Zuri Connection
We could not be more proud to be in the company of truly inspiring women who are working to make our world more equal and just. In a moment where we all must take action, we want to highlight some of the women in the Zuri community whose scholarship, creativity, and activism are enacting real, lasting change in dismantling structural racism in this country and around the world.
WHAT WE'RE WATCHING AND READING // How to Be Less Stupid About Race by Dr. Crystal Fleming
Dr. Crystal Fleming is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies at SUNY Stony Brook and author of How to Be Less Stupid About Race: On Racism, White Supremacy and the Racial Divide. We encourage you to watch this interview and to read her book. "To see all that we are still seeing in 2020, it should devastate you. It should make you question everything that you have been taught. It should make you question what it means to be a human being."
WHAT WE'RE LISTENING TO // Race, Power and Inequity in San Francisco with Shakirah Simley
Shakirah Simley is the Director of the Office of Racial Equity for the City and County of San Francisco. In this podcast she discusses the current state of equity and inequity in SF and the steps that the city is taking with consideration for SF's racial history towards meaningful change. We also encourage you to watch The Politics of Food presented by @AfroPunk and
@BlackFoodFolks in which Ms. Simley discusses the difference between being an ally and an accomplice and her own activism.
"Who are you showing up for? Are you showing up for you, or for the movement itself, or for the community? Decenter yourself in a way that connects the collaborative and the community versus the self... Our online activism has to be met with our offline action."
WHAT WE'RE WATCHING // Racism in Our Streets and Structures featuring Dr. Marcia Chatelain
We encourage you to watch this conversation featuring Dr. Marcia Chatelain, a provost's distinguished associate professor of history and African-American studies at Georgetown University. She is the author of South Side Girls: Growing Up in the Great Migration (2015) and an organizer of the #FergusonSyllabus.
"I want everyone to sit down with their local budget and look at how much money is going into policing, policing in schools, as well as how much money is being spent bringing in arms from the Department of Defense's program into their local policing and ask themselves if they want state violence to be done in their name."
WHAT WE'RE READING // Black Enough edited by Ibi Zoboi
Ibi Zoboi was a National Book Award finalist for her novel, American Street, and in her most recent work, Black Enough, she edits an anthology of stories about what it’s like to be young and Black in America. This young adult novel is ideal for 7th to 8th graders, and we encourage you to share it with the young readers in your life.
