Being a Madisonian
How to start being a more inclusive progressive white citizen
- Educate yourself about your own race and your own racial story. This is a continuous process
- Educate yourself about the histories of other races, especially in relation to white supremacy
- Change your regular routines to include businesses, churches, community centers, shopping areas that are not filled with people who look like you; Take the bus; sit next to someone who doesn’t look like you
- Join a movement such as Justified Anger and be a regular member
- Volunteer
- Change your information-gathering routines; choose ethnic media, follow sources such as Madison365; listen to podcasts such as NPR’s CodeSwtich
- Be constantly vigilant and brutally honest when your biases rear
- Read widely, especially books and essays by authors of color
- Expand your social circles, and make race a frequent conversation; listen to as many voices as possible (lean in)
- In your personal and professional life, act with a racial consciousness and a keen sense of equity. Step aside so others who have been marginalized can gain power. Give others a boost when you can. Speak out when you see inequities at work. Vote for people of color, even if their principles do not always align with yours.
Workshops/Conferences
- YWCA Racial Justice Workshops (Madison)
- YWCA Racial Justice Summit (Madison in Fall)
- Madison, WI Institute for the Healing of Racism (Madison, Fall/Spring)
- University of Wisconsin-Madison’ annual Diversity Forums (Fall)
- White Privilege Conference (National in Spring)
- YWCA Racial Justice Workshops (Madison)
- YWCA Racial Justice Summit (Madison in Fall)
- Madison, WI Institute for the Healing of Racism (Madison, Fall/Spring)
- University of Wisconsin-Madison’ annual Diversity Forums (Fall)
- White Privilege Conference (National in Spring)
Books, Essays, Reports
- “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh
- Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
- The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
- Racing to Justice: Transforming our Conceptions of Self and other to Build and Inclusive Society by John Powell
- Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Deep Diversity: Overcoming Us versus Them by Shakil Choudhury
- Courageous Conversations About Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools by Glenn Singleton
- Evicted: Poverty and Profit by Matthew Desmond
- To Kill the Mockingbird and the sequel Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
- “Race to Equity” Reports by the Wisconsin Council on Families and Children
- The Birth of a Nation
- Boyz N the Hood
- A Raisin in the Sun
- The Butler
- The Help
- Anything by Spike Lee
Movies, Documentaries
- 13th
- 12 Years a Slave
- Dear White People
- Selma
- Get Out