In Support of Black Lives Matter
The Sociology Department, Social Justice and Social Policy Program (SJSP), and Peace, Conflict and Coexistence Studies (PAX) Undergraduate Departmental Representatives (UDRs) strongly support the Black Lives Matters movement and all efforts to address and eradicate racism. While recent documented instances of police brutality and murder have been transformative in raising awareness on persisting, systemic racial injustice, learning, awareness, and action for Black Lives Matter must continue sustainably. Brandeis University is not exempt from this responsibility.
As a result, we have compiled a list of recommendations from our Brandeis faculty and staff on ways the Brandeis community can better understand, contextualize, and analyze racism and its intentional and multifaceted impact on Black Americans. We encourage all students to use these recommendations as tools to be more intentional and stronger allies, community members, and agents of change.
Thank you to all Brandeis Sociology, SJSP, and PAX faculty members who recommended a piece of learning. For any member of the community who has a recommendation, please feel free to fill out this form.
In solidarity,
The Sociology Department, Social Justice and Social Policy Program, and Peace, Conflict and Coexistence Studies Undergraduate Departmental Representatives
July 2020
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*Sapp's autobiography (about 25 pages in the book) can be used as a perspective on racism and how it can be addressed through cultural work.
- Critical White Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror, edited by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic
- White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
- Good White People: The Problem with Middle-class White Anti-racism by Shannon Sullivan
-
White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson
- Critical Race Theory: An Introduction by Jean Stefancic and Richard Delgado
- Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
- Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Jr.
- Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm's Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land by Leah Penniman (2018)
- Black Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, D.C. by Ashante Reese (2019)
- The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South by Michael W. Twitty (2017)
- Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement by Monica White (2018)
- The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
- Caste, Class and Race: A Study in Social Dynamics by Oliver Cox
- Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life by Karen Fields and Barbara Fields,
- Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study by Orlando Patterson
- The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution by C.L.R. James
- Toward Freedom: The Case Against Race Reductionism by Toure Reed
- "The Souls of White Folk" (chapter) in Darkwater by W.E.B. Du Bois
- "Racial Capitalism: The Nonobjective Character of Capitalist Development"(chapter) in Black Marxism by Cedric Robinson
- "Race, Articulation and Societies Structured in Dominance" (chapter) in Sociological Theories: Race and Colonialism by Stuart Hall
- The American Non-Dilemma: Racial Inequality Without Racism by Nancy DiTomaso (2013)
- “The Birth of American Gynecology” in Medical bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology by Deirdre Cooper Owens (2017)
- Chapter 1 in Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty by Dorothy Roberts (1997)
- Fatal invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create race in the Twenty-first Century by Dorothy Roberts (2013)
- Reproductive Injustice: Racism, Pregnancy, and Premature Birth by Dána-Ain Davis (2019)
- Reproductive Justice: An introduction (Vol. 1) by Loretta Ross & Rickie Solinger (2017)
- Reproducing Race: An Ethnography of Pregnancy as a Site of Racialization by Khiara Bridges (2011)
- Antiblack Racism and the AIDS Epidemic (pp. 71-93) by Adam Geary (2014)
- Blood Sugar: Racial Pharmacology and Food Justice in Black America by Anthony Ryan Hatch (2016)
- How Cancer Crossed the Color Line by Keith Wailoo (2010)
- Thick: and Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom (2019)
- Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code by Ruha Benjamin (2019)
- Remaking a Life: How Women Living with HIV/AIDS Confront Inequality by Celeste Watkins-Hayes (2019)
- Gone Home: Race and Roots Through Appalachia by Karida Brown (2018)
-
We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future by Deepa Iyer (2017)
- Karma of Brown Folk by Vijay Prashad (2000)
- Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America by Vivek Bald (2013)
