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Author: Rebecca Skloot
Category: Nonfiction
Summary: "Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor black
tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge in 1951—became one of the most
important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene
mapping, in vitro fertilization, and more. Henrietta’s cells have been bought and
sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown, and her family can’t afford
health insurance."
Author: Debbie Irving
Category: Nonfiction
Summary: "My hope is that by sharing my sometimes cringe-worthy struggle to understand racism
and racial tensions, I offer a fresh perspective on bias, stereotypes, manners, and
tolerance. As I unpack my own long-held beliefs about colorblindness, being a good
person, and wanting to help people of color, I reveal how each of these well-intentioned
mindsets actually perpetuated my ill-conceived ideas about race. I also explain why
and how I’ve changed the way I talk about racism, work in racially mixed groups, and
understand the racial justice movement as a whole."
Author: David Finkel
Category: Nonfiction
Summary: In the ironically titled Thank You for Your Service, Finkel writes with tremendous
compassion not just about the soldiers but about their wives and children. Where do
soldiers belong after their homecoming? Is it reasonable, or even possible, to expect
them to rejoin their communities as if nothing has happened? And in moments of hardship,
who can soldiers turn to if they feel alienated by the world they once lived in? These
are the questions Finkel faces as he revisits the brave but shaken men of the 2-16.
Author: Robin DiAngelo
Category: Nonfiction
Summary: "White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes
intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward
display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation,
silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function
to reinstate white racial equilibrium. This book explicates the dynamics of White
Fragility and how we might build our capacity in the on-going work towards racial
justice."
Author: Ernestine Hayes
Category: Nonfiction
Summary: "Told in eloquent layers that blend Native stories and metaphor with social and spiritual
journeys, this enchanting memoir traces the author’s life from her difficult childhood
growing up in the Tlingit community, through her adulthood, during which she lived
for some time in Seattle and San Francisco, and eventually to her return home. Neither
fully Native American nor Euro-American, Hayes encounters a unique sense of alienation
from both her Native community and the dominant culture. We witness her struggles
alongside other Tlingit men and women—many of whom never left their Native community
but wrestle with their own challenges, including unemployment, prejudice, alcoholism,
and poverty."
Author: Annie Boochever
Category: Nonfiction
Summary: "'No Natives Allowed!' The sign blared at the young Tlingit girl from southeast Ӱ.
The sting of those words stayed with Elizabeth Peratrovich all her life. They also
made her determined to work for change. In 1945, when Elizabeth was 34 years old,
she gave a powerful speech before a packed session of the Ӱ Territorial Legislature.
Her testimony about the evils of racism crowned years of work by Ӱ Native People
and their allies and led to passage of Ӱ's landmark Anti-Discrimination Act,
nearly two decades before President Lyndon Johnson signed the US Civil Rights Act
of 1964."
Author: Ibram X. Kendi
Category: Nonfiction
Recommended by: Anonymous
Summary: "Ibram X. Kendi's concept of antiracism reenergizes and reshapes the conversation
about racial justice in America--but even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating
new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. Instead of working with the policies
and system we have in place, Kendi asks us to think about what an antiracist society
might look like, and how we can play an active role in building it. In his memoir,
Kendi weaves together an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science--including
the story of his own awakening to antiracism--bringing it all together in a cogent,
accessible form. He begins by helping us rethink our most deeply held, if implicit,
beliefs and our most intimate personal relationships (including beliefs about race
and IQ and interracial social relations) and reexamines the policies and larger social
arrangements we support. How to Be an Antiracist promises to become an essential book
for anyone who wants to go beyond an awareness of racism to the next step of contributing
to the formation of a truly just and equitable society."
Author: Richard Rothstein
Category: Nonfiction
Recommended by: Anonymous
Summary: "In The Color of Law (published by Liveright in May 2017), Richard Rothstein argues
with exacting precision and fascinating insight how segregation in America—the incessant
kind that continues to dog our major cities and has contributed to so much recent
social strife—is the byproduct of explicit government policies at the local, state,
and federal levels."
Author: Ibram X. Kendi
Category: Nonfiction
Recommended by: Anonymous
Summary: "In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire
story of anti-Black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American
history. Stamped from the Beginning uses the life stories of five major American intellectuals
to offer a window into the contentious debates between assimilationists and segregationists
and between racists and antiracists. From Puritan minister Cotton Mather to Thomas
Jefferson, from fiery abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison to brilliant scholar W.E.B.
