As white folks, when we learn about racism, we often focus on what I call “personal racism”, where we explore questions like:

• How do stereotypes influence my own words, thoughts, and actions?
• What messages did I learn from childhood, though my family of origin, community, or schooling?
• What are my biases?
• What are some strategies that I can use to treat people of color with fairness and respect?
• What is white privilege, and how can I use my privilege in order to benefit people of color?
• What are microaggressions and how do I become more aware of them?

Granted, these are just a few of the questions and challenges that we face as white folks who grow up and spend our lives in a society that continues to echo the legacy of slavery and to perpetuate the idea of whiteness. Throughout our lives, we continue to repent and to wrestle with all this.

However, there is another massive dimension of racism which demands just as much attention – “institutional racism.” Here, we refer to the ways that our laws, institutions, and social services somehow favor white folks over people of color. This is a controversial topic, because as white folks, we carry a deep-seated belief that folks are treated fairly regardless of color or ethnicity. However, the daily experiences of our black and brown neighbors demonstrate that this is not true.

A good example is the issue of voter IDs. On the surface, it seems reasonable to require that folks produce an certified photo ID in order to vote, especially when I can get a photo ID without much inconvenience. But, is this really everyone’s experience?

• Can someone without personal transportation get to a license office? How far do they have to go to catch a bus? How many transfers? How far from dropoff to the office? This may take hours for some folks.
• When is the office open? Does my work schedule make it impossible to go?
• What kinds of indentification do I need in order to get an ID? How do I get the identification that I don’t have?
• How expensive is an ID? What payment methods are accepted?
• Ultimately, if we’re going to require IDs, how do we empower and assist all folks to be able to get one?

For disadvantaged folks, these questions easily become huge roadblocks to getting the necessary ID to be permitted to participate in the constitutional right of voting. And, this is just one of countless issues of institutional racism that folks face every day.

The following are some resources for learning more about institutional racism.

Current Issues

• Southern Poverty Law Center
  This well-known organization has many articles about their ongoing work to fight for equal justice.
• The King Center
  This well-known organization has many articles about their ongoing work to fight for equal justice.
• MTV Decoded
  Franchesca Ramsey hosts this series of short videos which tackle and educate on a number of issues around race, politics, and institutional racism.
• The Path to Ending Systemic Racism in the US
  Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff, Rashad Robinson, Dr. Bernice King and Anthony D. Romero discuss dismantling the systems of oppression and racism responsible for tragedies like the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and far too many others — and explore how the US can start to live up to its ideals.
• How We Can Make Racism a Solvable Problem — and Improve Policing
  Justice scientist Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff shares his work at the Center for Policing Equity, an organization that helps police departments diagnose and track racial gaps in policing in order to eliminate them. Learn more about their data-driven approach — and how you can get involved with the work that still needs to be done.
• Racism Has a Cost for Everyone
  Racism makes our economy worse — and not just in ways that harm people of color, says public policy expert Heather C. McGhee. From her research and travels across the US, McGhee shares startling insights into how racism fuels bad policymaking and drains our economic potential — and offers a crucial rethink on what we can do to create a more prosperous nation for all. “Our fates are linked,” she says. “It costs us so much to remain divided.”
• How Racism Makes Us Sick
  Why does race matter so profoundly for health? David R. Williams developed a scale to measure the impact of discrimination on well-being, going beyond traditional measures like income and education to reveal how factors like implicit bias, residential segregation and negative stereotypes create and sustain inequality. In this eye-opening talk, Williams presents evidence for how racism is producing a rigged system — and offers hopeful examples of programs across the US that are working to dismantle discrimination.
• How to Deconstruct Racism, One Headline at a Time
  Baratunde Thurston explores the phenomenon of white Americans calling the police on black Americans who have committed the crimes of … eating, walking or generally “living while black.” In this profound, thought-provoking and often hilarious talk, he reveals the power of language to change stories of trauma into stories of healing — while challenging us all to level up.
• We Need to Talk about an Injustice
  In an engaging and personal talk — with cameo appearances from his grandmother and Rosa Parks — human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson shares some hard truths about America’s justice system, starting with a massive imbalance along racial lines: a third of the country’s black male population has been incarcerated at some point in their lives. These issues, which are wrapped up in America’s unexamined history, are rarely talked about with this level of candor,insight and persuasiveness.
• The Little Problem I Had Renting a House
  Fifty-three years ago, James A. White Sr. joined the US Air Force. But as an African American man, he had to go to shocking lengths to find a place for his young family to live nearby. He tells this powerful story about the lived experience of “everyday racism” — and how it echoes today in the way he’s had to teach his grandchildren to interact with police.
• How We’re Priming Some Kids for College — and Others for Prison
  In the United States, two institutions guide teenagers on the journey to adulthood: college and prison. Sociologist Alice Goffman spent six years in a troubled Philadelphia neighborhood and saw first-hand how teenagers of African-American and Latino backgrounds are funneled down the path to prison — sometimes starting with relatively minor infractions. In an impassioned talk she asks, “Why are we offering only handcuffs and jail time?”
• Does Racism Affect How You Vote?
  Nate Silver has data that answers big questions about race in politics. For instance, in the 2008 presidential race, did Obama’s skin color actually keep him from getting votes in some parts of the country? Stats and myths collide in this fascinating talk that ends with a remarkable insight.
• Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
  Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn’t commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship—and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever. Also refer to study guide at https://catholicsmobilizing.org/resource/just-mercy-study-guide-printable
• Holy Post – Race in America
  Phil Vischer hosts this video where he discusses a number of questions around racial injustice. Why are people angry? Why so upset? Didn’t we elect a black president? Pass civil rights laws? Isn’t racism illegal now? Three years ago he and his brother co-taught a class, which turned into a popular podcast episode, which we’ve now turned into this video. Why are people still angry? Let’s take a look at race in America…

