Dismantling Oppression
Resources contained under this category will address the ways we can, and must, engage with our communities and work to acknowledge the interconnectedness of all forms of oppression – racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, adultism, ableism, etc. – Challenging imbalances of power are key to creating a healthy and safe community, a community which views all of its members as valuable, ensures access to resources and opportunities and which views violence, including institutional violence, as intolerable and works in partnership and as allies to prevent it.
ARTICLES
-
5 Things White People Should Practice Daily: How to be an Ally.
-
This article written by Nicole Blake Johnson contain a list of questions which are a great starting point for having honest conversations about current racial inequities in workplaces and how to replace cosmetic fixes with impactful change.
-
By Paul Kivel. We can be strong and powerful adult allies to the young people we know if we can shift our emphasis from raising their self-esteem to increasing their power. That, in turn, will allow the exuberance, insight, and creativity of young people to contribute to bettering all our lives.
-
Claims that “defunding the police” will harm women ignore dire problems in policing gender-based crimes today.
-
"Victims and survivors of sexual and domestic violence can’t be used as props to justify the need for policing and incarceration. No one can claim, in good faith, that policing and prisons are addressing our violent crisis of rape culture, when rape is so common in the very prisons that are supposedly rehabilitating offenders."
-
An article by Incite! on how women of color live in the dangerous intersections of sexism, racism and other oppressions.
ACADEMIC ARTICLES AND REPORTS
RESOURCES FOR EDUCATORS
-
This "Guide to Being an Ally to Transgender and Nonbinary Youth", developed by the Trevor Project. is an introductory educational resource that covers a wide range of topics and best practices on how to support transgender and nonbinary people.
-
Developed through the Violence Against Women with Disabilities and Deaf Women Project of Wisconsin, A Practical Guide for Creating Trauma-Informed Disability, Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Organizations highlights and explores effective trauma-informed conditions or core values that victims, survivors and people with disabilities find essential for safety and healing. The Guide leads readers on a journey of exploration into the context of these conditions to promote dialogue and understanding, and spur implementation of strategies for domestic violence, sexual assault and disability organizations to become more trauma-informed. December 2011.
-
Texas Association Against Sexual Assault (TAASA) offers these resources to acknowledge how much we owe to Black activism in our anti-sexual violence movement, encourage authentic reflection on our organizational cultures and practices to cease perpetuating harms, and move towards embodying the liberation we hope for every person by eradicating anti-blackness and other root causes of sexual violence.
-
AALBC.com is the oldest, largest, and most frequently visited web site dedicated to books by, or about, people of African descent. Started in 1997, AALBC.com is a widely recognized source of information about Black authors. Mission & Goals:
o Promote literature and literary nonfiction from all over the world to readers of all backgrounds
o Satisfy readers’ book buying needs
o Serve as a resource and platform for aspiring and established writers
o Provide a variety of book production services including book printing and manuscript editing
o Provide a forum for the exchange of opinions on Black literature and culture
o Foster an appreciation for reading and literacy
o Assess and report on the reading habits of African Americans
o Advocate for web equality and independence -
This is a section of the Dismantling Racism Resource Book created by the Dismantling Racism Project by the Western States Center. This section is designed to provide tools to help organizations begin the discussion of their anti-racist organizational transformation.
-
This document was created to be used as a resource for anyone looking to broaden their understanding of anti-racism and get involved to combat racism, specifically as it relates to anti-Blackness and police violence. Within this guide, please find a variety of resources to explore practical ways to understand, explain, and solve seemingly intractable problems of racial inequity, white supremacy, police violence, and injustice.
WEBSITES
-
Paul Kivel, social justice educator, activist, and writer, has been an innovative leader in violence prevention for more than 35 years. The Getting Together for Social Justice website offers a variety of resources that can be used in the prevention of domestic and sexual violence and that address the root causes of all forms of violence. Kivel is the author of numerous books and curricula, including Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice, Men’s Work, Making the Peace, Helping Teens Stop Violence, Boys Will Be Men, I Can Make My World A Safer Place, and most recently, You Call This a Democracy?: Who Benefits, Who Pays, and Who Really Decides.
-
SURJ is a national network of groups and individuals working to undermine white supremacy and to work for racial justice. Through community organizing, mobilizing, and education, SURJ moves white people to act as part of a multi-racial majority for justice with passion and accountability.
We work to connect people across the country while supporting and collaborating with local and national racial justice organizing efforts. SURJ provides a space to build relationships, skills and political analysis to act for change.
-
Launched in 2017, the Network Weaver Learning Lab (NWLL) was an 18-month program that created a space for leaders to develop their thinking and practice and to explore and experiment together on ways to advance the movement to end relationship-based violence.
In “Weaving Together a World Without Violence: A Collection of Principles, Practices, and Recipes for Healing,” Network Weavers share their learnings through a downloadable Healing Cookbook. An interactive version of these offerings is available in the Medicine Deck, which enables social justice leaders to engage in their own learning journey.
