Gopher Equity Project
The Gopher Equity Project online training guides you through concepts about equity, power, privilege, oppression, and identity and is important to creating a foundation of equity and inclusion on our campus.
Suggested library research guides
Library research guides bring together article databases, keywords and search tips, online books and other resources around a topic. These guide can be a starting point for your research. Below are a sample of guides or you can explore all library research guides.
Sample of online books
Below are a selection of online books and readings on the broad topic. We have more online books, journal articles, and sources in our Libraries Search and article databases.
- How to be an antiracist byISBN: 9780525509295Publication Date: 2019"The only way to undo racism is to consistently identify and describe it -- and then dismantle it." Ibram X. Kendi's concept of antiracism reenergizes and reshapes the conversation about racial justice in America -- but even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi asks us to think about what an antiracist society might look like, and how we can play an active role in building it. In this book, Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science, bringing it all together with an engaging personal narrative of his own awakening to antiracism. How to Be an Antiracist is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond an awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a truly just and equitable society."
- A good time for the truth: Race in Minnesota byISBN: 9781681340036Publication Date: 2016In this provocative book, sixteen of Minnesota’s best writers provide a range of perspectives on what it is like to live as a person of color in one of the whitest states in the nation. They give readers a splendid gift: the gift of touching another human being’s inner reality, behind masks and veils and politeness. They bring us generously into experiences that we must understand if we are to come together in real relationships. Minnesota communities struggle with some of the nation’s worst racial disparities. As its authors confront and consider the realities that lie beneath the numbers, this book provides an important tool to those who want to be part of closing those gaps. With contributions by: Taiyon J. Coleman Heid E. Erdrich Venessa Fuentes Shannon Gibney David Grant Carolyn Holbrook IBé Andrea Jenkins Robert Karimi JaeRan Kim Sherry Quan Lee David Mura Bao Phi Rodrigo Sanchez-Chavarria Diane Wilson Kao Kalia Yang
- We Are Meant to Rise : voices for justice from Minneapolis to the world byISBN: 9781452966472Publication Date: 2021-11-23A brilliant and rich gathering of voices on the American experience of this past year and beyond, from Indigenous writers and writers of color from Minnesota. In this significant collection, Indigenous writers and writers of color bear witness to one of the most unsettling years in the history of the United States. Essays and poems vividly reflect and comment on the traumas we endured in 2020, beginning with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, deepened by the blatant murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers and the uprisings that immersed our city into the epicenter of passionate, worldwide demands for justice. In inspired and incisive writing these contributors speak unvarnished truths not only to the original and pernicious racism threaded through the American experience but also to the deeply personal, in essays about family, loss, food culture, economic security, and mental health. Their call and response is united here to rise and be heard. We Are Meant to Rise lifts up the astonishing variety of BIPOC writers in Minnesota. From authors with international reputations to newly emerging voices, it features people from many cultures, including Indigenous Dakota and Anishinaabe, African American, Hmong, Somali, Afghani, Lebanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese, Puerto Rican, Colombian, Mexican, transracial adoptees, mixed race, and LGBTQ+ perspectives. Most of the contributors have participated in More Than a Single Story, a popular and insightful conversation series in Minneapolis that features Indigenous and people of color speaking on what most concerns their communities. We Are Meant to Rise meets the events of the day, the year, the centuries before, again and again, with powerful testament to the intrinsic and unique value of the human voice.
- Stamped from the Beginning byISBN: 9781568584645Publication Date: 2016-04-12In 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. He uses the life stories of five major American intellectuals to drive this history: Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and legendary activist Angela Davis. As Kendi shows, racist ideas did not arise from ignorance or hatred. They were created to justify and rationalize deeply entrenched discriminatory policies and the nation's racial inequities.
- Racism, not race : answers to frequently asked questions byISBN: 9780231553735Publication Date: 2022We talk a lot about race, yet we rarely focus on the underlying question of what race is and its connections to racism. Conversations about race can be uncomfortable and confusing, but this is resolvable if we ask the right questions and focus on clear answers. What, exactly, is race? Joseph L. Graves and Alan H. Goodman illuminate the idea of race so that people who want to confront the topic of racial injustice can do so with the necessary conceptual tools. Most people think race is real, they argue, and it is. But race is not real in the way that most of us have grown up to think of it. Race is not natural, fixed, or based on biology. Instead, they continue, racism created the idea of race, the idea of race has real effects, and while human genetic variation is biologically real, it is not race. The book is based on evidence from biological and social science. It is composed of twelve question-begging chapters, which engage topics such as the origins of race, race and genetics, the forms of racism, race and health, race and ability, institutional racism, DNA and ancestry testing, "race mixing," race and politics, and what it means to be an antiracist.
