Other People's Children - Lisa Delpit. This is one of the most important books I've read as a teacher, and it really helped dislodge some serious blinders. If you are a teacher, go to your nearest library and find this. If you are not a teacher, this is pretty darn instructive on race in general, so you may wanna read this anyway.
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria - Beverly Daniel Tatum. If I could get every white person I know to read one book that would get them started on the road, it may be this. Speaking from its usefulness to me.
How Do I Talk To You, My White Sister - Mary McRae. This really helped me figure out how to be a white woman. She has a message that is incredibly empowering and humanizing and full of the truth you never knew before.
The Uses of Anger (essay) - Audre Lorde. In the same vein, this essay got me going, "I did not know that. I did not know that. I did not know that." If you are a white woman looking to find out something that you did not know before about your white womanness, this essay has that something.
Discourses (essay)- James Gee. This was generally very dense and a pretty tough nut to crack, and what I got from it I mostly got from the discussion and elucidation provided to me afterwards. That said, this essay went straight to the cornerstone of who I was as a teacher and I kept inserting bits of it into my Philosophy of Education and talking about it too much.
White Like Me - Tim Wise. It's can be confusing to figure out how to be a white person well, and Tim Wise can help show you how.
Lies My Teacher Told Me - James Louwen. Anyone you can get to read it will love it. James Louwen will help you unlearn some of the more pernicious tropes that you encountered in your schooling.
Savage Inequalities - Jonathan Kozol. This is the first book that clued me in in a deep & overpowering way about institutional racism. There is a whole lot of deep and overpowering books out there on institutional racism, so if you are a white person who's not quite sure about this institutional racism thing, pick one, especially one that pertains to your line of work, and read away!
The blogosphere - If you start from the beginning (not the end) of Stuff White People Do and just start reading, you are guaranteed to learn something.
To finish it up, here's a fantastic collection of articles (and a fantastic Boston-based organization for that matter) for interested parties.
It's amazing to think how long it took for me to truly start dismantling my racism, even with many wise and brilliant voices showing me the path and give me some much needed guideposts. Racism's roots run deep.
What books were phenomenal for your understandings of race?
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