-
Based in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain States, Western States Center(WSC) works nationwide to strengthen inclusive democracy so all people can live, love, worship and work free from fear. WSC strengthen the organizing capacity of often-marginalized communities, with a particular emphasis on gender justice, racial justice, and tribal sovereignty work. WSC provide training, leadership development, and organizational capacity support to social movements and leaders committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. WSC convene culture-makers to shift the narrative and use culture as a vehicle for base- and power-building in non-traditional social change spaces. We assist communities and civil society to effectively respond to social movements that exploit bigotry and intolerance.
BOOKS
-
Doing Democracy provides both a theory and working model for understanding and analyzing social movements, ensuring that they are successful in the long term. Beginning with an overview of social movement theory and the MAP (Movement Action Plan) model, Doing Democracy outlines the eight stages of social movements, the four roles of activists, and case studies from the civil rights, anti-nuclear energy, Central America, gay/lesbian, women's health, and globalization movements.
-
By Paul Kivel. What kind of support does a strong white ally provide to a person of color? What does an ally do? Being allies to people of color in the struggle to end racism is one of the most important things white people can do. There is no one correct way to be an ally. Each of us is different. We have different relationships to social organizations, political processes, and economic structures.
-
Henry A. Giroux is one of the most respected and well-known critical education scholars, social critics, and astute observers of popular culture in the modern world. For those who follow his considerably influential work in critical pedagogy and social criticism, this first-ever collection of his classic writings, augmented by a new essay, is a must-have volume that reveals his evolution as a scholar. In it, he takes on three major considerations central to pedagogy and schooling.
-
By Paulo Freire. . First published in Portuguese in 1968, Pedagogy of the Oppressed was translated and published in English in 1970. The methodology of the late Paulo Freire has helped to empower countless impoverished and illiterate people throughout the world. Freire's work has taken on especial urgency in the United States and Western Europe, where the creation of a permanent underclass among the underprivileged and minorities in cities and urban centers is increasingly accepted as the norm. With a substantive new introduction on Freire's life and the remarkable impact of this book by writer and Freire confidant and authority Donaldo Macedo, this anniversary edition of Pedagogy of the Oppressed will inspire a new generation of educators, students, and general readers for years to come.
-
As a result of twelve years of quantitative and qualitative research Dr. DeGruy has developed her theory of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, and published her findings in the book Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome – America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing”. The book addresses the residual impacts of generations of slavery and opens up the discussion of how the black community can use the strengths we have gained in the past to heal in the present.
-
By Paul Kivel. Uprooting Racism offers a framework around neoliberalism and interpersonal, institutional, and cultural racism, along with stories of resistance and white solidarity. It providers practical tools and advice on how white people can work as allies for racial justice, directly engaging the reader through questions, exercises, and suggestions for action. Previous editions of Uprooting Racism have sold more than 50,000 copies because it is accessible, personal, supportive and practical – ideal for students, community activists, teachers, youth workers and anyone interested in issues of diversity, multiculturalism and social justice.
VIDEOS
-
These videos and discussion guides gathered together by Futures Without Violence are intended to be used by domestic and sexual violence advocates and activists to spark conversations on the ways that racism and oppression have shaped our anti-violence movements and how we can dismantle racism in our organizations and communities. In these videos, you will hear from advocates and organizers who discuss their own experiences, perceptions, and journeys of practicing anti-racism as a means of ending gender-based and intimate violence. We invite you to view these videos with an open heart, on your own or with others.
-
This is a four-part virtual webinar series, led by Zoe Flowers from Women of Color Network, to explore the way forward as victim service providers continue to pivot and adapt as a result of the current health crisis and also leverage this moment of change to better support crime victims from communities of color.
Black Lives Matter Protests | BrainPOP
Use this movie to teach your kids about the mass protests happening in cities around the world.
Culturally-Informed Prevention: Preventing sexual and domestic violence in communities of color
Sponsored by CALCASA. Presenters in this webinar recording will share how they consider history and social and culture norms to not only resonate with communities, but also build on strengths to prevent sexual and domestic violence.
Nothing for Us Without Us: Troubling Affinity Spaces in Times of Catastrophe
Sponsored by CALCASA. This workshop will share strategies by Black Women’s Blueprint where Black feminists have devised new praxis and evolved pedagogies of prevention at the intersection of radical models of restorative justice, truth and reconciliation and full criminal justice system abolition. The workshop invites us into work grounded in spirit. Building on the CDC adopted socio ecological model, the workshop will detail how we can use actual physical spaces inside our communities for liberation and application of eco psychologies to prevent racist and misogynist violence. It will detail how we can fashion interventions responsive to the profound effects of injustice, violence and exploitation on our psychological, communal and ecological well being. The workshop will detail how a commitment to co-creating vibrant communities while surfacing indigenous understandings of human connection with the natural world can save us all.
UNRAPABLE: Racism, Hypersexualization, and Sexual Assault in Black Communities
Sponsored by CALCASA. In this presentation, Nwando Ofokansi from the Katie Brown Educational Program links anti-black racism and oppression to the prevalence of sexual violence in Black communities. The presenter provides a historical background of racism in Black communities and highlights the connection to the silence of Black female rape survivors. Using real-life case studies and examples from media, interactive exercises and discussions, this workshop teaches better and effective ways of preventing and responding to sexual violence of Black women and provides recommendations for best practices.