- How to Raise an Antiracist byISBN: 9780593242544Publication Date: 2022-06-14The book that every parent, caregiver, and teacher needs to raise the next generation of antiracist thinkers, from the author of How to Be an Antiracist and recipient of the MacArthur "Genius" Grant. "Kendi's latest . . . combines his personal experience as a parent with his scholarly expertise in showing how racism affects every step of a child's life. . . . Like all his books, this one is accessible to everyone regardless of race or class."--Los Angeles Times. The tragedies and reckonings around racism that are rocking the country have created a specific crisis for parents, educators, and other caregivers: How do we talk to our children about racism? How do we teach children to be antiracist? How are kids at different ages experiencing race? How are racist structures impacting children? How can we inspire our children to avoid our mistakes, to be better, to make the world better?
- I'm still here: Black dignity in a world made for whiteness byISBN: 1524760862Publication Date: 2018The author's first encounter with a racialized America came at age seven, when her parents told her they named her Austin to deceive future employers into thinking she was a white man. She grew up in majority-white schools, organizations, and churches, and has spent her life navigating America's racial divide as a writer, a speaker, and an expert helping organizations practice genuine inclusion.
- It Was Always a Choice : picking up the baton of athlete activism byISBN: 9781439921753Publication Date: 2022-07-08The recent flashpoint of Colin Kaepernick taking a knee renews a long tradition of athlete-activists speaking out against racism, injustice, and oppression. Like Kaepernick, Jackie Robinson, Paul Robeson, Muhammad Ali, Bill Russell, Tommie Smith, and John Carlos--among many others, of all races, male and female, pro and amateur--all made the choice to take a side to command public awareness and attention rather than "shut up and play," as O. J. Simpson, Michael Jordan, and Tiger Woods did. Using their celebrity to demand change, these activists inspired fans but faced great personal and professional risks in doing so. It Was Always a Choice traces the history and impact of these decisive moments throughout the history of U.S. sports.
- So You Want to Talk about Race byISBN: 9781580056786Publication Date: 2018-01-16In this New York Times bestseller, Ijeoma Oluo offers a hard-hitting but user-friendly examination of race in America Widespread reporting on aspects of white supremacy -- from police brutality to the mass incarceration of Black Americans -- has put a media spotlight on racism in our society. Still, it is a difficult subject to talk about.
- Developing anti-racist practices in the helping professions : inclusive theory, pedagogy, and application byISBN: 9783030954512Publication Date: 2022This book provides an interdisciplinary structure to critique existing approaches that have failed to eradicate systemic inequalities across helping professions. This timely contribution offers helping professionals sought after resources that many are clamoring for to improve their practice, their pedagogical stance, and their knowledge as it relates to antiracism and antiracist approaches. This collection of chapters that cover antiracist research, theory and practice approaches is in direct response to Kendis (2019) call to action to examine and revise institutional policies and practices to become antiracist.
- White fragility : why it's so hard for White people to talk about racism byISBN: 9780807047422Publication Date: 2018"In this groundbreaking and timely book, antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility. Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo explores how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively."
- Between the World and Me byISBN: 9780679645986Publication Date: 2015The library's license allows one user at a time. If it's unavailable, try again later. You may want to download the content you need and then close your browser so another student can use it.
In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation's history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of "race," a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men--bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates's attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son--and readers--the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children's lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward. - Born a crime: stories from a South African childhood byISBN: 0385689233Noah's path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother, at the time such a union was punishable by five years in prison. As he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist, his mother is determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.
- Just mercy : a story of justice and redemption byISBN: 9780812994537Publication Date: 2014Bryan 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. Just Mercy is at once an unforgettable account of an idealistic, gifted young lawyer's coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of true justice.
- Me and white supremacy : combat racism, change the world, and become a good ancestor byISBN: 9781728209821Publication Date: 2020Updated and expanded from the original workbook (downloaded by nearly 100,000 people), this critical text helps you take the work deeper by adding more historical and cultural contexts, sharing moving stories and anecdotes, and including expanded definitions, examples, and further resources, giving you the language to understand racism, and to dismantle your own biases, whether you are using the book on your own, with a book club, or looking to start family activism in your own home. This book will walk you step-by-step through the work of examining: Examining your own white privilege, What allyship really means, Anti-blackness, racial stereotypes, and cultural appropriation, Changing the way that you view and respond to race, and how to continue the work to create social change.
