Navigating Race & Identity

Resources for Navigating U.S. Social Justice Discourse

There are many different ways to learn about social justice discourse in the U.S., and we want to encourage you to make use of a variety of different forms of media, as they can all shed light on different aspects of the U.S. experience. 

This page is part of an ongoing initiative of the DEIB Fellow program and is still under construction.

Is about… Books
Non-Fiction (NF) & Fiction (F)		 Social Media Accounts Podcasts (P) or YouTube (Y) series Movies (M) & Documentaries (D) TV Shows Songs
general education Read this to get Smarter by Blair Imani (NF) Blair Imani Crooked History (P)   Taste the Nation  
  We Rise, We Resist, We Raise our Voices by Wade & Cheryl Willis Hudson (ed.) (NF) Jameela Jamil The United States of Anxiety (P) The Trial of the Chicago Seven (M)   “Where is the love?” - Black Eyed Peas
  Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond (NF) activistnyc The Diversity Gap (P)   Ugly Delicious Childish Gambino - “This is America”
race & racism The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander (NF) Rachel Cargle Pod Save the People (P) The 13th (D) Black-ish “Changes” - Tupac
  Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (NF) Asian Teen Activists Intersectionality Matters (P) The Hate U Give (M) When They See Us  “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman
  So you want to talk about race? by Ijeoma Oluo (NF) Ijeoma Oluo Code Switch (P) I Am Not Your Negro (D) Atlanta  
  When They Call You A Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Asha Bandele & Patrisse Cullors (NF)     Minari (M)    
  White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo (NF) Erynn Chambers   Passing (M) Dear White People  
  How to be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi (NF) Ibram X. Kendi   Selma (M)    
  Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston (NF)     If Beale Street Could Talk (M)    
    Roxane Gay   Malcom X (M)    
lgbtq+ community     LQBTQ&A (P) Carol (M) Pose “She keeps me warm” - Mary Lambert
      Making Gay History (P) Dallas Buyers Club (M)    
immigration Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie   Immigrantly (P) In the Heights (M)   “Immigrants (We get the job done)” - Residente, Snow Tha Product, K'naan, Riz Ahmed
  Ayiti by Roxane Gay (F)          
women’s rights Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit (NF)         “Let ‘em say” - Lizzo ft. Caroline Smith
  We Should All be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie         “Can’t Hold Us Down” - Christina Aguilera ft. Lil Kim
climate change   Xiye Bastida        
   
 		        
             

Additional Resources

Race, Identity & Difficult Conversations

On September 18, 2020, OISS organized a program called Navigating Race, Identity, and Difficult Conversations, featuring Ewurama Okai, an international Yale alumna and current PhD candidate at Northwestern University. Her presentation was followed by a panel discussion with current Yale international students, and the insights and personal experiences they shared were incredibly valuable. We encourage you to watch and listen to the recording and reach out to us if you have questions or ideas for follow-up programs related to this topic.

Black Lives Matter

The Office of International Students and Scholars stands with and in support of all Black communities, particularly our Black students, staff, faculty, and New Haven community members.

For many U.S. citizens and visitors this is an important time to explore the issues, reflect on our own backgrounds, and make efforts to learn about the lives of others. Below are a few resources (there are many more) to start your exploration, to consider (re-consider) events in New Haven and nationally and find ways to get involved and stay informed.

Resources

Regarding Anti-Asian Racism and COVID-19

Excerpted from the Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration (RITM)

As the public health crisis associated with the Coronavirus pandemic continues to unfold, there have been disturbing reports of an increase in anti-Asian, and particularly anti-Chinese hate crimes and harrassment, in communities across the United States, including here in New Haven. At this time of heightened individual and societal stress, we wish to reiterate their firm stance against all forms of racism and xenophobia, and to urge awareness of the relationship between recent developments and the longer history of “yellow peril” fear mongering in the US and elsewhere.

Recent statements by the Association for Asian American Studies and the President of the Association for Asian Studies contain useful resources both for those directly affected by harassment and those who are concerned about it. Please see RITM's statement for more information.

Land Acknowledgement

A Land Acknowledgment is a simple, powerful way of showing respect and a step toward correcting the stories and practices that erase Indigenous people’s history and culture and toward inviting and honoring the truth.

Yale University acknowledges that indigenous peoples and nations, including Mohegan, Mashantucket Pequot, Eastern Pequot, Schaghticoke, Golden Hill Paugussett, Niantic, and the Quinnipiac and other Algonquian speaking peoples, have stewarded through generations the lands and waterways of what is now the state of Connecticut. We honor and respect the enduring relationship that exists between these peoples and nations and this land.

Whose land are you on?