The Berklee Faculty Union Anti-Racism Committee (ARC)

Members:

Chair, Prince Charles Alexander - BFU Grievance Officer

Alicia Bower - BFU Division Representative

Vanessa Morris - BFU Office Manager

Paul Masters - BFU Division Representative

Statement of Purpose:

ARC oversees the implementation of anti-racism in consideration of college curriculum, college reports, individual complaints, inter-college complaints, early-warning and urgent procedures, as well as its preparation of general comments, recommendations and thematic discussions for the Berklee Faculty Union.

  • ARC is charged with aligning the Berklee Faculty Union's programs, policies, and practices within a racial justice and health equity framework.

  • ARC provides opportunities for personal and professional learning and growth of all faculty, focusing on racial justice and health equity through resources and events.

  • ARC works to expose racism in our communities, and that it can, and should no longer be ignored or tolerated, and must be eliminated.

  • Support and encouragement for financial and other investments in efforts, programs, and strategies to address racism.

  • Protecting our educational community from overt and covert racism.

  • Sharing Black faculty experiences and their correlation to other faculty experiences. 

  • Educate faculty on anti-racism.

  • Exploring structural parts of the institution including contract language and college wide communication.

  • ARC believes that racism affects everyone. We will address the intersectionality of race, gender and class as they relate to Berklee faculty, students, staff and administration. While our work will begin with the black and brown experiences at Berklee, our concern extends to all disenfranchised parties within our communities.

Resources

  • James Baldwin Quotes: https://cassiuslife.com/37255/quotes-james-baldwin-i-am-not-your-negro/

  • Jane Elliott: Brown Eyes and Blue Eyes Racism Experiment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGvoXeXCoUY

  • Dr. Robin DiAngelo: White Fragility https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45ey4jgoxeU

  • Dr. Joy DeGruy Leary: Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGjSday7f_8

  • Black Composers https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/03/arts/music/black-composers-classical-music.html?smid=em-share

  • https://www.npr.org/2020/06/12/876073130/the-air-we-breathe-implicit-bias-and-police-shootings    

  • This podcast taught me so much about how pervasive implicit bias is, and how it can affect whole communities.  

  • https://www.tnqshow.com/watch

  • The Next Question with Austin Channing Brown- I have binge watched all these episodes in the two days since I first discovered it! 

  • https://brenebrown.com/podcast/brene-with-ibram-x-kendi-on-how-to-be-an-antiracist/ 

  • Ibram X Kendi’s work on Antiracism is crucial- plus he will be at BU next year- I wonder if we could get him to come to Berklee to speak? 

  • https://omny.fm/shows/stay-tuned-with-preet/stay-tuned-karen-attiah-full-mix-v1-1       

  • Anything Karen Attiah says.... 

  • Obviously I listen to a lot of podcasts. But here’s a book that completely changed my understanding of the experience of post-emancipation Black America:   

  • Isabel Wilkerson The Warmth of Other Suns  

  • Alcoff, Linda, The Future of Whiteness (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2015).

  • Anderson, Carol, White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016).

  • Baptist, Edward, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism (New York: Basic Books, 2014).

  • Billings, David, Deep Denial: The Persistence of White Supremacy in United States History and Life(Roselle, NJ: Crandall, Dostie & Douglass Books, 2016).

  • Brodkin, Karen, How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America, (Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2010).

  • Browning, Christopher, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland(New York: HarperPerennial, 1992). 

  • Burley, Shane, Fascism Today: What It is and How to End It (Chico, CA: AK Press, 2017).

  • Center for Democratic Renewal, When Hate Groups Come to Town: A Handbook of Effective Community Responses (Atlanta: CDR, 1992).

  • Diamond, Sarah, Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States(New York: Guilford Press, 1995).

  • Gross, Bertram, Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1980).

  • Guo, Winona and Vulchi, Priya, Tell Me Who You Are: Sharing Our Stories of Race, Culture, & Identity(New York: Random House, 2019).

  • Hardisty, Jean, Mobilizing Resentment: Conservative Resurgence from the John Birch Society to the Promise Keepers, (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1999). 

  • Hartmann, Betsy, The America Syndrome: Apocalypse, War, and Our Call to Greatness, (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2017).

  • Irving, Debby, Waking Up White and Finding Myself in the Story of Race, (Cambridge, MA: Elephant Room Press, 2014).

  • Jacobson, Matthew Frye, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race(Boston: Harvard University Press, 1999).

  • Jardina, Ashley, White Identity Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019).

  • Jones, Martha S., Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America (New York:Cambridge University Press, 2018).

  • Kendi, Ibram X., Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America (NewYork: Nation Books, 2016).

  • Kincheloe, Joe L.; Steinberg, Shirley R.; Rodriguez, Nelson M.; and Chennault, Ronald E., White Reign: Deploying Whiteness in America (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998).