- Whiteness in America byISBN: 9780745672182Publication Date: 2020-08-17When Americans think about race, "white" is often the furthest thing from their minds. Yet whiteness colors so much of social life in the United States, from the organization and maintenance of social structures to an individual's sense of self. White has long been the invisible default category against which other racial and ethnic groups are silently compared and marked out as "different." At the same time, whiteness is itself an active marker that many bitterly fight to keep distinctive, and the shifting boundaries of whiteness reflect the nation's history of race relations, right back to the earliest period of European colonization. One thing that has remained consistent is that whiteness is a definitive mark of privilege. Yet, this privilege is differentially experienced across a broad and eclectic spectrum, as is white identity itself. In order to uncover the ways in which its rigid structures and complicated understandings permeate American life, this book examines some of the many varieties of what it means to be white - across geography, class, and social context - and the culture, social movements, and changing demographics of whiteness in America.
- Hostile Heartland byISBN: 9780252042492Publication Date: 2019-06-30We forget that racist violence permeated the lower Midwest from the pre-Civil War period until the 1930s. From Kansas to Ohio, whites orchestrated extraordinary events like lynchings and riots while engaged in a spectrum of brutal acts made all the more horrific by being routine. Also forgotten is the fact African Americans forcefully responded to these assertions of white supremacy through armed resistance, the creation of press outlets and civil rights organizations, and courageous individual activism. Drawing on cutting-edge methodology and a wealth of documentary evidence, Brent M. S. Campney analyzes the institutionalized white efforts to assert and maintain dominance over African Americans. Though rooted in the past, white violence evolved into a fundamentally modern phenomenon, driven by technologies such as newspapers, photographs, automobiles, and telephones. Other surprising insights challenge our assumptions about sundown towns, who was targeted by whites, law enforcement's role in facilitating and perpetrating violence, and the details of African American resistance.
- His name is George Floyd : one man's life and the struggle for racial justice byISBN: 9780593490624Publication Date: 2022"A landmark biography by two prizewinning Washington Post reporters that reveals how systemic racism shaped George Floyd's life and legacy-from his family's roots in the tobacco fields of North Carolina, to ongoing inequality in housing, education, health care, criminal justice, and policing-telling the singular story of how one man's tragic experience brought about a global movement for change. The events of that day are now tragically familiar: on May 25, 2020, George Floyd became the latest Black person to die at the hands of the police, murdered outside of a Minneapolis convenience store by white officer Derek Chauvin. The video recording of his death set off a series of protests in the United States and around the world, awakening millions to the dire need for reimagining this country's broken systems of policing. But behind a face that would be graffitied onto countless murals, and a name that has become synonymous with civil rights, there is the reality of one man's stolen life: a life beset by suffocating systemic pressures that ultimately proved inescapable. This biography of George Floyd shows the athletic young boy raised in the projects of Houston's Third Ward who would become a father, a partner, a friend, and a man constantly in search of a better life.
- The Antiracism Handbook : practical tools to shift your mindset & uproot racism in your life & community byISBN: 9781684039111Publication Date: 2022-04-01An antiracist society starts with you. Gain the psychological skills you need to adopt an antiracist mindset and make meaningful and equitable changes in your community--and in the world. Racism has reached epidemic levels in our country, and every single day we see acts of racial injustice. From police brutality and the prison industrial complex, to crumbling infrastructure and toxic drinking water in predominantly Black neighborhoods--many people have finally opened their eyes to the harsh realities of inequality and systemic racism in America. But awareness isn't enough. We need to take action to create real change. Written by two psychologists and experts in race, identity, equity, and inclusion, The Antiracism Handbook will empower you to make your own personal contribution to creating an antiracist society. You'll find practical, evidence-based tools grounded in psychology to help you recognize and resist racial stereotypes in day-to-day interactions; and strategies to help you communicate with family, loved ones, and children about race and racism.
Do your own research: Databases that search journals, magazines, newspapers, etc.
- Race Relations AbstractsDiscover articles covering essential areas related to race relations, including ethnic studies, discrimination, immigration studies, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline.
- Ethnic NewsWatchEthnic NewsWatch is a current resource of full-text newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority press from 1990, providing researchers access to essential, often overlooked perspectives.
