7 Links To Share With Non-Black Friends Who Just Don’t Seem To Get It

Activist and filmmaker Sarah Sophie Flicker partnered with social media strategist Alyssa Klein to compile a long list of articles, books, podcasts, videos and more that white people can use to educate themselves. From How To Be An Antiracist by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi to NPR’s Code Switch podcast, the list contains numerous resources. If white people still don’t have a full grasp on racism after utilizing the list, then they simply don’t want to learn.

Racial justice educator and healer Rachel Ricketts curated a list of resources white people can use in order to understand their whiteness and how they benefit from white privilege. On her list are notable books such as Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Renni Eddo-Lodge and So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo. Ricketts also includes a link to the implicit bias test, created by Harvard University, that allows people to see how, although they might now be overtly racist, every single person has some sort of unconscious bias toward people who don’t look like them. Some of Ricketts’ own work is included, such as her article on how white people can be better friends to Black women.

In her Tedx Talk, University of Michigan Flint professor Susan E. Borrego explains white privilege. While some white people may not be actively racist, many do not understand the systems they benefit from simply because of the color of their skin. And while being not racist is a good start, it’s not enough anymore. White people must be actively anti-racist and understand the systems they benefit from.

“We have to be able to breathe through our defensiveness about the fact that, ‘that’s not talking about me,'” she said.

History books have a tendency to protect the reputation of white Americans in its retellings of the past. In his Tedx Talk, David Ikard, professor of African American and diaspora studies at Vanderbilt University, explains the dangers of whitewashing Black history. He explains that while schools teach us about Black history, they don’t give the full story.

In Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?, Beverly Daniel Tatum explains racial identities and how we must understand them in order to combat racial divides. In her book, the former president of Spelman College explains self-segregation and implicit bias as well as combating racism in the classroom and how to get over your discomfort with having these conversations.

If some of your white friends are educated on the topic of race but want to go one step further and take action, Twitter user @dehyedration organized a Carrd site, including petitions to sign, places to donate to and numbers to text or call to demand action. While education is the first step, knowledge must be turned into action.

A Google Doc has also surfaced on Twitter to help white people to take initiative in the wake of George Floyd’s killing. The document includes information on how to contact Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey to demand the prosecution of all officers involved, organizations to volunteer for and funds to donate to.