History

• Reconstruction: American after the Civil War
  This PBS documentary series, hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., explores the transformative years following the American Civil War, when the nation struggled to rebuild itself in the face of profound loss, massive destruction, and revolutionary social change. The twelve years that composed the post-war Reconstruction era (1865-77) witnessed a seismic shift in the meaning and makeup of our democracy, with millions of former slaves and free black people seeking out their rightful place as equal citizens under the law. Though, this was tragically short-lived.
• The Real Story of Rosa Parks — and Why We Need to Confront Myths about Black History
  Black history taught in US schools is often watered-down, riddled with inaccuracies and stripped of its context and rich, full-bodied historical figures. Equipped with the real story of Rosa Parks, professor David Ikard highlights how making the realities of race more benign and digestible harms us all — and emphasizes the power and importance of historical accuracy.
• The Symbols of Systemic Racism — and How to Take Away Their Power
  A collector of artifacts connected to the history of slavery — from branding irons and shackles to postcards depicting lynchings — Paul Rucker couldn’t find an undamaged Ku Klux Klan robe for his collection, so he began making his own. The result: striking garments in non-traditional fabrics like kente cloth, camouflage and silk that confront the normalization of systemic racism in the US.
• Freedom Summer
  This 2-hour documentary by award-winning filmmaker Stanley Nelson introduces viewers to the history of Freedom Summer in Mississippi in 1964. The film uses documentary footage and interviews with veterans of the southern Freedom Movement.
• The Racist Roots of American Policing: From Slave Patrols to Traffic Stops
  Article about how the centuries-old roots of racism in American policing relate to modern-day racial profiling and the epidemic of police killings of African Americans. Includes many links to related articles and sources.
• 13th
  In this thought-provoking documentary, scholars, activists, and politicians analyze the criminalization of African Americans and the US prison boom. Also check out this discussion guide to help you watch and discuss the film. https://educationforjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Film-Discussion-Guide-13th.pdf
• Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism by James Loewen
  In this groundbreaking work, sociologist James W. Loewen, author of the classic bestseller Lies My Teacher Told Me, brings to light decades of hidden racial exclusion in America. In a provocative, sweeping analysis of American residential patterns, Loewen uncovers the thousands of “sundown towns”―almost exclusively white towns where it was an unspoken rule that blacks weren’t welcome―that cropped up throughout the twentieth century, most of them located outside of the South.
• Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
  In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-Black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. Stamped from the Beginning uses the life stories of five major American intellectuals to offer a window into the contentious debates between assimilationists and segregationists and between racists and antiracists. Kendi shows how and why some of our leading proslavery and pro-civil rights thinkers have challenged or helped cement racist ideas in America. NOTE: a workbook is also available.
• White By Law: The Legal Construction of Race by Ian Haney Lopez
  Haney López revisits the legal construction of race, and argues that current race law has spawned a troubling racial ideology that perpetuates inequality under a new guise: colorblind white dominance. In a new, original essay written specifically for the 10th anniversary edition, he explores this racial paradigm and explains how it contributes to a system of white racial privilege socially and legally defended by restrictive definitions of what counts as race and as racism, and what doesn’t, in the eyes of the law. The book also includes a new preface, in which Haney Lopez considers how his own personal experiences with white racial privilege helped engender White by Law.
• America’s Long Struggle against Slavery
  This video series surveys the history of the American anti-slavery movement, from the dawn of the transatlantic slave trade during the late 15th century to the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and beyond. Taught by Professor Richard Bell of the University of Maryland, these 30 eye-opening lectures give you an up-close view of a venal institution and the people who fought against it—and who often paid for their courage with their lives.
• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
  Since first published in 2010, this book has been cited in judicial decisions and has been adopted in campus-wide and community-wide reads. It has also spawned a whole generation of criminal justice reform activists and organizations motivated by Michelle Alexander’s argument that “we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.”