Du Bois to legendary anti-prison activist Angela Davis, Kendi shows how and why some
of our leading proslavery and pro-civil rights thinkers have challenged or helped
cement racist ideas in America."
Author: Michelle Alexander
Category: Nonfiction
Recommended by: Anonymous
Summary: "Alexander shows that, by targeting black men through the War on Drugs and decimating
communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary
system of racial control, even as it formally adheres to the principle of colorblindness.
The New Jim Crow challenges the civil rights community—and all of us—to place mass
incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America."
Author: Paul Butler
Category: Nonfiction
Recommended by: Anonymous
Summary: "Cops, politicians, and ordinary people are afraid of black men. The result is the
Chokehold: laws and practices that treat every African American man like a thug. In
this explosive new book, an African American former federal prosecutor shows that
the system is working exactly the way it’s supposed to. Black men are always under
watch, and police violence is widespread—all with the support of judges and politicians."
Author: Ijeoma Oluo
Category: Nonfiction
Recommended by:
Summary: "Widespread reporting on aspects of white supremacy–from police brutality to the mass
incarceration of Black Americans–has put a media spotlight on racism in our society.
Still, it is a difficult subject to talk about. How do you tell your roommate her
jokes are racist? Why did your sister-in-law take umbrage when you asked to touch
her hair–and how do you make it right? How do you explain white privilege to your
white, privileged friend? In So You Want to Talk Ӱ Race, Ijeoma Oluo guides readers
of all races through subjects ranging from intersectionality and affirmative action
to “model minorities” in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest
conversations about race and racism, and how they infect almost every aspect of American
life."
Author: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Category: Nonfiction
Recommended by:
Summary: "Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized
Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen
million Native people who once inhabited this land. The centuries-long genocidal program
of the US settler-colonial regimen has largely been omitted from history. Roxanne
Dunbar-Ortiz offers a history of the United States told from the perspective of Indigenous
peoples and reveals how Native Americans, for centuries, actively resisted expansion
of the US empire."
Author: Sara Ahmed
Category: Nonfiction
Recommended by: Maureen Hogan
Summary: "What does diversity do? What are we doing when we use the language of diversity?
Sara Ahmed offers an account of the diversity world based on interviews with diversity
practitioners in higher education, as well as her own experience of doing diversity
work. Diversity is an ordinary, even unremarkable, feature of institutional life.
Yet diversity practitioners often experience institutions as resistant to their work,
as captured through their use of the metaphor of the "brick wall." On Being Included
offers an explanation of this apparent paradox. It explores the gap between symbolic
commitments to diversity and the experience of those who embody diversity. Commitments
to diversity are understood as "non-performatives" that do not bring about what they
name. The book provides an account of institutional whiteness and shows how racism
can be obscured by the institutionalization of diversity. Diversity is used as evidence
that institutions do not have a problem with racism. On Being Included offers a critique
of what happens when diversity is offered as a solution. It also shows how diversity
workers generate knowledge of institutions in attempting to transform them."
Author: Ian Hartman with a foreword by Ed Wesley
Category: Nonfiction
Summary: "The book illuminates historical records and oral histories of African Americans who
have worked and lived in Ӱ for over 150 years – hunting for whales, patrolling
the seas, building roads, serving in the military, opening businesses, winning political
office, and forging communities."
Author: Augustus A. White III with David Chanoff
Category: Nonfiction
Summary: Growing up in Jim Crow–era Tennessee and training and teaching in overwhelmingly white
medical institutions, Gus White witnessed firsthand how prejudice works in the world
of medicine. While race relations have changed dramatically since then, old ways of
thinking die hard. In this blend of memoir and manifesto, Dr. White draws on his experience
as a resident at Stanford Medical School, a combat surgeon in Vietnam, and head orthopedic
surgeon at one of Harvard’s top teaching hospitals to make sense of the unconscious
bias that riddles medical care, and to explore how we can do better in a diverse twenty-first-century
America.
Author: Derald Wing Sue
Category: Nonfiction
Summary: "This book insightfully looks at the various kinds of microaggressions and their psychological
effects on both perpetrators and their targets."
Author(s): First Nations Development Institutte
Summary: "The staff members of First Nations Development Institute have compiled a list of
what they consider to be essential reading for anyone interested in the Native American
experience."
