Episode 13-15 Resources:

Black Lives Matter Series

We pulled a lot of the following resources and original curating from community builders in the Hmong 4 Black Lives Facebook group (private group). You can find their full toolkit here.

Asian American History and Activism

• An Unnoticed Struggle: A Concise History of Asian American Civil Rights Issues by JACL

• On Asian America: Black Lives Matter [Part IV] by Chip Chang

• The Secret History of South Asian and African American Solidarity

• History of Anti-Asian racism and COVID-19 by Dr. Jennifer Ho

• Why we must talk about the Asian-American story, too - Anti-Asian-American racism paints picture of a ‘model minority’

• Video: Coronavirus and the Racist History of Pandemics | Unpack That | The Root  (10 minutes)

• Video:  Asian Americans – PBS Documentary  (5 hours) Parts 2 and 3 are streaming online until June 9

• Video: Are All Asians Rich? Ft. Lily Du | Decoded | MTV (5 minutes)

• Video: The Weird History of Asian Sex Stereotypes : Decoded MTV  (6 minutes)

• Video: Anti-Asian Racism and COVID-19: A Teach-In (1 hour 23 minutes)

• Video: Counter-Speech: Speaking Out to Fight Hate (1 hour 24 minutes)

• Podcast: History of AAPI Activism with Professor Daryl Maeda (38 minutes) - Chatting with Asians

How to talk to your Asian elders and friends about Anti-Blackness

• 6 Ways Asian Americans Can Tackle Anti-Black Racism in Their Families 

• It Starts at Home: Confronting Anti-Blackness in South Asian Communities - From the Queer South Asian National Network

• Will Asian-Americans get behind Black Lives Matter? by Jeff Yang

• Letters for Black Lives: An Open Letter Project on Anti-Blackness - Letters in multiple languages you can use to explain anti-blackness to your family/friends

• List of resources from Asian American Federation

• Resource to re-direct conversations from Latinx Therapy

How to support the African American Community

• 20+ Allyship Actions for Asians to Show Up for the Black Community Right Now

• South Asians and Black Lives by Deepa Iyer

• 30+ Ways Asians Perpetuate Anti-Black Racism Everyday by Michelle Kim

• How to tackle anti-blackness as a non-black PoC (person of color) 

• What to Do Instead of Calling the Cops by Malikah

• 26 Ways to Be In the Struggle Beyond the Streets – you can help from home

• Sign this letter: A call for unity and solidarity for George Floyd   Coalition of Asian American Leaders (CAAL) as an individual and or a group

Shared by Barack Obama Foundation: Tool-Kit for Community Policy

LEARN ABOUT POLICE VIOLENCE AND ANTIRACISM IN AMERICA.

• Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights—New Era of Public Safety: A Guide to Fair, Safe, and Effective Community Policing - The recommended reforms in this report, which are intended to create accountability and build better relationships between law enforcement and communities of color, stem from President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing.

• Equal Justice Initiative—Tragic Death of George Floyd Reveals Continuing Problem of Police Violence - A reflection on the current state of police reform with recommendations for progress.

• Campaign Zero—Solutions - A look at data- and research-informed policy solutions that communities can put in place to end police violence.

• Center for Policing Equity—The Science of Justice: Race, Justice, and Police Use of Force - This detailed report delves into police administrative data to show disparities in the use of force. You can watch the director of the Center, Phillip Atiba Goff, deliver a TED talk on fighting racism and improving policing here. 

• The Opportunity Agenda—Promoting Accountability - Learn how police accountability works, and the four mechanisms—community-based, political, civil, and criminal—for holding law enforcement accountable.

• The National Museum of African American History and Culture—Talking About Race - An online portal to help families, individuals, and communities talk about racism and commit to being antiracist.

Readings on Prison and Police Abolition 

We referenced the following content from the Hmong 4 Black Lives Matter Knowledge Share. Many thanks to Hmong 4 Black Lives for the original message:

We encourage our listeners to learn about prison abolition. This piece is critical because police reform (e.g., more diversity training, more officers of color, body cameras, and others) has not led to substantive change. We understand that the prison abolition movement draws from the power and knowledge of the abolitionists who sought to end slavery in the United States, which was once thought of as impossible!

Broadly, prison abolition seeks to dismantle carceral systems and logic. It seeks to end mass incarceration, which operates as a state-sanctioned neo-form of slavery to continue subjugating Black and Brown bodies and their labor. Abolishing prison also means ending police, who function as enforcers of the state that target, debilitate, and kill Black, Brown, and Native communities. As one of our podcast guests, Kabzuag Vaj, mentioned, the need to control slaves is what gave rise to police forces.

Abolition is also about reimagining and asking big questions like: What can a society without police look like? How can communities take responsibility for each other outside of the carceral state? Those seem like impossibilities, but we've already seen a glimpse of these potential realities these past few days across the United States. These readings and resources are not exhaustive; they will take time and energy to read and process. Learning, unlearning, and self-work are just as critical to this movement. We hope you will join us in this journey.

Major Reading List:

On Abolition

• Reading Towards Abolition: A Reading List on Policing, Rebellion, and the Criminalization of Blackness

• "The Whole Thing Has Got to Go" by Kevin Rigby Jr.

• "The Answer to Police Violence is Not Reform, it's Defunding" by Alex S. Vitale

• "The Abolitionist Toolkit" by Critical Resistance

• "Enough is Enough" by MPD150

Additional Readings (not exclusively about abolition):

• Racial Justice Bookshelf - Buy Anti-Racist Books From Black-Owned Bookstores

  • List of Black Owned Bookstores

• The University of Minnesota Press Reading List

• "Black Riot" by Raven Rakia

• Black Skin, White Masks by Franz Fanon

• Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by Adrienne Maree Brown

• Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom by Bell Hooks

• Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde

• The Next Great American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century by Grace Lee Boggs

• Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements edited by brown and Imarisha

• "Burn it Down: Abolition, Insurgent Political Praxis, and the Destruction of Decency"

• The Racial Contract by Charles W. Mills

• "On Being White...and Other Lies" by James Baldwin

• State of White Supremacy: Racism, Governance, and the United States edited by Bonilla-Silva, Jung, and Vargas

• We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom by Bettina L. Love