- Black Feminist Thought by Patricia Hill Collins
- Women, Race, & Class by Angela Davis
- Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur
- The Autobiography of Malcolm X
- Not All Black Girls Know How To Eat by Stephanie Covington Armstrong
- The Nature of Race by Ann Morning
- Between The World and Me by Ta-Nehesi Coates
- James Baldwin: Collected Essays
- Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
- Citizen by Claudia Rankine
- This Bridge Called My Back
- Understanding Everday Racism by Philomena Essed
- Cassi Pittman, ""Shopping While Black”: Black Consumers’ Management of Racial Stigma and Racial Profiling in Retail Settings." Journal of Consumer Culture, Vol. 20, No. 1, February 2020, pp. 3-22
- Davis, D. A. (2018). “Obstetric Racism: The Racial Politics of Pregnancy, Labor, and Birthing”. Medical Anthropology, 1-14
- Paltrow, Lynn and Jeanne Flavin. 2013. “Arrests of and forced interventions on pregnant women in the United States, 1973-2005: implications for women's legal status and public health.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy, Law 38: 299-343
- Sufrin, C., Kolbi‐Molinas, A., & Roth, R. (2015). “Reproductive justice, health disparities and incarcerated women in the United States.” Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 47(4), 213-219
- Kuumba, M. B. (1999, September). “A cross-cultural race/class/gender critique of contemporary population policy: The impact of globalization.” In Sociological Forum (Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 447-463)
- Williams, David and Selena Mohammed. “Racism and health: pathways and scientific evidence.” In Sociology of Health and Illness: Critical Perspectives, Peter Conrad and Valerie Leiter, Eds.
- Gravlee, C. C. (2009). “How race becomes biology: embodiment of social inequality.” American journal of physical anthropology, 139(1), 47-57
- Fausto-Sterling, A. (2008). “The bare bones of race.” Social Studies of Science, 38(5), 657-694
- "The Intersectional Fifth Black Woman" by Devon Carbado and Mitu Gulati
- "Racial Naturalization" by Devon Carbado
- "The Case for Reparations" by Ta-Nehis Coates
- Killer of Sheep, directed by Charles Burnett
- Do the Right Thing, directed by Spike Lee
- Moonlight, directed by Barry Jenkins
- Sorry to Bother You, directed by Boots Riley
- The Black Power Mixtape: 1967-1975, directed by Goran Olsson (documentary)
- Black Panther, directed by Ryan Coogler
- I Am Not Your Negro
- 13th Ammendment
- IMPLICIT BIAS IS A GROUP PROJECT: Nearly three weeks have passed since George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis. Since then, people across the United States, and the world, have taken to the streets to protest and mourn his death. These protests have accelerated a global conversation on the issue of racism and police brutality — especially in communities of color. But this conversation is not new. Here's a look at research on the role that implicit bias plays in killings like these — and how such bias affects everyone in the culture, not just police officers.
- BLACK LIVES MATTER ORGANIZERS IN THE U.S. AND U.K. COMPARE NOTES ON THE GLOBAL MOVEMENT
- “EQUAL PROTECTION OF THE LAWS was granted to all persons by the 14th Amendment in 1868. But for nearly a century after that, women had a hard time convincing the courts that they should be allowed to be jurors, lawyers, and bartenders, just the same as men. A then-lawyer at the ACLU named Ruth Bader Ginsburg set out to convince an all-male Supreme Court to take sex discrimination seriously with an unconventional strategy. She didn’t just bring cases where women were the victims of discrimination; she also brought cases where men were the victims. In this episode, we look at how a key battle for gender equality was won with frat boys and beer"
- Party Music, by The Coup (album)
- Equality Labs (https://www.equalitylabs.org/south-asians-for-black-lives)
- has a comprehensive set of resources on antiracism and Dalit-Bahujan movements against casteism and Islamophobia
- Instagram account @southasians4blacklives
- Follow "Sons of Baldwin" on Instagram, Facebook, and/or Twitter
- Dear White People (TV Series)
- Find more anti-racism resources from BrandeisNow
Fall 2020 Courses:
- SOC 133b, Sociology of Reproduction
- SOC 153a, Sociology of Empowerment: focuses heavily on the crises of climate, virus, and racism
Spring 2020 Courses:
- SOC 187a, Race, Health and Medicine in the African Diaspora
- SOC 191a, Health, Community and Society
- SOC 155b, Social Movements: Assigned work by Keaanga Yamahtta Taylor--the book From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation and the book How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective