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Anti-Racism Reading List December 2024
10 powerful articles for learning and action
Sharon Hurley Hall
December 30, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes
Hello friends,
Can you believe it's the last reading list of 2024. By my count, this will be 53 in the series, which means I've curated somewhere in excess of 550 articles (some of the editions have more than 10 articles). It's been quite a year - here's a holiday reading list to take you into the new year.
White supremacist ideology kills and not just at gunpoint. The slow erosion of mental health because of the stress of xenophobia, racism, anti-Blackness and systems and structures that often fail those who most need them is a more insidious murderer. (Yes, I said it!) Here, Christian Ortiz lays it out:
“Racialized violence has been a defining feature of white supremacy, from the lynchings of Black individuals during Jim Crow to modern-day mass shootings targeting Black and Brown populations. This violence is not simply a matter of individual hatred—it’s a systemic and cultural phenomenon deeply rooted in the psychological effects of white supremacy on white communities.”
2. Black Women Have Been Marching Since Selma, We’re Waiting The Next One Out by Rebecca Stevens Alder
I consider Rebecca Stevens Alder one of my sisters in anti-racism writing. We appeared on Medium at the same time and have continued to bring to light what we need to talk about. Her articles are personal, direct and impactful, and this one recognises how many Black women are feeling after the unsurprising results of the 2024 US election. (You'll need a free trial membership to read this one.)
“Black women lead, organize, mobilize, march, and are systematically short-changed. It’s like domestic abuse - we march, we are abused, and we come back again. It all has to stop at one point, so “No,” we won’t be there in January 2025 in Washington, DC. Don’t count on it; figure it out yourselves.”
3. How the Normalization of Modern Anti-Immigrant Sentiments Unfolded by Arturo Dominguez
I like Arturo's work because I get a perspective I'm not getting in many other places, from a lens that's outside my own experience. This article looks at the history and current practice in relation to anti-immigration, with specific reference to what's happening in Latine communities.
“History tells us that the U.S. government, with the help of legacy media, has often created programs to prevent coalition building among disenfranchised and marginalized groups. We’ve seen racism injected into feminist and LGBTQ movements alongside the normalization of racist language and misinformation that is often used against other nonwhite groups as well. We are also witnessing homophobic and transphobic ideas inserted into various nonwhite communities.”
If you felt a visceral reaction on seeing the orange one's name, don't worry; I felt it too. But we can't let that feeling stop us from paying attention to what's happening. Shari Dunn shows just how bad things could get.
“Trump’s presidency appears poised to roll back workplace protections for Black Americans to a degree not seen since the end of Reconstruction, which ushered in Jim Crow. For Black professionals, who already navigate systemic barriers and entrenched inequities, this represents a direct assault on their workplace opportunities and dignity.”
5. Scholars Thought White Women Were Passive Enslavers. They Were Wrong. by Rachel L. Swarns
Well, this isn't a surprise, but there's compelling evidence in this NYT article. If you can't read it, there's a portion of it here.
“Dr. Jones-Rogers believes the research also helps to explain why many white Southern women romanticized slavery and supported the system of racial segregation that emerged after the Civil War, a system that helped ensure that their families could continue to benefit from a plentiful supply of low-cost Black labor.”
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