Begin or Deepen Your Journey Towards Developing an Anti-Racist Identity
You want to know more about racism, but aren't sure where exactly to look. What should you read? What should you watch? And, what more do you need to know? While this page won't answer all of your questions, it will give you a place to start.
This page provides some basic information on racism, anti-racism and how this all relates to racial justice. We invite you to explore this page and consider these resources as you move forward on your own anti-racism journey. Please also consider using the mindfulness exercises below for your own self-care during this difficult time in the world.
Finally, when you are ready for personal and professional anti-racism consultation, contact Dr. Edmond for information.
This page provides some basic information on racism, anti-racism and how this all relates to racial justice. We invite you to explore this page and consider these resources as you move forward on your own anti-racism journey. Please also consider using the mindfulness exercises below for your own self-care during this difficult time in the world.
Finally, when you are ready for personal and professional anti-racism consultation, contact Dr. Edmond for information.
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Meditation and Self-Inquiry Exercise to connect to body, mind, and feelings
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SIFT through your experiences as you watch the videos on this page
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As yourself the following questions as you "SIFT":
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RAIN Meditation for Anti-Racism
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Utilize RAIN Meditation to deal with any distress that arises:
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A History of Racism and White Supremacy in the U.S.
The United States was founded on white supremacy which is a system (political, economical, legal, and cultural) rather than just individuals from extremist groups, that assumes that white people are superior. In this system whites overwhelmingly control power and material resources. White people benefit from the system and anyone who is in proximity to whiteness. In this system whiteness is viewed as good and anything else is viewed as inferior. There is a deep anti-blackness sentiment in white supremacy culture based on the enslavement of black people to build wealth in the United States hundreds of years ago. Even when black people were freed from slavery, additional forms of oppression continued such as lack of reparations to help reduce the impact of generations of slavery; lynchings, jim crow laws, redlining which deepened segregation, unequal access to GI bill for returning military.
After the civil rights movement racism went underground but continued to operate in laws that disproportionately affect people of color and has led to mass incarceration (modern day slavery and the new jim crow).
After the civil rights movement racism went underground but continued to operate in laws that disproportionately affect people of color and has led to mass incarceration (modern day slavery and the new jim crow).
Untold Story About Racism
Check out this video about the history of racism. Take a moment to center yourself and check in with yourself before watching any video. Decide what is self care and what is avoidance within your body
Anti-Racism Education Around White Supremacy
The system of white supremacy leads to white privilege and racism. Racism ranges from indifference and minimization to overt racism, calls for violence and genocide. Need a primer on what is white supremacy and white privilege? Check out the video below
Overt and Covert White Supremacy
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Understanding White Supremacy with Dr. Nathalie Edmond |
White Privilege, White Supremacy and the Invisible Knapsack
Here is a classic article from Peggy McIntosh called "Unpacking the invisible knapsack" which talks about white privilege
White supremacy and racism negatively impacts all of us. The reality is that we are all are conditioned into racism unless we take an active and ongoing stance to become anti-racist. I ask myself daily if I am making choices that dismantle white supremacy or support it.
As a white person will you use your voice and your privilege to make a difference? As a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) how will you challenge the internalized racism that causes you stress, trauma, and grief? We can dismantle racism by starting on the bottom of the pyramid, by waking up to what's happening in our household and local communities.
White supremacy and racism negatively impacts all of us. The reality is that we are all are conditioned into racism unless we take an active and ongoing stance to become anti-racist. I ask myself daily if I am making choices that dismantle white supremacy or support it.
As a white person will you use your voice and your privilege to make a difference? As a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) how will you challenge the internalized racism that causes you stress, trauma, and grief? We can dismantle racism by starting on the bottom of the pyramid, by waking up to what's happening in our household and local communities.
White supremacy continues because of liberal, moderate whites. Learn more in this video: |
Dr. Edmond provides tools for being a better white ally |
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The work of white people and people of color is different on this antiracism journey.
Where are you on the continuum? What do you need to heal?
Where are you on the continuum? What do you need to heal?
picture credit to Anneliese Singh, PhD from her book Racial Healing Handbook
Ally Development for Racial Justice & Anti-Racism
Here are some ways to learn more and develop your identity as an anti-racist
- Explore your own racial identity.
- How does your racial identity interact with other identities you have about yourself.
- What identities are privileged and what identities are oppressed?
- Take an anti-racism workshop with Dr. Edmond. Learn more here.
- If you are a white person do not rely on people of color to educate you on the history of racism and how it shows up in daily life.
- Remember that white silence harms.
