Protests raged across the world this weekend over the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man in Minneapolis. But tensions over the deaths of other black Americans like Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor were mounting just before Floyd’s death.

Additionally, the coronavirus pandemic is disproportionately killing black Americans, which researchers attribute to “social conditions, structural racism, and other factors.”

All these stories require not only our attention but a deeper understanding of systemic racism and implicit bias. We have pulled some resources that we believe will be helpful during these frightening and frustrating times. Understanding begins with all of us looking inward, reflecting on our own attitudes, and of course, having difficult conversations with family and friends. Keep scrolling for kid-friendly resources.

WHAT TO READ

Articles:

• “The Death of George Floyd, In Context,” by Jelani Cobb of The New Yorker
• “Of Course There Are Protests. The State Is Failing Black People,” by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor for the New York Times
• “This Is How Loved Ones Want Us To Remember George Floyd,” by Alisha Ebrahimji for CNN.
• The New York Times Magazine’s award-winning The 1619 Project is as important as ever. Take some time to read (or re-read) the entire thing, particularly this essay by Nikole Hannah-Jones
• “You shouldn’t need a Harvard degree to survive birdwatching while black,” by Samuel Getachew, a 17-year-old and the 2019 Oakland youth poet laureate, for the Washington Post
• “It’s exhausting. How many hashtags will it take for all of America to see Black people as more than their skin color?” by Rita Omokha for Elle
• “The Case for Reparations,” by Ta-Nehisi Coates for The Atlantic
• “How to Make This Moment the Turning Point for Real Change,” by Barack Obama in Medium
• “Black Male Writers For Our Time,” by Ayana Mathis in New York Times, T

Books:

• The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
• A Spectacular Secret: Lynching in American Life and Literature by Jacqueline Goldsby
• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
• So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
• Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
• How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
• White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
• Biased by Dr. Jennifer Eberhardt
• Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy by David Zucchino
• Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children In A Racially Unjust America by Jennifer Harvey
• Waking Up White by Debby Irving
• Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
• Brutal Imagination by Cornelius Eady

WHAT TO WATCH

• The Hate U Give, a film based on the YA novel offering an intimate portrait of race in America
• Just Mercy, a film based on civil rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson’s work on death row in Alabama
• The 1965 debatebetween James Baldwin and William F. Buckley
• My hour on the history of Confederate statues in Nat Geo’s America Inside Out
• Becoming,a Netflix documentary following Michelle Obama on her book tour
• Let It Fall, a documentary looking at racial tensions in Los Angeles and the riots over Rodney King’s death
• When They See Us, a Netflix miniseries from Ava DuVernay about the Central Park Five
• 13th, a Netflix documentary exposing racial inequality within the criminal justice system
• I Am Not Your Negro, a documentary envisioning the book James Baldwin was never able to finish
• Selma, a film that chronicles the marches of the Civil Rights Movement

WHAT TO FOLLOW

• Rachel Cargle, a writer and lecturer who explores the intersection between race and womanhood
• Ibram X. Kendi, the author of How To Be An Antiracist and Director of the Antiracism Center
• Nikkolas Smith, the artist behind portraits of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and others
• Charlene Carruthers, founder of the Black Youth Project 100
• Brittany Packnett Cunningham, co-founder of Campaign Zero, a policy platform to end police violence, and a host of Pod Save The People
• Ally Henny, a Christian commentator on race

WHAT TO LISTEN TO

• My podcast episode with Jamie Foxx, Michael B. Jordan, and Bryan Stevenson about Just Mercy
• Still Processing, a New York Times culture podcast with Jenna Wortham and Wesley Morrison
• Seeing White, a Scene on the Radio podcast
• Code Switch, an NPR podcast tackling race from all angles
• Jemele Hill is Unbothered, a podcast with award-winning journalist Jemele Hill
• Hear To Slay, “the black feminist podcast of your dreams,” with Roxane Gay and Tressie McMillan Cottom

RESOURCES FOR KIDS AND TEENS

Watch

• The Hate U Give, a film based on the YA novel offering an intimate portrait of race in America
• Becoming,a Netflix documentary following Michelle Obama on her book tour
• Dear White People, a Netflix series about being black at a predominantly white college
• Hidden Figures, a film about the brilliant African American women of NASA
• Remember the Titans, story of a newly-integrated football team
• These 26New York Times mini-films for students

Read

• Genesis Begins Again by Alicia D. Williams
• Dear Martin by Nic Stone
• Stella by Starlight by Sharon M. Draper
• Anything by Angie Thomas.
• The Colors Of Usby Karen Katz
• Skin Again by bell hooks
• Let’s Talk About Race by Julius Lester
• All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

(Copied from here)