21-Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It takes about 21 days to form a new habit.  Creating effective social justice habits, particularly those dealing with issues of power, privilege, supremacy and leadership is like any lifestyle change. Change is hard, but giving time and attention makes it easier.  Sometimes the hardest part is just getting started.  For that reason, The Neighborhood Center invites you to participate in the 21-Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge. 

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The Challenge concept was conceived several years ago by diversity expert Eddie Moore, Jr. to advance deeper understandings of the intersections of race, power, privilege, supremacy and oppression.  The Challenge consists of a syllabus of 21 short assignments.  The assignments include readings, videos, and podcasts.  Your participation does not mean that you agree with everything in every assignment.  Your participation just means that you are willing to raise your awareness, change your understanding and shift the way you behave.  The goal of the challenge is to assist you to become more aware, compassionate, engaged and constructive in the quest for racial equity.  The Challenge is only an introduction to what we hope will be a rewarding journey to empowering yourself to be a more effective player in the quest for equity and justice. 

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Day 1

• Nikole Hannah-Jones, America Wasn’t a Democracy, Until Black Americans Made It One, The New York Times (Aug. 14, 2019)

Day 2

• How to Not (Accidentally) Raise a Racist, Longest Shortest Time Podcast

Day 3

• Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Case for Reparations, The Atlantic (May 21, 2014)

Day 4

• Danielle Cadet, Your Black Colleagues May Look Like They Are Okay – Chances Are They Are Not (May 2020)

• Katy Waldman, A Sociologist Examines The “White Fragility” That Prevents White Americans From Confronting Racism, New Yorker (July 23, 2018)

Day 5

• Megan Ming Francis, Let's get to the root of racial injustice, TEDTalks (March 21, 2016)

Day 6

• Project Implicit, Implicit Association Test (IAT), (This exercise requires navigating the sign up for the tests, which includes answering a series of questions for the researchers, but it is recommended that everyone do at least these tests: Race, Skin Tone, and Weapons-Race. Also, everyone is encouraged to add these tests if you are able: Asian American, Native American, and Arab-Muslim.)

Day 7

• Kristen Rogers, Dear anti-racist allies: Here's how to respond to microaggressions, CNN

• Ali Vingiano, 63 Black Harvard Students Share Their Experiences In A Powerful Photo Project, BuzzFeed (March 3, 2014)

Day 8

• James McWilliams, Bryan Stevenson On What Well Meaning White People Need To Know About Race: An interview with Harvard University-trained public defense lawyer Bryan Stevenson on racial trauma, segregation, and listening to marginalized voices, Pacific Standard (updated Feb 18, 2019)

Day 9

• Media Portrayals and Black Male Outcomes, The Opportunity Agenda

• Leigh Donaldson, “When the media misrepresents black men, the effects are felt in the real world,” The Guardian (Aug. 12, 2015)

Day 10

• John Biewen, Seeing White (14-part series podcast, 2017),  S2 E14: Transformation (44 minutes, 10 seconds)

  • or, if pressed for time:

    • John Biewen, Seeing White (14-part series podcast, 2017),  S2 E1: Turning the Lens (16 minutes, 30 seconds)

Day 11

• Karma Allen, More than 50% of homeless families are black, government report finds, ABCNews (Jan. 22, 2020)

• Scott Winship, Richard V. Reeves, and Katherine Guyot, The Inheritance of Black Poverty: It’s All About the Men, Brookings (March 22, 2018), 

Day 12

• Hannah Giorgis, Black Art is dangerous because it marries the personal and the political, The Guardian (Feb. 22, 2015)

• Reggie Ugwu, Lena Waitheʼs Art of Protest: The “Queen & Slim” writer on mixing art and politics, the key to collaboration and those infamous comments about Will Smith and Denzel Washington, The New York Times (Dec. 2, 2019)

• Bryan Stevenson ’85, "We can't recover from this history until we deal with it." legacy of slavery and the vision for creating the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and The Legacy Museum, Harvard Law School YouTube (Jan 30, 2019)

Day 13

• Rebecca Epstein, Jamilia J. Blake, and Thalia González, Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood, Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality

• Adrienne Green, How Black Girls Aren’t Presumed to Be Innocent: A new study finds that adults view them as less child-like and less in need of protection than their white peers, The Atlantic (June 29, 2017)

Day 14

• Perspectives in Poetry:  

  • Alice Walker - The World Rising

    • Author Bio

  • Audre Lorde -  Who Said it Was Simple

    • Author Bio

  • June Jordan - Poem for Ms. Fannie Lou Hamer

    • Author Bio

  • Langston Hughes - Harlem

    • Author Bio

  • Richard Wright - Between the World and Me

    • Author Bio

  • Claudia Rankine – You are in the dark, in the car . . .

    • Author Bio

• Perspectives on Change:

  • The Beatles – Revolution #1 

  • Nina Simone – Revolutions 1 and 2 

  • Nina Simone - Mississippi Goddam 

Day 15

• Peggy McIntosh, Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack of White Privilege

Day 16

• George Johnson, White gay privilege exists all year, but it is particularly hurtful during Pride, NBC News (June 30, 2019)

• Laverne Cox Talks about Intersectionality at Harvard (Video clips) (March 11, 2014)

• D-L Stewart, Black Trans* Lives Matter (TEDxTalks) (April 22, 2019)

Day 17

• N. K. Jemisin, How Long ‘Til Black Future Month? The Toxins of Speculative Fiction, and the Antidote that is Janelle Monae, Blog (Sept. 30, 2013) 

Day 18

• Sam Dylan Finch, 9 Phrases Allies Can Say When Called Out Instead of Getting Defensive, Everyday Feminism (May 29, 2017)

Day 19

• Jolie A. Doggett, 4 Questions About Hair that Black Girls Are Tired of Answering, HuffPost (Feb. 14, 2020)

• Jessica Moulite, Exclusive: Rep. Ayanna Pressley Reveals Beautiful Bald Head and Discusses Alopecia for the First Time, The Root (Jan. 16, 2020)

• Hair Love, Oscar®-Winning Short Film (Full), Sony Pictures Animation, YouTube (Dec. 5, 2019)

Day 20

• National Conference for Community and Justice, Colorism 

• Natasha S. Alford, Why Some Black Puerto Ricans Choose ‘White’ on the Census: The island has a long history of encouraging residents to identify as white, but there are growing efforts to raise awareness about racism, The New York Times (Feb. 9, 2020)

Day 21

• Karyn Lacy, How to Convince a White Realtor You’re Middle Class, The New York Times (Jan 21, 2020)

• Who is "Karen" and Why Does She Keep Calling the Police on Black Men?, On the Media (Podcast) (May 29, 2020)

Extra Resources

• Eddie Moore Jr., 21-Day Plans

• “The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture today launched Talking About Race, a new online portal designed to help individuals, families, and communities talk about racism, racial identity and the way these forces shape every aspect of society, from the economy and politics to the broader American culture.”

• Robin DiAngelo, Ph.D, Critical Racial and Social Justice Education: List of Resources

• Verna Myers, How to Overcome Our Biases? Walk Boldly Toward Them, TED Talk (video) 

• John Biewen, Seeing White (14-part series podcast, 2017)

• Janice Gassam, Your Unconscious Bias Trainings Keep Failing Because You’re Not Addressing Systemic Bias (Forbes, Dec. 29, 2019)

• Michael Harriott, How to Be a Better White Person in 2020, The Root (Jan 9, 2020)

• Cheryl I. Harris, Whiteness As Property, Harvard Law Review, Vol. 106 No. 8 (June 1993)