Anti-Racism Resources

Listen, Learn, Act, Teach

Getting Started

We recognize that our members, our communities, and our nation as a whole are experiencing incredible pain, anguish, grief, and frustration. As part of the larger healthcare system, we too are facing the reality that there is still widespread oppression and an obvious divide in access to healthcare depending on the color of one's skin. The WANP recognizes that this has most disproportionately affected Black and Indigenous communities. We see this, we care about this, and we strive to become an active part of the solution.

We do not claim to be experts on anti-racism in any way. We are still learning. That said, we have compiled resources from our membership, our community, and leaders in diversity training, anti-racism, and social justice. We would like this to be a living document, and appreciate additional recommendations. If you have any recommendations that you would like to add, please do so by emailing info@wanp.org.

We recognize that the Board of Directors of the WANP has not always appeared to embrace diversity and that that Black and Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC), in particular, have been under-represented in our organization. We are committed to educating ourselves about diversity, equity, and inclusion, about implicit biases and the consequences of them, and about becoming an actively anti-racist Association. We strive for open dialogue and compassion to be at the center of our work together.  We are also seeking more diversity on our board. LGBTQ+ individuals, women, people with disabilities, and POC are encouraged to join us.

Listen

Podcasts/videos:

Learn

Read

Anti-Racism and White Privilege: 

  • How To Be An Anti-Racist ~ Ibram X Kendi 
  • So You Want to Talk About Race ~ Ijeomo Oluo
  • What Does It Mean To Be White ~ Robin DiAngelo
  • White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism ~ Robin Diangelo
  • White Awake: An Honest Look at What It Means to Be White ~ Daniel Hill
  • Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? ~ Beverly Daniel Tatum, PhD

Intersectional Feminism: 

  • Black Feminist Thought ~ Patricia Hill Collins
  • Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower ~ Dr. Brittney Cooper
  • Freedom is a Constant Struggle ~ Angela Davis
  • I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness ~ Austin Channing Brown
  • Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More ~ Janet Mock
  • This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color ~ Cherrie Moraga

Racism and Criminal Justice:

  • The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America ~ Khalil Gibran Muhammad
  • Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption ~ Bryan Stevenson
  • The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness ~ Michelle Alexander

Racism and Economy:

  • Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City ~ Matthew Desmond
  • Nobody: Casualties of America's War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond ~ Marc Lamont Hill

Racism in History:

  • The Burning House: Jim Crow and the Making of Modern America ~ Anders Walker
  • The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America ~ Richard Rothstein
  • A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America ~ Ronald Takaki
  • Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong ~ James W. Loewen
  • The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century ~ Grace Lee Boggs
  • A People’s History of the United States ~ Howard Zinn
  • Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America ~ Ibram X Kendi 
  • The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration ~ Isabel Wilkerson

Racism in Medicine & Public Health:

  • Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland ~ Jonathan Metzel 
  • Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present ~ Harriet Washington
  • Mountains Beyond Mountains ~ Tracy Kidder
  • Pathologies of Power ~ Paul Farmer

Racism and Education:

  • Black Sexual Politics ~ Patricia Hill Collins
  • Blackballed: The Black and White Politics of Race on America's Campuses ~ Daryl Pinckney

Biographies and Personal Narratives:

  • The Autobiography of Malcolm X ~ Malcolm X (as told to Alex Haley)
  • Becoming ~ Michelle Obama
  • Between the World and Me ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates 
  • The Fire Next Time ~ James Baldwin
  • Heavy: An American Memoir ~ Kiese Laymon
  • Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption ~ Bryan Stevenson 
  • Killing Rage: Ending Racism ~ bell hooks

Activism: 

  • Antagonists, Advocates and Allies: The Wake up Call Guide for White Women who Want to Become Allies with Black Women ~ Catrice M. Jackson

African American Fiction Classics:

  • Amiable With Big Teeth ~ Claude McKay
  • The Bluest Eye ~ Toni Morrison
  • I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings ~ Maya Angelou
  • If Beale Street Could Talk ~ James Baldwin
  • Not Without Laughter ~ Langston Hughes
  • Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches ~ Audre Lorde
  • Their Eyes Were Watching God ~ Zora Neale Hurston

