Dec 14, 2017

Ever wonder what the DAP staff reads to stay current on D&I issues? Check out this Resources List, compiled by Kenneth Pruitt, Director of Diversity Training, and our staff. And, with the holiday season upon us, check out our Tips for Dialogue and Understanding.

 

December Resources List

Podcasts

Flyover: Can America bridge its racial divide?: Produced by Minnesota Public Radio, Flyover focuses on issues of American identity and the changing American dream as they are lived and experienced in the cities, towns and rural areas that lie beyond the media spotlights in New York, D.C. and L.A. This podcast on America’s racial divide poses the question: “Bias” and “privilege” are mentioned a lot in American discourse, but when is the last time you had an in-depth discussion with a person of another race?

The Salt: The Salt is an NPR feature that covers food news from the farm to the plate and beyond. This segment, heard on All Things Considered, spotlights the Make America Dinner Again movement. MADA meals intentionally gather people from diverse political and cultural backgrounds for conversation and connection.

Books/ Magazines

Don’t Call Us Dead: Danez Smith’s book of personal lyric poetry captures what it means to live a life at the intersections of sexuality, race, gender, and other identities. A finalist for the National Book Award, Smith is already working on their next book and can also be found hosting the fun and engaging VS podcast with friend and fellow poet, Franny Choi.

Articles/Blogs

How to Raise a Sweet Son in an Era of Angry Men: This short opinion piece from Faith Salie in Time describes the author’s attempt to raise a boy who is given access to a range of emotions and gender expressions in a culture that appears to be holding on even more tightly to the model of boys as “snips and snails and puppy dog tails.”

November Resource: DAP’s Tips for Dialogue & Understanding

October Resources List

Podcasts

Hidden Brain: Shankar Vedantam hosts this weekly NPR podcast about what current brain research can tell us about who we are and how we live. Of special interest is the September 4th episode, in which Chris Crandall, a researcher at the University of Kansas, talks about how President Trump’s rhetoric is changing perceptions of what prejudices are permissible in public.

Our National Conversation About Conversations About Race: The hosts of this podcast – Anna Holmes (founder of women-focused site Jezebel), Baratunde Thurston (author of How to Be Black), Raquel Cepeda (author of Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina), and Tanner Colby (author of Some of My Best Friends Are Black) – form a melting pot of funny, candid and relevant. No topic is off limits, from Bill Cosby to Colin Kaepernick to draconian drug laws. And they manage to make intersectionality seem as natural as it should be. If you want to learn how to talk about race, this is a good place to start.

More Perfect: This podcast, produced by NPR’s Radiolab, deep dives into the most important and controversial Supreme Court decisions in our nation’s history—decisions that shape everything from marriage and money to public safety and sex. We know these are very important decisions we should all pay attention to—but they often feel untouchable and even unknowable. What do these rulings mean for “we the people” who exist far from the bench? More Perfect bypasses the wonkiness and tells stories behind some of the court’s biggest rulings.

Books/Magazines

Between the World and Me: Ta-Nehisi Coates, well-known public intellectual and writer for the Atlantic, frames these musings on the racialization of his life and our life in the United States as a letter to his young son. A combination of startlingly insightful commentary and deftly beautiful prose.

Daring Greatly: This book by Brene Brown, research professor at the University of Houston, addresses the importance of vulnerability. She talks about how being vulnerable is a crucial part of having productive conversations. Brown connects vulnerability and being courageous with having open conversations. Although this book does not talk strictly about diversity and inclusion, the perspectives she brings from her own research about shame, vulnerability, and having courage are applicable to the barriers we face in creating inclusive spaces.

White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son: Though this completely revised, “remix” version of his highly-acclaimed memoir dates to the early Obama years (and surely author Tim Wise is already filled to the brim with thoughts on how this text can be revised yet again to reflect the changing landscape of race in the Trump era), Tim Wise explores how racial identity and whiteness influence the lives of white Americans, by examining how they have impacted his own life. An intelligent, challenging, heartbreaking, accessible and important text. The audiobook version of this text is also a great listen, and read by the author.

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood: This book by Trevor Noah contains the compelling, inspiring, and comically sublime story of a young man’s coming of age, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followed—from one of the comedy world’s brightest new voices and The Daily Show host.

Self-Compassion: Dr. Kristin Neff talks about her research with self-compassion. This is a great read that allows you to reconnect with yourself and learn about yourself in ways we are not often challenged to do. This can help you build the skills you need to be more empathetic and compassionate towards others and can allow you to make connections to people who have different experiences than you.

Articles

Teaching Tolerance is a great resource for educators. This article provides advice on how to respond to incidents of hate that are becoming more common in our schools and communities. It can be difficult as a leader to know what the right way of responding is, and this can be a tool to guide.

