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Racial Equity Resources

A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America

Cover of A Different Mirror: A Hist
by Ronald Takaki
2008

A dramatic new retelling of our nation's past. Beginning with the colonization of the New World, it recounts the history of America in the voice of the non-Anglo peoples of the United States--Native Americans, African Americans, Jews, Irish Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, and others--groups who helped create this country's rich mosaic culture. Now, Ronald Takaki has revised his landmark work and made it even more relevant and important.

Displacement

Cover of Displacement
Kiku Hughes
2020

Kiku finds herself stuck back in time. Living alongside her young grandmother and other Japanese-American citizens in internment camps, Kiku gets the education she never received in history class. She witnesses the lives of Japanese-Americans who were denied their civil liberties and suffered greatly, but managed to cultivate community and commit acts of resistance in order to survive.

Displacement

Cover of Displacement
by Kiku Hughes
2020

Kiku is on vacation in San Francisco when suddenly she finds herself displaced to the 1940s Japanese-American internment camp that her late grandmother, Ernestina, was forcibly relocated to during World War II. These displacements keep occurring until Kiku finds herself stuck back in time. Living alongside her young grandmother and other Japanese-American citizens in internment camps, Kiku gets the education she never received in history class.

Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class

Cover of Dog Whistle Politics: How
by Ian Haney Lopez
[2014]

Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Wrecked the Middle Class is a sweeping account of how "dog-whistle" racial politics contributed to increasing inequality in America since the 1960s. Now a pervasive term in American political coverage, "dog whistle" refers to coded signals sent to certain constituencies that only those constituencies will understand. Just as only dogs can hear a dog whistle, only a constituency fluent in a subterranean argot can understand that argot when it is used.

Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights

Cover of Driving While Black: Afric
by Gretchen Sullivan Sorin
2020

Acclaimed historian Gretchen Sorin reveals how the car--the ultimate symbol of independence and possibility--has always held particular importance for African Americans, allowing black families to evade the many dangers presented by an entrenched racist society and to enjoy, in some measure, the freedom of the open road. She recounts the creation of a parallel, unseen world of black motorists, who relied on travel guides, black only businesses, and informal communications networks to keep them safe. 

Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina & New Orleans

Cover of Drowned City: Hurricane Ka
by Don Brown
2015

 

The riveting tale of this historic storm and the drowning of an American city is one of selflessness, heroism, and courage -- and also of incompetence, racism, and criminality. Don Brown's kinetic art and as-it-happens narrative capture both the tragedy and triumph of one of the worst natural disasters in American history. A portion of the proceeds from this book has been donated to Habitat for Humanity New Orleans.

 

Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America’s Heartland

Cover of Dying of Whiteness: How th
by Jonathan M. Metzl
2019

A physician reveals how right-wing backlash policies have mortal consequences - even for the white voters they promise to help. In the era of Donald Trump, many lower- and middle-class white Americans are drawn to politicians who pledge to make their lives great again. But as Dying of Whiteness shows, the policies that result actually place white Americans at ever-greater risk of sickness and death. Physician Jonathan M. Metzls quest to understand the health implications of "backlash governance" leads him across Americas heartland.

EmbraceRace

EmbraceRace: Raising a Brave Generation
Melissa Giraud and Andrew Grant Thomas, CoFounders
2016-present

EmbraceRace is a multiracial community of parents, teachers, experts, and other caring adults who support each other to meet the challenges that race poses to our children, families, and communities.

Everyday White People Confront Racial and Social Injustice: 15 stories

Cover of Everyday White People Conf
by Eddie Moore, Jr.
2015

While we are all familiar with the lives of prominent Black civil rights leaders, few of us have a sense of what is entailed in developing a White anti-racist identity. Few of us can name the White activists who joined the struggle against discrimination, let alone understand the complexities, stresses and contradictions of doing this work while benefiting from the privileges they enjoyed as Whites.
Recommended by YWCA Madison

Everything you wanted to know about Indians but were afraid to ask (Young Readers Edition)

Cover of Everything you wanted to k
by Anton Treuer
2021

From the acclaimed Ojibwe author and professor Anton Treuer comes an essential book of questions and answers for Native and non-Native young readers alike. Ranging from "Why is there such a fuss about nonnative people wearing Indian costumes for Halloween?" to "Why is it called a 'traditional Indian fry bread taco'?" to "What's it like for natives who don't look native?" to "Why are Indians so often imagined rather than understood?", and beyond.

Exile & Pride

Cover of Exile & Pride
by Eli Clare
2015

First published in 1999, the groundbreaking Exile and Pride is essential to the history and future of disability politics. Eli Clare's revelatory writing about his experiences as a white disabled genderqueer activist/writer established him as one of the leading writers on the intersections of queerness and disability and permanently changed the landscape of disability politics and queer liberation.

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