Author: Alex Kotlowitz
Category: Nonfiction
Recommended by: Anonymous
Summary: "In The Other Side of the River, his eagerly awaited new book, Kotlowitz takes us
to southern Michigan. Here, separated by the St. Joseph River, are two towns, St.
Joseph and Benton Harbor. Geographically close, they are worlds apart, a living metaphor
for America's racial divisions: St. Joseph is a prosperous lakeshore community and
ninety-five percent white, while Benton Harbor is impoverished and ninety-two percent
black. When the body of a black teenaged boy from Benton Harbor is found in the river,
unhealed wounds and suspicions between the two towns' populations surface as well.
The investigation into the young man's death becomes, inevitably, a screen on which
each town projects their resentments and fears."
Author: Mia McKenzie
Category: Nonfiction
Recommended by: Alyssa Quintyne during her 02/15/2022 Shine a Light: Black Organizing in Ӱ talk.
Summary: "Mia McKenzie, creator of the enormously popular website Black Girl Dangerous, writes
about race, queerness, class and gender in a concise, compelling voice filled at different
times with humor, grief, rage, and joy. In this collection of her work from BGD (now
available only in this book), McKenzie’s nuanced analysis of intersecting systems
of oppression goes deep to reveal the complicated truths of a multiply-marginalized
experience. McKenzie tackles the hardest questions of our time with clarity and courage,
in language that is accessible to non-academics and academics alike. She is both fearless
and vulnerable, demanding and accountable. Hers is a voice like no other."
Author: Mikki Kendall
Category: Nonfiction
Recommended by: Alyssa Quintyne during her 02/15/2022 Shine a Light: Black Organizing in Ӱ talk.
Summary: "In her searing collection of essays, Mikki Kendall takes aim at the legitimacy of
the modern feminist movement, arguing that it has chronically failed to address the
needs of all but a few women. Drawing on her own experiences with hunger, violence,
and hypersexualization, along with incisive commentary on politics, pop culture, the
stigma of mental health, and more, Hood Feminism delivers an irrefutable indictment
of a movement in flux. An unforgettable debut, Kendall has written a ferocious clarion
call to all would-be feminists to live out the true mandate of the movement in thought
and in deed."
Author: Paule Marshall
Category: Fiction
Recommended by: Alyssa Quintyne during her 02/15/2022 Shine a Light: Black Organizing in Ӱ talk.
Summary: "Set in Brooklyn during the Great Depression and World War II, Brown Girl, Brownstones
chronicles the efforts of Barbadian immigrants to surmount poverty and racism and
to make their new country home. Selina Boyce is torn between the opposing aspirations
of her parents: her hardworking, ambitious mother longs to buy a brownstone row house
while her easygoing father prefers to dream of effortless success and his native island’s
lushness."
Author: Jennifer L. Eberhardt
Category: Nonfiction
Recommended by: Anonymous
Summary: "How do we talk about bias? How do we address racial disparities and inequities? What
role do our institutions play in creating, maintaining, and magnifying those inequities?
What role do we play? With a perspective that is at once scientific, investigative,
and informed by personal experience, Dr. Jennifer Eberhardt offers us the language
and courage we need to face one of the biggest and most troubling issues of our time.
She exposes racial bias at all levels of society—in our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces,
and criminal justice system. Yet she also offers us tools to address it. Eberhardt
shows us how we can be vulnerable to bias but not doomed to live under its grip. Racial
bias is a problem that we all have a role to play in solving."
Author(s): Ilarion (Larry) Merculieff and Libby Roderick
Summary: "This book describes a unique higher education project that broke some difficult
silences between academic and Native communities by introducing a small group of non-Native
faculty members to traditional Ӱ Native ways of teaching and learning. It presents
a model for a Native-designed and run faculty development intensive, strategies for
applying indigenous pedagogies in western learning environments, reflection on education
by Ӱ Native Elders, and reports from participants on what they learned and what
they tried in their classrooms. It is intended to stimulate discussion and reflection
about best practices in higher education."
Author(s): Laura van Dernoot Lipsky with Connie Burk, Foreword by Jon R. Conte
Summary: "This book is written for anyone who is doing work with an intention to make the
world more sustainable and hopeful—all in all, a better place—and who, through this
work, is exposed to the hardship, pain, crisis, trauma, or suffering of other living
beings or the planet itself. It is for those who notice that they are not the same
people they once were, or are being told by their families, friends, colleagues, or
pets that something is different about them."
