estimated to be hunted down and killed in what is now known as the Elaine Massacre. The bloodbath made its way all the way up to the United States Supreme Court.

The Massacre of Tulsa's "Black Wall Street"
In 1921, a white mob destroyed an American neighborhood called “Black Wall Street,” murdering an estimated 300 people in Tulsa, Oklahoma. That incident — known as the Tulsa Race Massacre — has been largely left out of US history books. A report from Vox News explores unanswered questions from the historical record. 

The Case for Reparations
Author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates’s award-winning 2014 essay in the Atlantic used accounts from the century and a half after the end of slavery to make an argument that African Americans are owed compensation for their treatment in the United States.

The Washington Post Fatal Force Database
The Washington Post has created a database cataloging every fatal shooting nationwide by a police officer in the line of duty since 2015. The research includes breakdowns according to a number of criterion, including race, gender, cause, etc.

Black Lives Matter: A Commentary on Racism and Public Health
This scholarly work expands the conversation beyond individual high-profile cases to discuss racism and public health more broadly to: (1) acknowledge racism as a critical public health concern, (2) distinguish between the constructs of race and racism for public health, (3) discuss the pervasiveness of structural racism in our society, and (4) offer calls to action.

Articles for Understanding: Systemic Racism and Social Justice
​A robust collection of resources from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press Journals.

History of Race and Racism in America, in 24 Chapters
Dr. Ibram X. Kendi's research into the historical impact of slavery in the United States, provides a broad historical sweep and includes literature related to health outcomes and biology.

UMC Tools and Resources

“I’m Black. I’m Christian. I’m Methodist” is a collection of essays about the experiences of Black United Methodists. The book is published by Abingdon Press and edited by the Rev. Rudy Rasmus. Cost: $16.99 

Conversations about Racism and The UMC: A book discussion about I'm Black. I'm Christian. I'm Methodist. This recorded conversation aired on Abingdon Press’ YouTube and Facebook channels on January 19, 2021. 

Anti-Racism Resources from United Methodist General Agencies

General Commission on Religion and Race (GCORR) Resource List

Implicit Bias: What We Don't Think We Think, a course from GCORR

Vital Conversations 1: Realities of Race Racism, A video series from GCORR 

Black Methodists for Church Renewal, the organized Black caucus of the United Methodist Church, represents the more than 2,400 Black United Methodist congregations and approximately 500,000 African American members across the denomination.

Dismantling Racism Resources from ResourceUMC

Tools for Leaders: Resources for Racial Justice from United Methodist Women

Racial Justice: Information and Resources 

Talking about Race: UM Pastor's Tips

Dismantling Racism Town Hall
The first town hall conversation in the UMC's 'Dismantling Racism: Pressing on to Freedom' series. 

Documentaries and Films

The Long Shadow 
Documentary filmmaker and journalist Frances Causey traces her family’s legacy of white privilege in this work, placing it in the context of the history of anti-black racism in the United States that began with slavery and continues to impact our society today. Watch the FREE 15-minute version of the film and download a Community Action Guide using the link above. 

The Hate U Give
A film co-produced and directed by George Tillman Jr. from a screenplay by Audrey Wells.

Thirteenth
Filmmaker Ava DuVernay explores the history of racial inequality in the United States by looking at the United States prison system. Use the link above to access the FREE version made available for educational purposes.

Unlocking Us
Brene’ Brown interviews Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist and the Director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University.

Web-Series and Podcasts

The Theological Roots of Racism and Colonialism
This  panel discussion—sponsored by the Council of Bishops, the General Commission of Religion and Race, United Methodist Women, and the General Board of Church and Society—features four esteemed theologians (Revs. Mai-Anh Le Tran, Edgardo Colón-Emeric and Willie James Jennings) tasked with taking a close look at
the dichotomy between racism and Christianity. The United Methodist Church held the livestreamed discussion
as part of the Dismantling Racism series launched in the summer of 2020. Go here to view more panel discussions.

Faith & Racial justice (Get Your Spirit in Shape, United Methodist Communications)

Uncivil
​Uncivil (broadcast from 2017-2018) is a Peabody Award winning history podcast that features stories left out of the official history of the Civil War and reworked to propagandize and change Americans' thinking about the war.. 

Faith and Race Podcast! from the Missouri Annual Conference

Between the World and Me
This podcast, Between the World and Me, is based on a 2015 landmark work written by Ta-Nehisi Coates as a letter to his teenage son about the feelings, symbolism, and realities associated with being Black in America. In the Podcast, Susan Kelechi Watson (executive producer of the HBO special of the same name) leads in-depth discussions with thought leaders and creatives to extend the conversation, unpack the film, and more. Use the link above to listen to the podcast and watch the HBO special FREE until Sunday, December 27. 

Code Switch 
A multi-racial, multi-generational team of National Public Radio journalists explore the overlapping themes of race, ethnicity and culture, how they play out in our lives and communities, and how all of this is shifting.

The 1619 Project 
An audio series from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. 

Seeing White Podcast
Scene on Radio host and producer John Biewen took a deep dive into these questions, along with an array of leading scholars and regular guest Dr. Chenjerai Kumanyika, in this fourteen-part documentary series, released between February and August 2017.

All My Relations From an indigenous American perspective

Seeing White Revealing series from Scene on Radio that uncovers development of “whiteness” and racism

The Next Question hosted by Austin Channing Brown

Books

Dear White Christians: For Those Still Longing For Racial Reconciliation by Jennifer Harvey

White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in Christianity by Robert P. Jones (This article by the author Jones,  head of the Public Religion Research Institute, a nonpartisan polling and research organization, examines many of the conclusions and data found in this work).

Engaging Your Community With Cultural Sensitivity by Rev. Giovanni Arroyo

I'm Still Here: Black Dignity In A World Made For Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown

So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo (includes Discussion Guide)

Just Mercy (Film and Book) by Bryan Stevenson 

Racism Directly, Honestly by Ta-Nehisi Coates

America's Racial Terrorism by Bryan Stevenson

Deconstructing White Privilege by Dr. Robin DiAngelo

Meaningful Conversations About Race by Rev. Dr. David Allan Hooker

Dear Church: A Love Letter from a Black Preacher to the Whitest Denomination in the US by Lenny Duncan

Engaging Your Community With Cultural Sensitivity by Rev. Giovanni Arroyo

Nobody Cries When We Die: God, Community, and Surviving to Adulthood by Patrick B. Reyes 

Reconstructing the Gospel: Finding Freedom from Slaveholder Religion by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (Beginner)

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein

African-Americans in the Church 

Pew Research Center Religious Landscape Study

American Christianity's White Supremacy Problem 

Black Americans Donate a Higher Share of their Wealth than Whites
Despite lower net worth, they have a culture of charitable giving. They are philanthropists investing in their communities, this report from The Washington Post explains. The article draws upon notable research data from: 

 

Dismantling Racism in the NYAC