"In order to address racism, in all the places where we witness it's oppressive power, we need people who understand it, can address it and challenge it." - YWCA Southeast Wisconsin.

Racial Justice Resources 201 Year 1 Resources

YWCA Southeast Wisconsin is pleased to support learning opportunities for Professional Dimensions members as part of our joint project, The Ripple Effect. This resource list complements the all-member read for the project's second year, Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon for White America by Michael Eric.

Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon for White America

A look into the state of race relations in the United States, delivered as "a hard-hitting sermon on the racial divide, directed specifically to a white congregation."[1]

The book grapples with the social construct of "whiteness" and challenges the readers to "reject the willful denial of history and to live fully in the complicated present with all of the discomfort it brings." Dyson's 'sermon' addresses "five dysfunctional ways that those regarded as white respond when confronted with the reality that whiteness is simultaneously artificial and powerful," as well as "dysfunctional ways that black people sometimes respond to white racism."

Dyson argues that if we are to make real racial progress we must face difficult truths, including being honest about how black grievance has been ignored, dismissed or discounted

Purchase here

Caste: The Origins of our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
(author of The Warmth of Other Suns)
Complete with Oprah’s Book Club Podcast options 

Living Apart
A publication by ProPublica highlighting how government policy undermined de-segregation attempts and the 1968 Fair Housing Act  

The Color of Law:  A Forgotten History of How our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
The author spent years documenting the evidence that government not merely ignored discriminatory practices in the residential sphere, but promoted them. The impact has been devastating: generations of African-Americans have been denied the right to live where they wanted to live, and raise and school their children where they could flourish.

The State of Black Milwaukee in National Perspective:  Racial Inequality in the Nation’s 50 Largest Metropolitan Areas in 65 Charts and Tables by Marc V. Levine (July 2020)

Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue
A debut novel, New York Times bestseller, Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award.  The story of a young Cameroonian couple building a new life in New York just as the Great Recession begins, touching on immigration, class and race as they pursue the American Dream. More information.

White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness by Ruth Frankenberg
Published in 1993, the author’s work is an early analysis of how racial identity is socially constructed, providing a webbed explanation of the position of white women in American culture. More information.

Toward Racial Justice: A Conversation on Systemic Racism

The Intersectionality of Racism & Sexism
Professor Kimberle Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality” more than 30 years ago.

And the conversation continues today…

The Intersectionality Wars by Jane Coaston 

The Effect of Intersectionality in the Workplace – a conference sponsored by The New York Times in February 2019
Video featuring Brittany Paknett
Article by Alina Tugend