- Privilege allows you to stay quiet; to not be aware of what is happening to BIPOC.
- Better to say something that you don't think is perfect than to say nothing at all.
- BIPOC notice the silence.
- Develop the skills to have difficult and often emotional conversations with your circle of influence.
- White supremacy is maintained by every day choices people make to keep the system alive or being indifferent to the system.
- Learn about microaggressions.
- Take the Harvard implicit bias test.
- Read some of the books below or listen to a podcast
- Create an affinity group (people with similar racial identity) to support each other in becoming anti-racist
- Diversify your life.
- Challenge yourself to go to different neighborhoods.
- Support BIPOC businesses, art, books.
- Donate to the organizations already doing racial justice work
- Listen to what people of color are asking for.
- Read: 75 things white people can do now
- Visit: whiteawake.org/
- Try: 21 day racial equity habit challenge
MOVING FROM PYRAMID OF HATE (ANTIDEFAMATION LEAGUE) TO PYRAMID OF LOVE (PROF CHAR KUNKEL AND GEORGE THOMPSON AT LUTHER COLLEGE)
IF WE ALLOW THINGS ON THE LOWER LEVEL TO HAPPEN WITHOUT INTERVENTION IT ALLOWS A CULTURE TO BUILD THAT LEADS TO THE HIGHER LEVELS OF HARM.
WHERE DO YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE INTERVENING?
It's ok not to know... at first. It's ok to be afraid. Becoming an anti-racist is a journey that involves a lot of self inquiry and exploration so that you can navigate the multiple truths of power and privilege. It requires humility and willingness to stretch past your comfort zone. Challenge the conditioning that we all learn from living in the United States. Becoming an anti-racist applies to all white people as well as BIPOC individuals and clinicians. BIPOC individuals can also not have an anti-racist lens because they have internalized the racism of the larger society.
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​UPCOMING ANTI-RACISM and OTHER TRAININGS with Dr. Edmond
or purchase 3 hours of webinar content to watch with your community
Schedule a consultation with Dr. Nathalie Edmond to learn how you can build an anti-racist/anti-oppression lens, achieve true diversity and inclusion in your business, church, schools, local community.
Conversation about healing racial trauma |
Reflections on internalized racism by Dr. Edmond |
A conversation between Dr. Edmond and her spouse about their journey of being anti-racist
Check out how to be an anti-racist parent panel from First Unitarian Society in NYC |
Want resources for parenting from an anti-racist lens? Check out Embrace Race:
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Anti-Racism Resources to Further Identity Development for Racial Justice
Books
- Waking up White by Debbie Irving
- Mindful of Race: Transforming racism from the inside out by Ruth King
- Me and white supremacy by Layla Saad (28 day journal reflection on different concepts)
- White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
- How to be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X Kendi
- Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper
- Uncomfortable Conversations about Racism with a Black Man by Emmanual Acho
- This book is antiracist by Tiffany Jewell
- Why I am no longer talking to white people about race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
- When They Call You a Terrorist (a black lives matter memoir) by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele
- We do this 'til we free us: abolitionist organizing and transforming justice by Mariame Kaba
- You are your best thing by Tarana Burke and Brene Brown
- Good and Mad by Rebecca Traister (chronicles the feminist movement)
- My grandmother's hands by Resmaa Menakem (explores how trauma lives in our body/white body supremacy)
- White Like Me by Tim Wise
- Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson (explores criminal justice issues for communities of color)
- The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michele Alexander
- Race After Technology by Ruha Benjamin
- Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
- On the Run by Alice Goffman
- Evicted by Matthew Desmond
- Locking Up Your Own by James Forman
- Americanah by Chimananda Ngozi Adichie (fiction)
- Becoming by Michelle Obama
- An American Marriage by Tayari Jones (fiction)
- The Hate U Give (fiction) book or movie by Angie Thomas
- Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation by Rev Angel Kyodo Williams
- Skills in Action: Radicalizing your yoga practice to create a just world by Michelle Cassandra Johnson
- Any James Baldwin books and documentary "I am not your negro"
- bell hooks books
- Angela Davis books
- Toni Morrison books
- Cornel West books
- 1619 project by Nikole Hannah-Jones
- Posttraumatic Slave Syndrome by Joy DeGruy
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Movies and Other Resources
Why protest for racial justice?Racism and Social JusticeVideo by Trevor Noah about contextualizing the broken social contract and domino effect of racism leading to protests.
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Podcasts
Black parents having "the talk"Seeing through the lens of race: Black Lives Matter presentation at Main Line Yoga ShalaJune 2020
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