Close
 

Recommended Resources for Exploration

brought to you by the Racial Equity Committee at the Foundation

As are many others, the members of the Racial Equity Committee are on a journey of learning and growth. Each member is motivated for different reasons, at a different place on that journey, and finds inspiration in different resources. Sometimes those resources challenge, sometimes they are a reminder of painful personal experiences, sometimes they clarify and enlighten. We grow by stepping into and sharing ideas.

Video

Books

Cinema

13th: It explores the prison-industrial complex, and the “intersection of race, justice, and mass incarceration in the United States”. The title refers to the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, adopted in 1865, which abolished slavery throughout the United States and ended involuntary servitude, except as punishment for convicted criminals. The film argues that this exemption has been used to continue the practice of involuntary servitude in the form of penal labor.

If Beale Street Could Talk: the story centers on a young black couple (played by Stephan James and newcomer Kiki Layne) who grew up together and fell in love. But then conflict takes over — not originating from inside their relationship, but pressing in from the outside world. If Beale Street Could Talk is set in the 1970s, but thanks to the way it confronts how sexual assault allegations, policing, and racism can interlock for communities of color, it feels incredibly contemporary, too. It’s hard not to fall under its beautiful, somber, lustrous spell, and as a story about black American life framed as a love story

Quest: a portrait of a North Philadelphia family, was shot over a decade and finally released in 2017. The film is a cinéma vérité look at the Rainey family, who operate a recording studio. But life doesn’t always go as planned, and when tragedy hits the family, the documentary takes an unexpected turn. It’s essential viewing that somehow captures the hope and pain of the 2010s — including life in the city as well as the broader political and social situation in America — better than either the Raineys or Olshefski could have ever imagined.

Let the Fire Burn: 2013 documentary film about the events leading up to and surrounding a 1985 stand-off between the black liberation group MOVE and the Philadelphia Police Department.

Research and Articles

  1. Racism as a Determinant of Health: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis outcomes: the following health outcomes were included: (1) negative mental health (depression, anxiety, distress, psychological stress, negative affect, post-traumatic stress (PTS) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), somatization, internalizing, suicidal ideation/planning/attempts, other mental health symptoms such as paranoia and psychoticism, and general mental health); (2) positive mental health (self-esteem, life satisfaction, control and mastery, wellbeing, positive affect); (3) physical health (blood pressure and hypertension, overweight-related measures, heart conditions and illnesses, diabetes, high cholesterol, and miscellaneous/mixed measures of physical health); and (4) general health (including both physical and mental health, or unspecified as physical and/or mental health; e.g., feeling unhealthy).
  2. The Impact of Racism on the Sexual and Reproductive Health of African American Women
  3. Experiencing racism may physically change your brain
  4. Stress of racism can affect health across generations
  5. The Origins of Modern Day Policing 
  6. Historic housing discrimination in the U.S.
  7. A ‘Forgotten History’ Of How The U.S. Government Segregated America
  8. Black Subjectivity and the Origins of American Gynecology
  9. The History That Explains Today’s Shortage of Black Midwives