Author: Jarvis R. Givens
Summary: "Black education was a subversive act from its inception. African Americans pursued
education through clandestine means, often in defiance of law and custom, even under
threat of violence. They developed what Jarvis Givens calls a tradition of “fugitive
pedagogy”—a theory and practice of Black education in America. [...] There is perhaps
no better exemplar of this heritage than Carter G. Woodson―groundbreaking historian,
founder of Black History Month, and legendary educator under Jim Crow. [...] Fugitive Pedagogy chronicles Woodson’s efforts to fight against the “mis-education of the Negro” by
helping teachers and students to see themselves and their mission as set apart from
an anti-Black world. "
()
Source: PBS News Hour
Author: Rachel D'Oro
Date: Sept. 8, 2018
Summary: "A new Inupiaq language option recently went live on Facebook for those who employ
the social media giant’s community translation tool."
()
Source: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
Author: Erin Granger
Date: Feb. 26, 2018
()
Source: Ӱ Nanook Diversity & Action Center
Date: June 1, 2020
()
Source: The Atlantic
Author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Date: June 2014
Recommended by: Anonymous
Summary: "Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate
but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding
moral debts, America will never be whole."
()
Source: Hybrid Pedagogy
Author: Sue Renes
Date: Oct. 21, 2014
Recommended by: Anonymous
Summary: "It is not too hard to recognize that educational institutions, to a large degree,
determine the process of engagement with learning and engagement with the learners.
It should come as no surprise that unrepresented students might be tentative about
actively participating in this process when their previous experiences with other
schools or other social institutions might not have been positive. What underrepresented
students are often asked to do, whether it is recognized or not, is leave their true
identities — their true voices — at the door."
()
Source: Diverse Issues in Higher Education
Author: Kyle Southern
Date: June 12, 2020
Recommended by: Anonymous
Summary: Kyle Southern specifies actionable steps to disrupt systemic racism as a white male
in higher education.
()
Authors: V. Bala Chaudhary & Asmeret Asefaw Berhe
Date: Oct. 1, 2020
Authors: Asmeret Asefaw Berhe & Sora Kim
Summary: "We developed these guidelines as part of an attempt to shine some light on the pervasive
nature of racial bias and to help improve racial diversity in academic institutions,
where we have both chosen to make our careers. However, most if not all of these tips
apply to anyone writing a recommendation letter for a POC candidate in any field."
Author: Katie Langin
Date: Dec. 21, 2020
Author: Lee et al.
Date: May 6, 2018
Summary: "This study sheds light on how racial microaggressions manifest in the lives of student-athletes
and how the discourses and practices we take for granted constitute racial subjectivities."
Racial Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Implications for Clinical Practice ( Log in with UA credentials to access article.)
Author: Sue et al.
Date: May-June 2007
Summary: "A taxonomy of racial microaggressions in everyday life was created through a review
of the social psychological literature on aversive racism, from formulations regarding
the manifestation and impact of everyday racism, and from reading numerous personal
narratives of counselors (both White and those of color) on their racial/cultural
awakening."
()
Authors: Kristin Bain, Tamar A. Kreps, Nathan L. Meikle, & Elizabeth R. Tenney
Date: June 17, 2021
Summary: "Amplification, or a public endorsement of someone’s idea with proper attribution
of credit, can help ensure that team members’ ideas don’t get overlooked or attributed
to the wrong person. In three studies involving more than 2,760 participants in the
U.S., the authors found that amplification can accomplish three important things:
Make someone else’s contribution seem better, make the amplifier (the person doing
the amplifying) look good as well, and help underrepresented voices be heard. In other
words, amplification benefits everyone involved. This is especially beneficial for
women, people of color, or members of other underrepresented groups, who may be especially
likely to be dismissed or spoken over."
()
Source: The Chronicle for Higher Education
Authors: Beth McMurtrie
Source: Identity, Inc.
Summary: Ӱn LGBT organization, Identity, Inc. (est. in 1977), maintains an archive of
their newsletter, NorthView, from 1980-2013. These newsletters provide a glimpse into
Ӱn queer history through opinion pieces, accounts of Pride and local Balls, advertisements,
photos, event calendars, and reports on queer news. Other Identity, Inc. records can
be accessed through the .
Author: Janet Brice
Summary: "Six signature traits to becoming an inclusive business leader in today’s diverse
and challenging workplace have been identified in a report from consultants Deloitte."
Author: Peggy McIntosh
Summary: "This article describes a self-awareness activity that utilizes a directed reading
on privilege and a small-group discussion format to examine unearned disadvantage
and unearned advantage in one’s life. This exercise can help clinicians to better
understand systemic and individual sources of power and privilege in society."
