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NYT op-ed, "America, This Is Your Chance"

Posted: June 11 2020

"Our only hope for our collective liberation is a politics of deep solidarity rooted in love."

(Screenshot from NYT website)

READ THIS ARTICLE!

From Michelle Alexander (civil rights lawyer, advocate, legal scholar and the author of “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness) comes this goosebump raising-ly powerful op-ed, published June 8, 2020 in the New York Times. 

Filled with deeply moving insights, analyses and philosophical unpacking of American racism and the "criminal injustice" system, Alexander offers this list of resources to further educate ourselves to the blatant racism that has been systematically forgotten:

There are many excellent books, articles and films that can help to put our racial moment in context. A good place to start if you are new to racial justice history and advocacy is Ibram X. Kendi’s trio of books, “How to Be an Antiracist” “Stamped From the Beginning” and “Stamped,” his young adult book co-authored with Jason Reynolds. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s book “From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation” and Ava Duvernay’s film “13th” are especially relevant now. And Andrea Ritchie’s book “Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color” is essential reading, given the comparatively little attention that police killings of black women typically receive. Paul Butler’s book “Chokehold” is an excellent exploration of police violence against black men — past and present. The documentary “Whose Streets?,” depicting the aftermath of Michael Brown’s murder and the uprisings in Ferguson, Mo., will open your eyes to the tragedies and triumphs of that period, as well as “blatant racism and hypocrisy on display from the powers that be,” in the words of a writer in Rolling Stone magazine.