- Academic Search PremierA great place to start your research on any topic, search multidisciplinary, scholarly research articles. This database provides access to scholarly and peer reviewed journals, popular magazines and other resources. View this tutorial to learn how to go from a general idea to a very precise set of results of journal articles and scholarly materials.
- Sociological AbstractsThis core database for the field of sociology contains information on sociology and social policy worldwide. Sociological Abstracts includes citations from the 1952-present. It provides abstracting and indexing of articles and book reviews drawn from thousands of journal publications, plus books, book chapters, dissertations, conference papers, and working papers.
Historic research collections
- Race Relations in AmericaBased at Fisk University from 1943-1970, the Race Relations Department and its annual Institute were set up by the American Missionary Association to investigate problem areas in race relations and develop methods for educating communities and preventing conflict. Documenting three pivotal decades in the fight for civil rights, this resource showcases the speeches, reports, surveys and analyses produced by the Department’s staff and Institute participants, including Charles S. Johnson, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall.
Umbra Search African American History
A freely available search tool and widget that brings together over 400,000 digitized materials documenting African American culture and history from over 1,000 libraries, archives, and cultural heritage institutions.
African American Communities (AAC)
Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, St Louis, Brooklyn, and towns and cities in North Carolina this collection presents multiple aspects of the African American community through personal diaries and scrapbooks, pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records and in-depth oral histories, revealing the prevalent challenges of racism, discrimination and integration, and a unique African American culture and identity.
- American Indian Histories and CulturesExplore manuscripts, artwork and rare printed books dating from the earliest contact with European settlers right up to photographs and newspapers from the mid-twentieth century. Browse through a wide range of rare and original documents from treaties, speeches and diaries, to historic maps and travel journals.
- Defining GenderProvides access to a vast body of original British source material that will enrich the teaching and research experience of those studying history, literature, sociology and education from a gendered perspective.
- Slavery, Abolition and Social JusticeThis digital collection documents key aspects of the history of slavery worldwide over six centuries, with 16 key areas of focus: slavery in the early Americas; African coast; the Middle Passage; slavery and agriculture; urban and domestic slavery; slave testimony; spiritualism and religion in slave communities; resistance and revolts; the Underground Railroad; the abolition movement and the slavery debate; legislation and politics; freed slaves, freedmen and free black settlements; education; slavery and the Islamic world; varieties of slave experience; slavery today and the legacy of slavery. The collection also includes case studies from America, the Caribbean, Brazil, and Cuba.
Mapping Prejudice Project
"This research is showing what communities of color have known for decades. Structural barriers stopped many people who were not white from buying property and building wealth for most of the last century.
In Minneapolis, these restrictions served as powerful obstacles for people of color seeking safe and affordable housing. They also limited access to community resources like parks and schools. Racial covenants dovetailed with redlining and predatory lending practices to depress homeownership rates for African Americans. Contemporary white residents of Minneapolis like to think their city never had formal segregation. But racial covenants did the work of Jim Crow in northern cities like Minneapolis.
This history has been willfully forgotten. So we created Mapping Prejudice to shed new light on these historic practices. We cannot address the inequities of the present without an understanding of the past."
- Mapping Prejudice
Visualizing the hidden histories of race and privilege in Minneapolis. This map shows how racial restrictions were embedded in the physical landscape of our community. Using racial covenants in Hennepin County property deeds, this site illuminates how much land was reserved for the exclusive use of white people for most of the twentieth century.
Streaming Documentaries and Video
- Kanopy StreamingVideo streaming platform hosting a wide variety of award-winning films and documentaries.
Includes documentary titles such as:
- PUSHOUT: The Criminalization Of Black Girls In Schools - Takes a deep dive into the lives of Black girls and the practices, cultural beliefs and policies that disrupt one of the most important factors in their lives - education.
- Slaying the Dragon - Media Stereotypes of Asian & Asian American Women
- I Am Not Your Negro - An Oscar-nominated documentary narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, it explores the continued peril America faces from institutionalized racism.
- Exterminate All the Brutes - An eye-opening journey through time, offering an incisive look at the history of European colonialism in Africa and the Americas.
- The Mask You Live In - Follows boys and young men as they struggle to stay true to themselves while negotiating America's narrow definition of masculinity.
- Whose Streets? - Told by the activists and leaders who live and breathe this movement for justice, it is an unflinching look at the Ferguson uprising.
- PBS Video Collection This link opens in a new windowPBS Video Collection: Fourth Edition provides access to more than 1,200 streaming videos, including the most valuable video documentaries and series from PBS on many topics, including art, science, history, business, and more.