Black Lives Matter
Here we are, once again, in the middle of a protest. This time it’s a larger movement. There’s more hope in the air. Still, it’s hard to believe change will really be happening, however much it’s needed.
Police and white vigilantes killing Black (and Brown and Indigenous and other non-white) people is not a new phenomenon. It’s at the very core of this nation’s history. We’re watching some serious mental gymnastics from people who try to pretend otherwise, claiming that George Floyd’s death was an isolated incident, Breonna Taylor’s death was the work of rogue cops, Ahmaud Arbery’s death was the work of “some bigots” or even a misunderstanding, and Amy Cooper’s attempt at Christian Cooper’s life was the exception, not the rule. Half of these people are Trump supporters, half of them are self-proclaimed liberals. As Dr. Angelou said, “When people show you who they are, believe them.” There’s not a lot one can do about them except watch, take notes, and remember.
For those of us who admit that there’s a serious problem, now is the time to act:
*To go out and protest
*To sign petitions
*To donate money
*To call on our local representatives
*To share and amplify the voices of activists
*To educate ourselves
Few can do all of the above, but all of us can and should do SOME of them, and each of these things are important. If you care, do your personal best to help!
At Coriolis Company, we have always been part of the movement for equality. Our team is as diverse as it gets, so it’s personally important to each and every one of us. Yet, we feel that we can do a lot more.
We're committed to doing all of the following:
*Going out to protest
*Signing petitions calling for justice for the victims of police brutality and racism, as well as those calling for systemic social change
*Donating to organizations that help victims of police brutality, organizers of the Black Lives Matter movement, and protestors who were unfairly arrested
*Calling on our local representatives to facilitate police reform asap
*Sharing and amplifying the voices of activists who know more than we do and who have been doing this important work for years
*Educating ourselves further not just about systemic racism (which every single member on our crew has personal experience with…) but also about solutions. We’re going to focus on what we can do to be part of the much-needed change.
We’re energized by this new surge of call for justice and really hope this will be a movement to last.
Now is the time!
With that said, this is NOT the time to say
“Not all policemen…”
“Not all White people…”
“It is an isolated incident…”
“Violence is never the answer…”
“We do need law and order…”
“They should have just complied…”
“All lives matter…”
“I’m not racist…”
“You have to teach me…”
“My black friend said…”
“Diamond and Silk said…”
“Trump said…”
“These protests are too divisive…”
“This is not the way to do it…”
“I want us all to feel safe…”
“MLK was non-violent…”
“Justice will be served…”
“(You) people are too sensitive…”
“I don’t feel comfortable speaking up…”
“I don’t care if you’re purple, green, or polka dot…”
*In fact, if it’s on the infamous “racist bingo” sheet, don’t say it. The goal for all White and non-Black people should be to, at the very least, not do more harm.
If you don’t know what the racist bingo is, there are many versions of this… Below are two versions of this sad classic:
And another version:
People of color hear some version of these every day, and frankly, it’s exhausting. Our hope is that people newly awoken to the realities of racism in the U.S. will also become mindful of their vocabulary.
Social Media Activism
A lot of people are actively posting in support of Black Lives Matter and it’s mostly nice to see. But there are also many bad examples out there. People should think more carefully before posting anything on their personal or company accounts. This is not to say you shouldn’t post, but examine the reason why you’re posting, and if you feel that you’re not there yet, post about your goals, your progress, and what you’re doing to do better.
We would strongly discourage the following behavior:
*Posting anything that’s not consistent with their previously established behavior and values without proof of how they’ve begun the process of changing
*Posting something that centers you and your book, product, or brand, while piggybacking on current events
*Posting something just for likes, just because everyone else is posting it–that you have no real conviction in. People can see right through these.
If you’re not sure what to post, find people who have been doing anti-racist work for years, and share their work with your audience, friends, and followers.
Anti-racist Reading Recommendations
There are plenty of anti-racist reading lists out there, but we wanted to add a few other book recommendations, too. Some of these are lesser-known, older, or forthcoming books, and they would expand any reader’s horizon about systemic racism, police brutality, the criminal justice system, and more.
N*gga Theory: Race, Language, Unequal Justice, and the Law is coming on August 11, 2020. This book by USC law professor and national speaker Jody Armour will outline all the traps of mass incarceration and propose reform at every level. As it’s become clear to everyone in the past few weeks, America’s criminal justice system is among the deadliest and most racist in the world and it disproportionally targets Black Americans and other people of color. In N*gga Theory, Prof. Armour interrogates the system of racialized mass incarceration at the level of arrest, charging, factfinding, trial, and sentencing. All of these levels are influenced by anti-Black bias. N*gga Theory calls for bold action: electing progressive prosecutors, full law enforcement reform (defunding or dismantling the police), and the abolition of the prison industrial complex. Only after eradicating the anti-black racial bias buried in the cognitive unconscious of millions of Americans and empowered by an inherently racist system will we be able to say that Black Lives Matter in America.
