Hello Readers!
As promised, my plan moving forward is to dedicate the last Saturday of every month to rounding up many of the useful resources I consumed each month. I will include a brief description of what to expect from each, a photo, and a link when applicable, but my intention is not to summarize them for you. Rather, I hope these posts can be a spring board that sends you on your own unlearning journey and encourages you to do your own research.
Enjoy! I can’t wait to hear your feedback.
PS: I read A LOT of articles. If something you’re interested in is pictured but not listed, please comment below and I’ll send you a link.
-Liz, The Real Life Vegan Wife
_____
Books:
- The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, Richard Rothstein
The Color of Law explains how the United States federal government, and individual state governments used (and continue to use) housing policy to create racial segregation. Many of us assume that the racial makeup of neighborhoods and cities are a product of “de facto” segregation when in fact it is a result of “de jure” or direct and lawful housing policy.
- The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander
The New Jim Crow argues that since its founding, America has gone through several institutional forms of racial control, one simply evolving into the next to reflect society in that present moment. Beginning with chattel slavery, evolving into Jim Crow segregation, and currently resulting in mass incarceration, Alexander explains that each institution accomplishes the same end: the disenfranchisement and criminalization of Black people and Non-Black People of Color, resulting in a racial “underclass.”
- Hood Feminism: Notes From The Women That A Movement Forgot, Mikki Kendall
Hood Feminism is an excellent and accessible analysis of systems of privilege and oppression through the lens of intersectional feminism. Kendall explains that issues such as housing access, food security, and gun violence (among many others) disproportionately affect Black Women and Women of Color and have therefore been ignored by mainstream white feminism. She argues that these issues are feminist issues and that without addressing them collectively, patriarchy will continue to subjugate all women.
Bookstores to Support:
https://bookshop.org/shop/Elizabeths
Notable Podcast Episodes:
- Code Switch, “Why Now White People?” 6/16/20
https://www.npr.org/2020/06/16/878963732/why-now-white-people
This episode talks about the sudden surge of support from white people for the Black Lives Matter movement after the murder of George Floyd.
- The Rich Roll Podcast, Episode 529, “John Lewis & John Salley Are Black In America.” 6/29/20
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-rich-roll-podcast/id582272991?i=1000480111209
In this podcast episode, Rich Roll interviews John Salley, a long-time vegan and the first basketball player in history to win four NBA championships with three different teams, and John Lewis, aka The Badass Vegan, a vegan activist, athlete, and co-director of the new documentary They’re Trying to Kill Us.
- American History Tellers, Season 13, Episodes 1-5, “Tulsa Race Massacre.”
In this five-episode series, learn about the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 and the destruction of the Greenwood neighborhood, also known as “Black Wall Street,” by a racist white mob and a complicit police force.
Movies:
- 13th
This documentary is available on Netflix and focuses on the meaning of the 13th Amendment, racial inequality in the United States, and why Black and Non Black People of Color make up a disproportionately high number of incarcerated individuals in this country.
- The Hate U Give
This film tells the story of Starr Carter, a Black teenage girl learning to find her voice while constantly switching worlds and personalities between the Black community she calls home and the predominantly wealthy white prep school she attends.
Based on the novel by Angie Thomas
- Dark Waters
Dark Waters tells the true story of how the DuPont corporation knowingly poisoned waterways, soil, animals and people in West Virginia with PFOA, a chemical commonly found in Teflon products.
Based on the New York Times Magazine article “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare” by Nathaniel Rich.
The Real Life Vegan Wife 