"How Can I Help?" Resources for Change

"I’m no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I’m changing the things I cannot accept.” – Angela Davis

While trying to process everything that has been happening, I wanted to take my emotions and transmute them into something helpful.

I decided to curate a list of resources found online & social media (with credit to their respectful authors) dedicated to education, advocacy, anti-racism & anti-white supremacy work.

So let's start!

Click here to sign the petition

Text “FLOYD” to 55156 to sign the petition

Minnesota freedom fund

George Floyd memorial fund

For everyone - 16 organizations to learn & donate to racial justice:

5 ways to take action for Non - Black people:

Know your history - educate yourself on antiblackness, systemic oppression, privilege, and the role you and your communities play in upholding white supremacy
Calling In - Call your family, friends, and community leaders in dialogue around anti-blackness and violence against the Black community.
Stop Appropriation - Stop picking apart pieces of Black culture for your convenience, profit, and social currency
Listen. Don’t Labor.- Listen to resources from Black women, Black community, Black leaders, Black activists, Black Authors, Black Podcasters. Do not put the labor on Black people to educate you.
Stay Updated - Follow the hashtags on social media to stay updated on continuing action.

List via The Conscious Kid

The U.S. cultural narrative about racism typically focuses on individual racism and fails to recognize structural racism (Racial Equity Tools). Racism is often seen as psychological bias that can be cured rather than an embedded structural issue that is timeless.

Structural Racism vs. Individual Racism

Structural Racism:

Is a system in which public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations, and other norms work in various, often reinforcing ways to perpetuate racial group inequity.
Is primarily characterized by white supremacy- the preferential treatment, privilege, power, access, and opportunities for white people- at the expense of cumulative and chronic adverse outcomes for people of color.
Encompasses the entire system of white supremacy, diffused and infused in all aspects of society, including our laws, history, culture, politics, economics and our entire social fabric.
Is the most profound and pervasive form of racism- all other forms of racism (individual, interpersonal, internalized, etc.) emerge from structural racism. (Lawrence & Keheler, 2018)

Individual Racism:

Refers to an individual’s racist assumptions, beliefs, or behaviors and is “a form of racial discrimination that stems from conscious and unconscious, personal prejudice” (Henry & Tator, 2006)
Includes examples such as telling a racist joke, believing in the inherent superiority of white people over other racial groups, or not hiring a person of color because “something doesn’t feel right”.
Is connected to/learned from broader socioeconomic histories and processes and is supported and reinforced by structural racism.
A focus on individual racism functions to erase hierarchies of power and fails to connect personal ideologies to larger or systemic ones (ACLRC).

Pyramid Image Source:

Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence (2005). Adapted: Ellen Tuzzolo (2016); Mary Julia Cooksey Cordero (2019); The Conscious Kid (2020)

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor."- Desmond Tutu

Anti Racism Resources

Document compiled by Sarah Sophie Flicker, Alyssa Klein in May 2020

This document is intended to serve as a resource to white people and parents to deepen our anti-racism work. If you haven’t engaged in anti-racism work in the past, start now. Feel free to circulate this document on social media.

To take immediate action to fight for Breonna Taylor, please visit FightForBreonna.org.

Resources for white parents to raise anti-racist children:

● Check out these books for children and young adults from the list of Coretta Scott King Book Award Winners

● Listen to the Parenting Forward podcast episode ‘Five Pandemic Parenting Lessons with Cindy Wang Brandt’

● Listen to the Fare of the Free Child podcast

● Read PBS’s Teaching Your Child About Black History Month

● Follow The Conscious Kid on Instagram

Articles to read:

● “America’s Racial Contract Is Killing Us” by Adam Serwer | Atlantic (May 8, 2020)

● Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement (Mentoring a New Generation of Activists

● ”My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant” by Jose Antonio Vargas | NYT Mag (June 22, 2011)

● The 1619 Project (all the articles) | The New York Times Magazine