Free to read with UA login.
Author(s): Jennie Williams and Janelle Peifer
Source: Smithsonian Magazine
Author: Hanna Raskin
A ‘Real Good’ Story The R.G. and Onnie Bouchum Scholarship (PDF)
Source: Ӱ Aurora Fall 2008 (p 14-17)
Author: LJ Evans
()
Souce: UAS Sitka
Summary: "This series of short profiles honors the accomplishments of a handful of Ӱ
Native women. Elizabeth Peratrovich’s legacy is strong, forward moving, and being
furthered by other strong Ӱ Native women.This collection aims to inspire us all
to recognize the many who are following in her footsteps, and explores the achievements
of 27 Ӱ Native women, across many communities, sectors, and industries."
Souce: Social Work Career
Recommended by: Anonymous
Summary: This is a collection of anti-racist resources (infographics, YouTube videos, books,
TV shows, podcasts, etc.).
()
Author: Melissa Shaginoff
Summary: Land acknowledgement resource created by Melissa Shaginoff, an Ahtna Athabascan and
Paiute artist, social activist, and curator of Ӱ Pacific University’s Art Galleries.
Summary: "The Ӱ Native Knowledge Network (ANKN) is an AKRSI partner designed to serve
as a resource for compiling and exchanging information related to Ӱ Native knowledge
systems and ways of knowing. It has been established to assist Native people, government
agencies, educators and the general public in gaining access to the knowledge base
that Ӱ Natives have acquired through cumulative experience over millennia."
Authors: Stefanie Ickert-Bond, Mario Muscarella, Sarah Stanley, Ute Kaden, and Christine Davenport
Date: March 24, 2021
Summary: "The Red Pen Syndrome is a set of barriers to access, engagement, and success for
underrepresented groups in STEM. This poster session identifies when an expert suffers
from Red Pen Syndrome (the ailment), what symptoms are the manifestation of the ailment
(the diagnosis), how to provide resources that might help prevent this Syndrome from
becoming more widespread (vaccines), and the fact that there is no cure: Our work
must be ongoing and intentional work (treatments)."
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Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education
Author: Sarah Brown
SafeZone Participant Packet ()
Source: Nanook Diversity & Action Center
Source: Zoom
Source: National Park Service
Summary: LGBTQ America: A Theme Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer History
is a publication of the National Park Foundation for the National Park Service and
funded by the Gill Foundation. Each chapter is written and peer-reviewed by experts
in LGBTQ Studies.
()
Souce: APA
Summary: "These guidelines aim to raise awareness, guide learning, and support the use of culturally
sensitive terms and phrases that center the voices and perspectives of those who are
often marginalized or stereotyped. They also explain the origins for problematic terms
and phrases and offer suitable alternatives or more contemporary replacements. This
document will be flexible and iterative in nature, continuing to evolve as new terminology
emerges or current language becomes obsolete."
Source: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Committee on Addressing
the Underrepresentation of Women of Color in Tech
Summary: This book outlines the barriers faced by Women of Color who are interested in, attempting
to enter, or are currently in STEM fields and provides recommendations to improve
recruitment, retention, and advancement of Women of Color in STEM.
PDF can be downloaded for free by creating an account or signing in as a guest.
Source: National Center for Transgender Equality
Souce: Diversity Program Consortium
Author(s): Sandra Sanchez and Erik Anderson
Source: Emory University School of Medicine
Summary: This series of amazing anti-racism action guides, created by Emory University, provides
clear and concise actions people can take to be anti-racist. These guides cover a
wide variety of topics and are a great place to begin your own anti-racist journey.
The non-medical field specific guides are:
- Recognizing and Responding to Microaggressions
- Self-Exploration
- What can I do as a White Person?
- Talk to Your Kids about Race (available in various languages)
- How to Talk with Colleagues about Race, Racism, and Anti-Racism
- Reducing Bias in Recommendation Letters, Candidate Evaluations and Assessments of Academic Products
- ACT for Anti-Racism
Summary: Racial Equity Tools provides "tools, research, tips, curricula, and ideas for people
who want to increase their own understanding and to help those working for racial
justice at every level – in systems, organizations, communities, and the culture at
large."
Source: American Chemical Society
Source: Colorado School of Mines
Source: EEOC
Source: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Committee on Advancing
Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEM Organizations