Race & Ethnicity

 

Check out these recommended readings focused on race, ethnicity, and other intersecting identities. 

 

Oregon Was Founded As a Racist Utopia by Matt Novak

When Oregon was granted statehood in 1859, it was the only state in the Union admitted with a constitution that forbade black people from living, working, or owning property there. It was illegal for black people even to move to the state until 1926. Oregon’s founding is part of the forgotten history of racism in the American west.

White Debt by Eula Biss

Reckoning with what is owed — and what can never be repaid — for racial privilege.

The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.

Keep Your Hands Off of My Kimono, White People by Diep Tran

Appropriation is about more than facepaint; it’s about pretending that minority cultures are metaphors or fantasy worlds or backdrops for white narratives.

Race Is in the Air We Breathe and the Water We Drink: The Moral Failure in Flint by Jim Wallis

How would you feel if you realized your children’s water was being poisoned, and your government didn’t seem to care? That’s the story of the parents of 8,000 mostly poor and black children in Flint, Michigan.

What I told my White Friend When He Asked For My Black Opinion On White Privilege by Lori Lakin Hutcherson

Explaining privilege through the use of personal experience.

Check out some of these books along with many other books that center around race and ethnicity in IME’s Lending Library (Fowler 325).