Ethnicity and anti-racism

Civil Courage & Intervention

Who, if not you? Civil courage by Maria Grjasnow
Many people are afraid or do not know how to react when witnessing a racist incident. In such situations, civil courage is needed. Speaking up to support someone in need while others are silent is not easy. But civil courage is possible and can be trained.

A guide to how to intervene if you witness Islamophobic or other racist harassment.

Articles by Yvonne Aburrow   ^ Top

Systemic racism, othering, and alienation by Yvonne Aburrow
The first step to rectifying the situation is to acknowledge the endemic racism in the system. We need to stop seeing a specific group of people as being of less worth than other people. We need to stop being frightened of people who dress differently, walk differently, or talk differently.

Black Lives Matter by Yvonne Aburrow
The thing about equality is that it is not enough to say, in a vague and woolly manner, that you support equality for everyone, or that “all lives matter”. Specific groups of people are being persecuted and killed in specific contexts, and there is a particular historical context for that persecution.

Shades of racism by Yvonne Aburrow
We are all immersed in the racist discourse and systemic racism that is endemic in our society. Even the most progressive people occasionally come out with some crass comment (I’ve done it myself). Even the most progressive people are, however unwillingly, complicit in the way society denies basic rights to people of colour.  However, there are different levels or degrees of racism.

A recent sociological study has shown that white people become less racist when they live in ethnically diverse areas, which is a very encouraging finding.

With our thoughts we make the world by Yvonne Aburrow
Religious and spiritual ideas do not exist in a vacuum. They are intimately connected with politics. What you believe about how your religious group should be organised, and how ideas and information are verified and validated, and who gets to have authority and why, inevitably spill over into your ideas about how society as a whole should be organised.

Anti-racist efforts in Paganism  ^ Top

Understanding systemic racism   ^ Top

General   ^ Top

  • Why It’s So Hard to Talk to White People About Racism - Robin DiAngelo, Huffington Post, April 2015.
    "Social scientists understand racism as a multidimensional and highly adaptive system — a system that ensures an unequal distribution of resources between racial groups. Because whites built and dominate all significant institutions, (often at the expense of and on the uncompensated labor of other groups), their interests are embedded in the foundation of U.S. society. While individual whites may be against racism, they still benefit from the distribution of resources controlled by their group."
  • 6 Ways Well-Intentioned People Whitesplain Racism (And Why They Need to Stop) - Maisha Z. Johnson, Everyday Feminism, February 2016.
    "It’s incredibly frustrating to share my experiences with racism, only to have a white person try to speak over me about it – and often by belittling how racism hurts me."

  • Book review: Learning to be white (Thandeka), by Kirsten Johnson
    "You’ve likely seen the shirts that say: No One is Born Racist. So what are the experiences that teach racism? Thandeka recounts story after story of white children acting as though closeness with people of color is natural and normal, as though they belonged with people of color or could invite them into their family and community life. In a wide variety of ways — from subtle to overt — the children consistently got the message this behavior was unacceptable, inappropriate or not in good taste."

  • How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi - excellent book exploring what antiracism is and how to move things forward.

  • The Overton Window. How to effect social change by shifting the policy debate.

USA   ^ Top

  • The Case for Reparations - Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic, June 2014.
    "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."
  • American Slavery, Reinvented -  Whitney Benns, The Atlantic, September 2015
    The Thirteenth Amendment forbade slavery and involuntary servitude, “except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”
  • The Counted - The Guardian
    A Guardian investigation revealed the true number of people killed by law enforcement, told the stories of who they were, and established the trends in how they died.
  • For Black Americans, The Great Depression Never Ended - Aaron Ross Coleman, Medium. September 2016.
    “The worst of the unemployment rate in the United States was during the Great Depression. It was 25 percent — that lasted for a couple of years,” Goldstein said. “For young, male African Americans it has been 25 percent or higher for two decades, so in some communities, it’s as if they have been in a Great Depression for decades.”

  • Black mental health matters
    “Racism is a public health crisis,” according to a May 2020 statement from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). This means that racism — whether unintentional, unconsciously, or concealed — has affected Black Americans’ access to equal and “culturally competent” health care.

  • Addressing the racial wealth gap
    The impact that this gap has on the Black community; socioeconomic and cultural barriers; the role of Black financial advisors.

Canada   ^ Top

  • John A. Macdonald’s Aryan Canada: Aboriginal Genocide and Chinese Exclusion - Timothy J. Stanley, Active History, January 2015.
    "Racisms are central to the creation of Canada through European dominance over the vast territories of the First Nations, Inuit and Métis people. A case in point is provided by John Alexander Macdonald and his enactment of Asian exclusion and the genocide of the people of the southern plains."
  •  Rights and Reconciliation by Ry Moran
    "Indigenous peoples quickly found themselves living in an evershrinking bubble. Under the new dominion paradigm imported from Europe, Indigenous peoples no longer had the right to self-determine. The Indian Act imposed vast restrictions on nearly all aspects of the lives of First Nations peoples, while both Métis and Inuit communities underwent oppression, relocation, dispossession, and subjugation. Ever-increasing policies restricted social practices, including the right to ceremony, the right to determine who is and who is not a member of the community, and, most fundamentally, the right to land."

  • National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, Canada
    "Collective efforts from all peoples are necessary to revitalize the relationship between Aboriginal peoples and Canadian society – reconciliation is the goal. It is a goal that will take the commitment of multiple generations but when it is achieved, when we have reconciliation - it will make for a better, stronger Canada."
  • The TRC's calls to action [PDF]
    In order to redress the legacy of residential schools and advance the process of Canadian reconciliation, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission made these calls to action.
  • INDIGENOUS WRITES A Guide to First Nations, Métis & Inuit Issues in Canada by Chelsea Vowel (book)
    "Delgamuukw. Sixties Scoop. Bill C-31. Blood quantum. Appropriation. Two-Spirit. Tsilhqot’in. Status. TRC. RCAP. FNPOA. Pass and permit. Numbered Treaties. Terra nullius. The Great Peace…

    "Are you familiar with the terms listed above? In Indigenous Writes, Chelsea Vowel, legal scholar, teacher, and intellectual, opens an important dialogue about these (and more) concepts and the wider social beliefs associated with the relationship between Indigenous peoples and Canada. In 31 essays, Chelsea explores the Indigenous experience from the time of contact to the present, through five categories – Terminology of Relationships; Culture and Identity; Myth-Busting; State Violence; and Land, Learning, Law, and Treaties. She answers the questions that many people have on these topics to spark further conversations at home, in the classroom, and in the larger community."

en français...

UK   ^ Top



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