We are proud to publicize this book and believe that this is one of the most important criminal justice books to be published this year.
Black American Stories is a brilliant collection of short stories containing gems by Langston Hughes, Chester Himes, Ralph Ellison, Paul Marshall, Charles Wright, Alice Walker, Ernest J. Gaines, and Davida Kilgore. These sum of these stories will give someone not familiar with the Black American experience a good idea of it. (This edition contains notes and cultural explanations in French, but you don’t need to speak French to read the stories themselves and Americans would need less explanation. The French comments are also tone-deaf at times, which is the one weakness of the book, added by the editor and not a reflection on the stories and their authors.)
Six Days in Cincinnati by Dan Méndez Moore portrays the 2001 Cincinnati riots, prompted by the police killing of Timothy Thomas, a 19-year-old Black man. This uprising parallels the LA Riots of 1992 in many ways and it’s presented through the eyes of protest participants. The comic book chronicles the six days in a way that rings very true to our current events. You will recognize all the phrases and the characters will feel like your neighbors or “nemeses”. This book was published by Microcosm Publishing and you may want to check out their Protest Power Tools Superpack, Anarchy in the USA Superpack, and their many other social justice books.
Released on 4/14/2020 to great acclaim, Set the Night On Fire: L.A. in the Sixties by historians Jon Wiener and Mike Davis give a full history of radical movements in Los Angeles, including the Black Power movement,—where Malcolm X and Angela Davis first came to prominence and the Watts uprising shook the nation—the Chicano Blowouts and Chicano Moratorium, the birth of Asian American political identity, the antiwar movement, gay liberation movement, and women’s movement. The book explains how the LAPD came to rule the city through violence. Reading this book will make it clear to you how long the fight against police brutality has been going on in our city.
Racism, Sexism, and the Media: Multicultural Issues Into the New Communications Age by Clint C. Wilson II, Felix Gutierrez, and Lena Chao will give you a thorough understanding of how the perceptions of women and minorities in the U.S. are shaped by the media, as well as how they contribute to the media. Authors and marketers should be mindful of falling into the same traps outlined here. While there are many books written on the subject, this one stands out because of its easy to understand language and structure. The chapters on racial stereotypes in mass media alone are worth the price of this book.
If you’re newly learning about life in America for Black people, you may also want to read a memoir that explores the life and history of a mixed-race Black family. Black Indian by Shonda Buchanan. This hauntingly beautiful, poetic work just won the 2020 Next Generation Indie Book Awards in the Memoirs category. Even if you know a lot about the Black experience, this book will change the way you see the mixed race identity.
“We Cast a Shadow” by Maurice Carlos Ruffin is a darkly funny satire about American race relations. The premise is that a Black father contemplates “demelanization” for his biracial son, to make his life easier. The book takes place in a dystopian version of the country which some would argue isn’t that far in the future. This book is very hard to put down and will make you think. If you’re starting an anti-racist book club, this would be a good one to start with.
And if you’d like to learn about Black history in the form of a graphic novel, we recommend the Box of Bones series by Ayize Jama-Everett. Be warned, though, this is not a pretty, sanitized history. This series is gothic horror that is as gruesome as the reality of Black Americans has been for 400 years.
Those are some of the books we would recommend, but there are more on our bookshelves that pertain to the Black experience, anti-racism, and social justice.
Below is a photo of Nanda’s favorite books in this realm.
We believe what the editors of The Offing Magazine stated: “Silence is a form of complicity” and as part of our commitment to solidarity with Black Lives Matter and the grassroots organizations who have been doing this hard work, we
1, Signed this letter
2, Amplify their monthly message
3, Recommitted to an intentionally anti-racist company structure (we have always been a crew of women of color, so no change was needed there)
4, Publicly acknowledged support for Black Lives Matter — click here to find access to BLM-endorsed strategies that support change locally and worldwide
If you’d like to read other books on the subject, below are some links to the anti-racist reading lists compiled by others. And if you have any suggestions, we would love to hear them, too.
More Book Lists and Other Resources:
- Ibram X. Kendi has an antiracist list in the New York Times. As he puts it: “Think of it as a stepladder to antiracism, each step addressing a different stage of the journey toward destroying racism’s insidious hold on all of us.”
- Loyalty Bookstores has a list of Antiracist Reading Recommendations.
- A free ebook by Verso Books, a publisher that has an unmatched commitment to civil rights: The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale
- A free ebook by Haymarket Books: Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? Police Violence and Resistance in the United States
- Brea Baker has a list of 20 Essential Black History Books on Elle.
- Embrace Race put up 31 Children’s books to support conversations on race, racism, and resistance.
- Arianna Rebolini wrote “An Essential Reading Guide For Fighting Racism” on BuzzFeed News.
- A powerful essay in the Los Angeles Times by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
