Black History Month: Voices and Resources
Call to Action for Businesses
- Listen and Validate: Listen to your team members sharing their experiences. Validate feelings.
- Representation: Collect self-identification data. Set targets for increasing diversity and representation, and report progress. On a related note, here’s a link to the BACB’s certificants’ demographic data as of December 9, 2020.
- Compensation: Is this equitable for Black, Indigenous, and people of color?
- Advancement: Is this equitable for Black, Indigenous, and people of color? Use our privilege to create equitable advancement opportunities.
- Projects. Are the same team members getting the opportunity in front of executives? Create opportunities for Black, Indigenous, and people of color voices to be heard, for Black, Indigenous, and team members of color to be given opportunities for projects similar to white counterparts.
- Employee Referral Programs: Depending on the way our workforce looks, it’s not always the best way to attract candidates (may lead to more homogeneity).
- Executive Sponsorship: If Black, Indigenous, and people of color’s names aren’t coming up, they haven’t had a chance to get in front of leaders, and they will not be considered for these positions or projects. Create executive sponsorship to improve this.
- Build Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) Program: How can an organization formalize this? Can the organization partner with a Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Consultant? (Power to Fly offers trainings from their Director of Global Diversity & Inclusion)
- Employee Resource Groups or Affinity Groups: This creates opportunity for connection around shared experiences and identities and focus on improvement around specific causes
- High-Potential Programs
- Recruiting: Inclusion in Action: A Webinar on How to Source Diverse Talent. As hiring managers, we can say, “I want to ensure that the pool is diverse. I wanted to ensure that minorities are part of the pool.”
- Black Behavior Analysts Association (BABA): Black Behavior Analysts Association (BABA), Facebook and ways to support
Black History and ABA
Resources from the Experts
Listen & Learn
RSVP:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/baba-town-hall-meeting-tickets-135877385919
Cal Women’s Basketball Virtual Hoops Party & Black History Month: https://www.facebook.com/85803227153/posts/10159093255147154/?d=n
Resources
Self-Care Resources for BIPOC Folks
- Black and Embodied Licensed Health Therapist, Alishia McCullough, recommends the following Black Mental Health Therapists committed to Black liberation.
- Texas Tech University’s library has compiled a list of self-care resources geared specifically for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color who may be experiencing particular stress due to recent events and COVID-19.
- Resources for Practicing Self-Care Right Now – The Idealist. A list of resources specifically for BIPOC folks who work in non-profits or those in helping professions.
- Mental Health Resources for BIPOC – Massachusetts General Hospital. A quick list of resources centered around the importance of mental health while dealing with race-related stressors.
- Mental Health and Healing Resources for BIPOC – University of Oregon. Another quick list centered around the importance of mental health and well-being, but with downloadable toolkit for those seeking healing.
- BIPOC Community Health Toolkit – Mental Health Partners Colorado. A toolkit for resources and important contact info.
- Dr. Deepak Chopra and Kailee Scales, from the Black Lives Matter Global Network, discuss mindfulness and meditation, and how these can help individuals of the black community on their path to healing.
- Self provided these “44 Mental Health Resources for Black People to Survive in this Country.”
- Rest as Reparations: If there is a way to heal from trauma, where does one start? – New York Times
- Black Therapy Practices
Resources for BIPOC Allies
List created by: Victoria Alexander:
Anti-Racist Starter Kit:
- Stamped from the Beginning – Ibram X Kendi
- A People’s History of the United States – Howard Zinn (There is a “young people’s” version for elementary and middle school readers)
- White Fragility – Robin Diangelo
- So you want to talk about race – Ijeoma Oluo
- I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness – Austin Channing Brown
- Me and White Supremcy – Layla F Saad
- Stamped – Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi
Anti-Racist Intermediate Kit:
- The Burning House: Jim Crow and the Making of Modern America – Anders Walker
- The New Jim Crow – Michelle Alexander
- The Condemnation of Blackness – Khalil Gibran Muhammad
- Dying of Whiteness – Jonathan Metzl
- A Different Mirror – Ronald Takaki
- How to be an AntiRacist – Ibram X Kendi
- How the South Wont the Civil War – Heather Cox Richardson
Anti-Racist Topic Specifics:
- Evicted – Matthew Desmond
- Nobody – Marc Lamont Hill
- Lies My Teacher Told Me – James W Loewen
- Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria – Berver Doniel Tatum, PhD
- The Color of Law – Richard Rothstein
- Blackballed – Darryl Pinkney
- Lies My Teacher Told Me – James W. Loewen
Anti-Racist Lit – Bios, Non-fiction, novels, personal narratives:
- The Warmth of Other Sons – Isabel Wilkerson
- The Fire Next time – James Baldwin
- Malcolm X – Alex Haley
- Between the World and Me – Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Killing Rage Ending Racism – Bell Hooks
- Becoming – Michelle Obama
- An American By Marriage – Tayari Jones
- A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota –
- The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother – James McBride
- Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption – Bryan Stevenson
- The Myth Of Race – Robert Sussman
Anti-Racist Black Feminism Lit:
- How we Get Free – Keeanga-Yamhtta Taylor
- Black Feminits Thought – Patricia Hill Collins
- Ain’t I a Woman Black Women and Feminism – Bell Hooks
- Bad Feminist – Roxane Gay
- Eloquent Rage – Brittney Cooper
- In Search of Our Mothers Gardens – Alice Walker
- Sister Outsider – Audre Lorde
- Women Race & Class – Angela Y Davis
- Assata: An Autobiography – Assata Shakur
- To Exist is to Resist: Black Feminism in Europe – Akwugo Emejulu and Francesca Sobande
Anti Racist Black LGBTQ+ Lit:
- Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin
- Zami – Audre Lorde
- Real Life – Brandon Taylor
- Unapologetic A black, queer, and feminist Mandate for Radical Movements – Charlene A Carruthers
- No Tea, No Shade: New Writings in Black Queer Studies – E. Patrick Johnson
- Since I Laid My Burden Down – Brontez Purnell
- The Other Side of Paradise – Staceyann Chin
- No Ashes in the Fire – Darnell L. Moore
- The Summer We Got Free – Mia McKenzie
- Black Like Me – John Howard Griffin
- Rising Out of Hatred – Eli Saslow
- Black On Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identiy – C. Riley Snorton
- Embrace Race has a lot of great webinars and resources that may be of interest to team members and client families:
- Children’s Books We Use to Teach Young Kids to be Anti-Racist
- Antiracist Resources to use with 6th to 12th graders
- Using Books to Engage Young Children in Talk about Race & Justice (webinar)
- What is “The Talk” White parents should have with White children? (blog / article)
- 16 ways to help children become thoughtful, informed, and BRAVE about race (action guide)
- “How do I make sure I’m not raising the next ‘Amy Cooper’?” (webinar)
- Addressing Racial Injustice with Young Children (webinar)
News and Accomplishments
Diversity Woman Magazine’s First Annual ‘Elite 100’ issue: celebrating Black Women changing the face of Corporate America.
Black Lives Matter nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize
The views and opinions expressed in the above resources are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy, position, or view of Kadiant.