The First White President: Before being a published book author, Coates made his name as a journalist. In this long-form piece for his home publication, The Atlantic, Coates makes the case that President Trump, perhaps more explicitly than many other presidents, came to power because of white supremacy and its desire to dissolve gains made by his predecessor.

DOJ rescinds policy protecting transgender people from workplace discrimination: This short piece from ThinkProgress on October 5th describes how Attorney General Jeff Sessions is changing the way the federal government interprets the term “sex” in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act in regards to protection for transgender employees. The meaning of this term, and what identities it precisely refers to, changes often in the legal landscape, and the Department of Justice appears to be currently interpreting it more narrowly than before.

#FergusonSyllabus: During the protests following Michael Brown’s death in 2014, several different threads were created on social media using the hashtag, #FergusonSyllabus. This crowdsourced Storify list of articles, books, and suggested course discussions attempted to gather everyday folks’ ideas of how we might educate students on systemic racism in a broader and deeper way.

St. Louis Public Radio recently put together a reading list to broaden our contextual understanding of the current protests happening in our region.

Earlier this year, male and female colleagues at a tech company did an informal study with clients to see if there was any difference in the clients’ responsiveness when dealing with a male or female company rep. The outcomes were surprising/not surprising. Read this Newsweek article about their experience.

Talking About Race at Work: Kira Hudson Banks, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Saint Louis University, and a principal at consulting firm the Mouse and the Elephant. The Harvard Business Review spoke with her about why managers shouldn’t wait for a controversy to start talking about race.

Movies

Hidden Colors Documentary Series by Tariq Nasheed Hidden Colors is a documentary series about the real and untold history of people of color around the globe. This film series discusses some of the reasons the contributions of African and aboriginal people have been left out of the pages of history. — from the Hidden Colors website

September Resources List

Podcasts

Code Switch: NPR produces this podcast that explores race through a candid, intersectional lens that escapes the black/white binary often placed on these conversations. Really helpful for context around current national stories related to race.

We Live Here: This local podcast from St. Louis Public Radio does an excellent job of contextualizing broad social issues through stories of real St. Louisans. DAP’s Listen. Talk. Learn: Responding to White Supremacy was featured in the September 5th episode.

Conversations With People Who Hate Me: Writer, videographer, and performer Dylan Marron takes hateful conversations online and turns them into productive conversations offline. Really meaningful, real, and moving podcast that models how to navigate difficult conversations.

On One with Angela Rye: This show (while new) deals with current events important to many of us. She always has a guest speaker shedding light on topics that make you feel like you are getting the inside scoop.

Books/Magazines

Wear Your Voice Mag: An intersectional feminist magazine centering the voices of black and brown queer women, femmes, trans and non-binary people. A beautifully curated journal publishing work from a breadth of perspectives. Great resource to hear perspectives on race, sexuality, gender, politics, and protest that don’t find their way into mainstream media.  

Ferguson’s Fault Lines: Kimberly Norwood joins a host of others in painting a clearly focused picture of the historical and present systemic and institutional injustices and resilient racism piled on people of color. Ferguson enlarged is the United States of America.

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History Of How Our Government Segregated America:

Richard Rothstein did outstanding research to support his very true statement that laws and policies passed by local, state, and the federal governments actually promoted discrimination against African Americans and purposely segregated towns and cities by race. Some of the same practices still exist.

Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: Beverly Daniel Tatum truly breaks a really difficult topic down into understandable terms that are easy to read and understand. She supposedly has an update coming out soon.

Pain Woman Takes Your Keys and Other Essays From a Nervous System: From Sonya Huber, this is a raw, thoughtful, deeply personal, and honest essay collection that unpacks issues surrounding disability—both hidden and not—ableism, chronic illness, and the role socioeconomic status plays in impacting access to support and wellness.  

Articles

An opinion piece in the New York Times on August 29 recommended disallowing white supremacist and white nationalist groups from receiving federal tax exemption status.

At a recent meeting, the St. Louis School Board recommended this brief history of St. Louis public schools from the Washington Post.

Deloitte surprised many by dropping its employee resource groups in favor of diversity groups that do not represent an affinity for any particular identity.

Scott Lilienfeld, a researcher in psychology at Emory University, is causing controversy by calling into question the connection between microaggressions and poor mental health. You can find his article, “Microaggressions: Strong Claims, Inadequate Evidence” by going through your local library or university.

Movies

Whose Streets?: Many of us on staff have appreciated the poignant perspectives in Whose Streets?, a documentary about Ferguson and our region during and after the death of Michael Brown.

13th: By award-winning director Ava DuVernay (Selma, forthcoming A Wrinkle In Time), this documentary explores mass incarceration in the United States, especially its contemporary echoes with the institution of slavery.