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Anti-Racism Reading List January 2025
10+ articles for support, learning and action
Sharon Hurley Hall
January 29, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 11 minutes
Hello friends,
Well, here we are, post-US election and deep into the Find Out part of FAFO, and it hasn't even been that long. As I've said before, in the midst of despair and overwhelm, there's still work to do. So I'll continue to publish this newsletter, to do the work I feel called to do and to see where else there are opportunities to lend the support of this platform. With that, here's this month's reading list:
1. The Biggest Danger of 2025 by Clay Rivers
This pre-US inauguration article lays out exactly how things went down last year, and urges us to do what we can as anti-racists:
“America didn’t drop the ball. America was a no-show for the Democracy vs Fascism championship game and instead indulged in tailgate debauchery with racists, bigots, misogynists, white supremacists, and xenophobes, as evidenced by the results of the 2024 presidential election."
2. Why 2025 must be a year of radical self-care for Black women by Daniella Maison
If there's been one consistent theme in the last few months, it's that Black women are tired, and that many are stepping back to meet their own needs, letting others step up to the plate:
“In a society that often seeks to diminish our worth, Black women must prioritise our own love and acceptance as an act of defiance and a pathway to holistic well-being. The burden is on everyone to foster a culture of support that allows Black women to thrive, free from the weight of expectation.”
3. Actual white supremacists don’t identify as white supremacists by Samantha Suppiah
In this article, the author digs into what white supremacy looks like and why it gets a bad rap even from people who are the most egregious examples of its workings. Importantly, she offers several approaches to beginning to dismantle the paradigm.
“Because of historic and ongoing colonial oppression globally, being (or presenting as) white, or having fair-skinned European ancestors, comes with certain responsibilities concerning anti-oppression and decolonisation —particularly with privilege and wealth within white society. White supremacists reject, neglect and ignore these responsibilities. Our colonial world order allows and incentivises them to do so by default, often validating their rationales and congratulating them for white supremacist behaviours, or at most sentencing them to receive a light, loving and distinguished slap on the wrist.”
4. Black Exodus: Why X Users Are Deactivating And Building New Digital Communities by Dr. Janice Gassam Asare
With 47 at the helm, many Black people are thinking about a Blaxit, but that doesn't just happen in real life, it's happening online too. Though this article is about the site formerly known as Twitter, it's worth considering more widely, as people start to build communities outside mainstream spaces:
“Black users leaving X en masse means a loss of the cultural innovations that the community brings to the app, as well as a lack of representation when it comes to important conversations about politics, entertainment and social issues. Black creators have always been at the helm of the most important cultural moments.”
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