About this Page
This page contains resources that are conducive to assigning in coursework. Annotations by members of the Anti-Racist Pedagogy Organizing Committee and by additional librarians.
Histories of White Supremacy
Blood in the Face: The Ku Klux Klan, Aryan nations, Nazi skinheads, and the rise of a new white culture by Publication Date: 1991Ridgeway's book was released in conjunction with the documentary of the same name [also available at USC Libraries], and like the documentary, chronicles post-WWII white supremacist movements. Readable and highly teachable, Blood in the Face offers a journalistic glimpse into the inner psychic life of neo-Nazism.
(Annotation by member of ARPC)
The Mismeasure of Man by Publication Date: 1981Gould, an evolutionary biologist and dedicated leftist, takes aim at notions of "scientific" racism. While many in the humanities emphasize how scientific discourse helps condition notions of white supremacy, Gould insists that it is only a perversion of scientific discourse - the intentional misreading of data - that leads to the fallacious connection between IQ and race. Since so much of alt-right ideology is based on notions of white intellectual superiority, Gould's study is useful for revealing the big lie subtending racialist biology's boldest claims.
v- The Production of Difference byPublication Date: 2012Esch & Roediger offer a sweeping history of the strategies employed by management to spur divisions among working people. Each chapter is an essay related to the larger theme, making this an ideal book to excerpt for students as a supplement to a primary cultural text. Includes chapters on early divisions among black, white, and indigenous laborers; boss-induced xenophobia's role in spurring racial division; and a theoretical overview of "Race in the History of U.S. Management."
(Annotation by member of ARPC) - Night Riders in Black Folk History byPublication Date: 2001Gladys-Marie Fry collects oral and written testimonies of former slaves concerning white terror from the antebellum period to the mid-20th century. Of particular interest for our own moment is her probing chapter on "The Reconstruction of the Ku Klux Klan" (pp. 110-147).
(Annotation by member of ARPC) - The Rise and Fall of the White Republic: Class politics and mass culture in nineteenth-century America byPublication Date: 2003Saxton's classic study, first published in 1990, interrogates the long histories of herrenvolk ideology in the U.S. His chapter on "Class Organization in a Racially Segmented Labor Force" (pp. 293-320) sheds light on how the so-called "white working class" came to throw alliances with fellow workers of color under the bus in favor of white supremacy. Saxton's style is dense, making this text more appropriate for an upper division or graduate seminar than a general education or survey course. Also of interest is Saxton's 1971 study The Indispensable Enemy: Labor ant the Anti-Chinese Movement in California, a startling history of white labor's long history of sinophobia.
(Annotation by member of ARPC)
Sources on Systemic Oppression
- Citizen byCall Number: PS3568.A572 C58 2014 (Doheny)Publication Date: 2014This award-winning hybrid manuscript is remarkable for many reasons, including the second person throughout, consistently placing "you" (the reader) in the place of a black person facing microaggression after microaggression.
(Annotation by member of ARPC)
- Crenshaw, Kimberlé. "Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color." Stanford Law Review, 1993.While this certainly is an extensive and at times dense law article, Crenshaw's essay coined the term "intersectionality," and provides chilling numbers about the justice system's response to violence against women of color in the United States.
(Annotation by member of ARPC) - DiAngelo, Robin. "White Fragility." International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, 2011.This very readable article breaks down the reasons white persons are particularly averse to facing their implication in cultural hegemony and recognizing the danger of complacency.
(Annotation by member of ARPC) - Lorde, Audre. "The Uses of Anger." Reprinted in Women's Studies Quarterly, 1997.A touchstone of intersectional feminism, this article illustrates with first-person account issues regarding white feminists and the censoring of women of color(s)' oppression.
(Annotation by member of ARPC)
Film, TV, and Media Resources
- 13th (Dir. Ava DuVernay, 2016)DuVernay's searing documentary details the collapse of Reconstruction, the establishment of Jim Crow laws, and the current crisis of our carceral state.
- Birth of a Nation (Dir. D.W. Griffith, 1915)Griffith's film remains a major touchstone for white supremacist symbology and helped to inspire the resurgence of the Klan in the 1920s.
- Blood in the Face (Dir. Anne Bohlen, 1991)Filmmakers attend a white nationalist summit in Michigan and use it as an opportunity to explore the history of neo-Nazism after WWII.
- Code Switch (NPR blog/podcast)"We're a team of journalists fascinated by the overlapping themes of race, ethnicity and culture, how they play out in our lives and communities, and how all of this is shifting. "
- The Color of Fear (dir. Lee Mun Wah)"A film about the pain and anguish that racism has caused in the lives of eight North American men of Asian, European, Latino, and African descent. Out of their confrontations and struggles to understand and trust each other emerges an emotional and insightful portrayal into the type of dialogue most of us fear, but hope will happen sometime in our lifetime."
- "Dinner Discussion" (Saturday Night Live)"A woman (Heidi Gardner) at dinner with friends (Will Ferrell, Beck Bennett, Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant, Kenan Thompson) dares to bring up the sexual misconduct allegations against Aziz Ansari."
- The First Time I Realized I was BlackA video series from CNN, which describes the project this way: "In "The Souls of Black Folk," W.E.B. Du Bois talks about the first time he realized his skin color made him different. We asked celebrities, CNN anchors and reporters, and others to tell us when they first realized that being black affected how people treated them."
- I Am Not Your Negro (Dir. Raoul Peck, 2016)"Using James Baldwin's unfinished final manuscript, Remember This House, this documentary follows the lives and successive assassinations of three of the author's friends, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., delving into the legacy of these iconic figures and narrating historic events using Baldwin's original words and a flood of rich archival material. An up-to-the-minute examination of race in America, this film is a journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of #BlackLivesMatter."
(Link is to Kanopy streaming service; look up film's title from there.) - Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. (Dir. Errol Morris, 1999)Morris interviews Holocaust denier Fred Leuchter, a bizarre character whose faulty science led to a trial in Canada, which is documented in the film.
- Race: The Power of an Illusion (Dir. various, 2003)A 4-part documentary that investigates race in society, science, and history.
- Welcome to Leith (DIr. Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker, 2015)When white supremacists attempt to take over a small town in rural North Dakota, a multiracial and gender inclusive group of citizens put up an inspirational fight.