I don’t have a new episode of Myth Matters for you this week.
As a white content creator and as a white woman, I’m answering the call to mute my voice this week and to listen to BIPOC voices (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color). #amplifymelanatedvoices
I’ll have a new podcast for you next week but to listen, reflect, and understand how to be a good ally, a real ally, will take much longer.
To my white listeners and friends–
Here are a few illuminating books and podcasts that I’m finding useful. Please email and share your recommendations with me!
Books:
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin Diangelo
“The New York Times best-selling book exploring counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality.”
I read this book last year and it blew my mind and explained so much.
White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son by Tim Wise
Part memoir, part polemical essay. Thoughtful, informed, readable. I’m reading it now and seeing new dimensions to my life.
Between the World and Me by Ta Nehisi Coates
A NYT best-seller, National Book Award winner, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. This book helped me feel, viscerally, what had been abstract.
Ta Nehisi Coates is brilliant. I also recommend his essay “The First White President.” This was published in The Atlantic in 2017 and is well worth rereading (and rereading) for the clarity and depth of insight about racism and the election of Trump.
Podcasts:
Seeing White podcast on Scene on Radio
Season 2: A 14-part documentary series that was released in 2017, this podcast explores the history of “whiteness” and its purpose. I’m learning so much from this series. I’ll listen to the other seasons also.
Code Switch from NPR (National Public Radio)
“..the fearless conversations about race that you’ve been waiting for! Hosted by journalists of color, our podcast tackles the subject of race head-on. We explore how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and everything in between. This podcast makes ALL OF US part of the conversation — because we’re all part of the story.”
Action:
Showing Up for Racial Justice: https://www.showingupforracialjustice.org
Center for Policing Equity: https://policingequity.org
Everyday Feminism: https://everydayfeminism.com
“To continue reproducing racial inequality, the system only needs for white people to be really nice and carry on – to smile at people of color, to go to lunch with them on occasion. To be clear, being nice is generally a better policy than being mean. But niceness does not bring racism to the table and will not keep it on the table when so many of us who are white want it off. Niceness does not break with white solidarity and white silence. In fact, naming racism is often seen as not nice, triggering white fragility.”
― Robin DiAngelo
And that’s it for me.
