Combatting racial injustice involves dedicating time to educate yourself and others about its origins and impact on racialized communities. Understanding racial issues is foundational to becoming an active ally.
Explore the resources below to deepen your knowledge and share information on racial injustice with others.
Educate Yourself
Natalie Morris’ Metro.co.uk’s article about the importance of setting boundaries about educating others, and why asking BIPOC people about racism can be taxing.
DocPlay.com’s suggestions of “10 Documentaries To Watch About Race Instead Of Asking A Person Of Colour To Explain Things For You”
A guide put together by Victoria Alexander (2020) for those looking to broaden their understanding of anti-racism and get involved to combat racism, specifically as it relates to anti-Blackness and police violence.
An extensive list of practices, resources, research, and more organized by Racialequitytools.org to help people understand whiteness and white privilege’s effect on racialized communities and society.
Resources on Racism, Anti-Racism, and Anti-Blackness
An examination of racism in Canada and it’s effect on racialized communities, explored by Desmond Cole, celebrated Black Canadian journalist.
A list of 10 Canadian Books about racism, anti-racism, and anti-blackness to read and learn about racism affecting Canadians. Put together by Casey the Lesbrarian.
Brock Library has gathered a collection of books, eBooks, and free streaming videos on Anti-Black Racism and White Privilege.
An article by about policing Black voices on Canadian University campuses.
National Museum of African American History & Culture’s socio-historical guide about implicit bias, structural racism, and learning how to be anti-racist.
JSTOR’s collection of essays for students who want to learn more about institutionalized racism, and it’s affects on racialized individuals.
Teaching Children about Racism
Children learn unconsciously learn about race and racism as young as three years old. Here’s Alex Mlynek’s (2017) guide to learning how to talk to children about racism, no matter their age.
Embracerace.org’s compilation of children’s books that may help facilitate conversations with family members about race, racism, and resistance.
An extensive list from Blackmomscollection.org of online resources, articles, educational resources, children’s books, and more.
The Centre for Racial Justice in Education has put together a list of resources such as expert interviews, guides, articles, and examples for talking about racism with kids.
Plenty of resources about educating young children about race. Resources include Podcasts, articles, books for children and adults, toys, and more.
Definitions and Terms
Taken from the Anti-Racism Guide:
Racism describes a system of power and oppression/advantage and disadvantage based on race
Structural racism is a system, or series of systems, in which institutional practices, laws, policies, social- cultural standards, and socio-political decisions establish and reinforce norms that perpetuate racial group inequities (Lawrence, Keleher, 2004).
Individual racism refers to a person’s racist assumptions, beliefs, or behaviors. Individual racism stems from conscious and unconscious bias and is reinforced by structural racism. Examples include prejudice, xenophobia, internalized oppression and privilege, and beliefs about race influenced by the dominant culture
Coined by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw in 1989, intersectionality is the complex, cumulative way in which the effects of multiple forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, and classism) combine, overlap, or intersect especially in the experiences of marginalized individuals or groups.
American lawyer, civil rights advocate, philosopher and full time legal professor at UCLA Law School and Columbia Law, Crenshaw developed the term intersectionality to allow “us to see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects. It’s not simply that there’s a race problem here, a gender problem here, and a class or LBGTQ problem there” (Check out interview here)
Nationality pertains to the country of citizenship meaning it generally refers to where a person was born and holds citizenship. It is the legal relationship between a person and a sovereign state.
For instance, if you were born in Canada, that makes you Canadian. If you were born in Germany, that makes you German.
Ethnicity or ethnic group refers to a category of people who regard themselves to be different from other groups based on common ancestral, cultural, national, and social experience.
One must share a common cultural heritage, ancestry, history, homeland, language/dialect, mythology, ritual, cuisine, art, religion, and physical appearance to be considered as a member of an ethnic group. Ethnicity, is typically understood as something we acquire, or self-ascribe, based on factors like where we live or the culture we share with others
Race, the idea that the humans are divided into distinct groups on the basis of inherited physical and behavioral differences.
These characteristics become socially significant when members of a society routinely use them to establish racial categories into which people are classified on the basis of their own or their ancestors’ physical characteristics and when, in turn, these categorizations elicit differing social perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors toward each group
Colonization occurs when one country takes control of another country or region, establishing a settlement, or permanent part of the colony, in order to control the area and gain riches. It also involves political and economic control over a dependent territory.
Example: Great Britain colonized North America and the surrounding islands. The forced and violent entry into indigenous territory is what created modern Canada and the United States of America at the expense of indigenous people and their lands.
Decolonization
Decolonization is now recognized as a long-term process involving the bureaucratic, cultural, linguistic and psychological removal of colonial power.
Decolonization is about shifting the way Indigenous Peoples view themselves and the way non-Indigenous people view Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous Peoples are reclaiming the family, community, culture, language, history and traditions that were taken from them under the federal government policies designed for assimilation.
Native: This term is rarely used in respectful conversations and we advise this term not be used unless there is a specific reason to do so, such as in an organizational name that derives from an earlier period (e.g., Queen’s Native Students Association). However, those with Indigenous ancestry might use the term to refer to themselves or other Indigenous peoples.
vs.
Indigenous refers to those peoples with pre-existing sovereignty who were living together as a community prior to contact with settler populations. Indigenous is the most inclusive term, as there are Indigenous peoples on every continent throughout the world – such as the Sami in Sweden, the First Nations in Canada, Mayas in Mexico and Guatemala, and the Ainu in Japan – fighting to remain culturally intact on their land bases
Taken from Canada Race Relations Foundation
The denial of equal treatment and opportunity to individuals or groups because of personal characteristics and membership in specific groups, with respect to education, accommodation, health care, employment, access to services, goods, and facilities.
Examples of discrimination include a faculty member giving a student a lower grade because of the student’s race, a staff person receiving a negative performance review based on gender identity or expression, or a student with a disability who does not receive approved academic accommodations, like a note taker.
If you believe that you have faced discrimination on campus, fill out the form to receive on-campus supports.
Read our Respectful Work and Learning Environment Policy to learn about how Brock maintains a safe and inclusive learning and work environment.
Prejudice is an assumption or an opinion about someone simply based on that person’s membership to a particular group. For example, people can be prejudiced against someone else of a different ethnicity, gender, or religion
Taken from Canada Race Relations Foundation
A stereotype preconceived generalization of a group of people. This generalization ascribes the same characteristic(s) to all members of the group, regardless of their individual differences.
Microaggressions are defined as the everyday, subtle, intentional — and oftentimes unintentional — interactions or behaviors that communicate some sort of bias toward historically marginalized groups
Some racism is so subtle that neither victim nor perpetrator may entirely understand what is going on—which may be especially toxic for people of color — Unmasking ‘racial micro aggressions’
Macroaggressions is defined as large scale or overt aggression toward those of another race, culture, gender, etc.
Xenophobia is an extreme, intense fear and dislike of customs, cultures, and people that is different from your own culture and customs.
Xenophobia often overlaps with forms of prejudice including racism and homophobia. xenophobia is usually rooted in the perception that members of the outgroup are foreign to the ingroup community.
Xenophobia is also associated with large-scale acts of destruction and violence against groups of people such as hate crimes, Decreased social and economic opportunity for outgroups.
More Reading and Resources
- Reading Towards Abolition: A Reading List on Policing, Rebellion, and the Criminalization of Blackness by The Abusable Past Collective
- An Antiracist Reading List by The New York Times
- An Essential #BlackLivesMatter Reading List by Harper’s Bazarre
- Black Lives Matter: A Book List by The Toronto Public Library
- An Essential Reading Guide for Fighting Racism by BuzzFeed News