Articles:

Movies: 

  • American Son (Netflix) [TV movie]
  • Dear White People (Netflix) [Netflix series]
  • The Hate U Give (Cinemax) [movie, currently streaming on Cinemax]
  • If Beale Street Could Talk [Oscar-winning film]
  • Just Mercy (film)
  • King in the Wilderness [HBO documentary]
  • See You Yesterday (Netflix film)
  • Selma (Golden Globe award winning film)
  • When They See Us (Netflix) [Miniseries]

Documentaries: 

  • 16 Shots (2019)
  • 13th (2016)
  • Copwatch (2017)
  • Crime and Punishment (2018)
  • The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson (2017)
  • Do Not Resist (2016)
  • The Force (2017)
  • I am not your Negro (2016)
  • Let It Fall (2017)
  • Let the Fire Burn (2013)
  • Whose Streets? (2017)
Act

1. Be Aware of Unconscious Bias

Unconscious biases (aka implicit biases) are social stereotypes about certain groups of people that individuals form outside their own conscious awareness. Everyone holds unconscious beliefs about various social and identity groups and these biases stem from one’s tendency to organize social worlds by categorizing.

Consider taking an implicit bias test like those found here:

2. Foster Critical Dialogue

Encourage physicians, physician organizations, and medical institutions to publicly recognize racism as a public health crisis. Promote medical students’ involvement in local and national movements to end racism and police brutality. Advocate for the funding and promotion of research on the health effects of racism.

3. End Racial Inequality

Demand that academic medical centers serve the healthcare needs of their local communities, particularly the needs of patients of color. Promote the allocation of funding for interventions that dismantle racism in the delivery of medical care. Ensure equal access to medical care by advocating for the establishment of a single-payer national health insurance program.

4. Prepare Future Physicians

Improve the recruitment and support of Black, Latinx, and Native American medical students. Promote the recruitment, retention, and hiring of Black, Latinx, and Native American physicians in medical school teaching, research, and leadership positions. Develop national medical school curricular standards that educate current and future medical professionals on the history and current manifestations of racism in medicine, principles of anti-racism, and strategies for dismantling structural racism.

NOTE: Items 2, 3, and 4 above are sourced directly from WhiteCoats4BlackLives.org

Mission statement of WhiteCoats4BlackLives: Eliminating racial bias in the practice of medicine and recognizing racism as a threat to the health and well-being of people of color.

Donate: 

Other Ways You Can Help : 

  1. Provide supplies and support at protests (e.g. water, medical supplies, snacks).
  2. Take a course in Racialized Trauma.
  3. Support Black-owned Businesses through your dollars and your social media shout outs.
  4. AMPLIFY VOICES of people of color.
  5. Realize that it is not the responsibility of those who are being oppressed to educate others on that oppression. Take an active role in your own education.
  6. Speak up and speak out when you hear someone saying or doing something racist. 
  7. Contact your local government to request or support anti-racist policies, such as mandatory de-escalation training for law enforcement officers and prohibiting excessive force techniques.
  8. Talk to your children and family and friends about systemic oppression. 
  9. DONATE to organizations above.
  10. Understand your own privilege, and use it for good and for change. 
  11. Educate others and your patients about what you learn. 
  12. Practice Cultural Humility. Cultural humility recognizes that it is impossible to be adequately knowledgeable about cultures other than one's own.
  13. “75 things you can do for social justice”: https://medium.com/equality-includes-you/what-white-people-can-do-for-racial-justice-f2d18b0e0234
  14. Rachel Rickett’s Anti-Racism resources: https://www.rachelricketts.com/antiracism-resources

Resources:

Organizations to follow on social media:

Teach

Raising anti-racist children:

Books

Podcasts

Articles

Toolkit for those helping raise children

We will continue to update this information as more resources are submitted to us.

This list was inspired by many people (including but not limited to Jenna Arnold, Sarah Sophie Flicker, Alyssa Klein, David Cardenas, and Megan Ming Francis) and compiled by the WANP Board of Directors.

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