  • King, C. Richard and David Leonard, Beyond Hate: White Power and Popular Culture, (New York:Routledge Press, 2014).

  • Kivel, Paul, Living in the Shadow of the Cross: Understanding and Resisting the Power and Privilege of Christian Hegemony (BC, Canada: New Society Publishers, 2013).

  • Lipstadt, Deborah, Anti-Semitism Here and Now (London, UK: Scribe Publications, 2019).

  • Lyons, Matthew N. Insurgent Supremacists: The U.S. Far Right’s Challenge to State and Empire(Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2018).

  • MacLean, Nancy, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America (New York: Viking Press, 2017).

  • Metzl, Jonathan, Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing American’s Heartland (New York: Basic Books, 2019).

  • Mills, Charles, The Racial Contract (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997).

  • Neiwert, David, Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump (Brooklyn, NY: Verso Press, 2017).

  • Oluo, Ijeoma, So You Want to Talk About Race (New York: Hatchette Press, 2018). powell, john a., Racing to Justice: Transforming Our Conceptions of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2012).

  • Roediger, David, Class, Race and Marxism (London: Verso Press, 2017).

  • Roediger, David, Working Towards Whiteness: How America’s Immigrants Became White, (New York: Basic Books, 2005).

  • Ross, Loretta J.; Roberts, Lynn; Derkas, Erika; Peoples, Whitney; and Bridgewater-Toure, Pamela, Radical Reproductive Justice: Foundations, Theory, Practice, Critique (New York: Feminist Press, 2017).

  • Sanders, Ronald, Lost Tribes and Promised Lands: The Origins of American Racism (New York:HarperPerennial, 1992 ed.).

  • Self, Robert O. All in the Family: The Realignment of American Democracy Since the 1960s, (New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 2012).

  • Snyder, Timothy. Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning (New York, NY: Tim Duggan Books, 2015).

  • Solomon, Akiba and Rankin, Kenrya, How We Fight White Supremacy (New York: Bold Type Books, 2019).

  • Stern, Alexandra Minna, Proud Boys and the White Ethnostate: How the Alt-Right in Warping the American Imagination (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2019).

  • Zeskind, Leonard, Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2009)

  • 44 Mental Health Resources for Black People Trying to Survive in This Country
    Because we need and deserve support. Read in SELF: https://apple.news/Ad9K6krZ4T3qryDZOpfz0Dg

  • Ways You Can Support the Black LGBTQ+ Community For Pride Month and beyond. Read in The Cut: https://apple.news/AK2lIlP8BRH2o2K-xiBjjTA

  • The World's Most Basic Guide to Contacting Your Reps If you want to take action against police brutality, this is an easy place to start. Read in VICE: https://apple.news/Aq4auleB1RXykGTyFKC4uDA

  • How to Support the Struggle Against Police Brutality Organizations to donate to, and other actions to take to help demand justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other victims of police violence. Read in The Cut: https://apple.news/A7EO3tgpsTLu672RKH67mfg

  • Toni Morrison The Bluest Eye

  • bell hooks Talking Back

  • bell hooks and Cornel West Breaking Bread

  • Audre Lorde Sister Outsider

  • Ann Petry The Street

  • James Baldwin The Invisible Man and Going to Meet the Man

  • W.E.B. Dubois Dusk of Dawn

  • Zora Neale Hurston There Eyes are Watching God

  • Zora Neale Hurston Sula

  • Alice Walker The Color Purple and In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens

  • Black Voices: An Anthology of Afro-American Literature

Quotes

“There are days—this is one of them—when you wonder what your role is in this country and what your future is in it. How, precisely, are you going to reconcile yourself to your situation here and how you are going to communicate to the vast, heedless, unthinking, cruel white majority that you are here. I’m terrified at the moral apathy, the death of the heart, which is happening in my country. These people have deluded themselves for so long that they really don’t think I’m human. And I base this on their conduct, not on what they say. And this means that they have become in themselves moral monsters.”
— James Baldwin
“The ultimate effectiveness (power) of any group of people is the degree to which they have an awareness of who they are and respect for themselves. The instruments that facilitate this development are education, cultural images and celebrations that build a shared aesthetic, role models and the projection of cultural heroes and heroines.”
— Na'im akbar, How To Make Black America Better
“Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”
— Rep. John Lewis
“There is no need for conversation, only justice”
— Alex V. Green
“In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist. We must be anti-racist.”
— Angela Davis
“Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future, and renders the present inaccessible.”
— Maya Angelou
“To bring about change, you must not be afraid to take the first step. We will fail when we fail to try.”
— Rosa Parks
“Activism is my rent for living on the planet.”
— Alice Walker

The Paradoxical Commandments

by Dr. Kent M. Keith

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.

© Copyright Kent M. Keith 1968, renewed 2001