21 Day Challenge
The Challenge Starts June 23, 2020
Take the 21-Day Racial Equity Habit-Building Challenge
The Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association invites our members and anyone in the general public to join us on a 21-day quest to explore and deepen our awareness and engagement in issues of racial equity (with full credit to the Bar Association of San Francisco, upon whose work we have built in issuing the CMBA’s challenge).
To accept the challenge, simply commit to the reading/viewing option(s) listed each day in the following curriculum, consisting of articles, podcasts, or videos aimed at deepening our understanding of inequity issues, from microaggressions to systemic racism. When you accept the challenge between now and July 31, 2020, we invite you to share your commitment with co-workers, friends and family as a way to encourage others to follow your lead.
Action stems from understanding; it is our belief that anti-racism education will lead to anti-racism efforts. To our Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) members, we acknowledge that your lived experience has already familiarized you with the information here, and hope you will continue to lead and share resources and feedback that will shape this discussion for years to come.
The syllabus, curated by the Bar Association of San Francisco’s Leaders Circle and supplemented by the CMBA, focuses on the experiences of Black Americans and serves as an introduction to further exploration. The syllabus and the challenge have since been shared widely across the legal community nationwide.
We are excited to join you on this journey: we hope it will spark conversations, insights, and new questions, as we continue our work, as individuals and your local Bar, towards anti-racism, fairness, and equity.
At the conclusion of the challenge, we will ask you to take this pledge:
- To continue good faith efforts in understanding the perspectives of those different than ourselves;
- For those of us in positions of privilege: To commit to seeking further anti-racism resources, understanding it is our responsibility to educate ourselves, and not that of BIPOC friends, families, and community leaders to undertake our education unless they so choose;
- To uplift and signal-boost the voices of those experiencing racism, following their leadership as experts;
- To commit to further understanding the role systemic racism plays in our lives, our communities, and the legal profession; and
- To commit to long-term anti-racism efforts in the ways that best suit our abilities and resources.
Let's get to the root of racial injustice, Megan Ming Francis, TEDTalks (March 21, 2016)
America Wasn’t a Democracy, Until Black Americans Made It One, Nikole Hannah-Jones, The New York Times (Aug. 14, 2019); PDF version
On What Well Meaning White People Need To Know About Race: An interview with Harvard University-trained public defense lawyer Bryan Stevenson on racial trauma, segregation, and listening to marginalized voices, James McWilliams, Bryan Stevenson, Pacific Standard (updated Feb 18, 2019)
How microaggressions are like mosquito bites, Same Difference (Oct. 5, 2016)
63 Black Harvard Students Share Their Experiences In A Powerful Photo Project, Ali Vingiano, BuzzFeed (March 3, 2014)
Your Black Colleagues May Look Like They Are Okay – Chances Are They Are Not, Danielle Cadet, Refinery29.com, (May 2020)
A Sociologist Examines The “White Fragility” That Prevents White Americans From Confronting Racism, Katy Waldman, New Yorker (July 23, 2018)
‘The direct result of racism’: Covid-19 lays bare how discrimination drives health disparities among Black people, Meghana Keshavan, Stat News (June 9, 2020)
What Serena Williams’s scary childbirth story says about medical treatment of black women, P.R. Lockhart, Vox (Jan. 11, 2018)
Implicit Association Test (IAT), Project Implicit
(This exercise requires navigating the sign up for the tests, which includes answering a series of questions for the researchers, but it is recommended that everyone do at least these tests: Race, Skin Tone, and Weapons-Race. Also, everyone is encouraged to add these tests if you are able: Asian American, Native American, and Arab-Muslim.)
How to Not (Accidentally) Raise a Racist, Longest Shortest Time Podcast
Want To Have Better Conversations About Racism With Your Parents? Here's How Life Kit, Sarah McCammon, NPR (June 15, 2020)
The Inheritance of Black Poverty: It’s All About the Men, Scott Winship, Richard V. Reeves, and Katherine Guyot, Brookings (March 22, 2018)
More than 50% of homeless families are black, government report finds, Karma Allen, ABCNews (Jan. 22, 2020)
Black Art is dangerous because it marries the personal and the political, Hannah Giorgis, The Guardian (Feb. 22, 2015)
"We can't recover from this history until we deal with it." legacy of slavery and the vision for creating the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and The Legacy Museum, Bryan Stevenson, Harvard Law School, YouTube (Jan 30, 2019)
What is Misogynoir? VERVE Team (Sep 4, 2018)
Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls Childhood, Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality (June 27, 2017)
How Black Girls Aren’t Presumed to Be Innocent: A new study finds that adults view them as less child-like and less in need of protection than their white peers, Adrienne Green, The Atlantic (June 29, 2017)Perspectives in Poetry (click on author’s name for bio)
- Richard Wright, "Between the World and Me"
- Langston Hughes, "Harlem"
- June Jordan, "Poem for Ms. Fannie Lou Hamer"
- Audre Lorde, "Who Said it Was Simple"
- Claudia Rankine, "You are in the dark, in the car . . ."
- Alice Walker, "The World Rising"
Perspectives on Change
- The Beatles – Revolution #1 v. Nina Simone – Revolutions 1 and 2 & Mississippi Goddam
White gay privilege exists all year, but it is particularly hurtful during Pride, George Johnson, NBC News (June 30, 2019)
Talks about Intersectionality at Harvard (Video clips), Laverne Cox (March 11, 2014)
Black Trans Lives Matter, D-L Stewart, TEDxTalks (April 22, 2019)How Long ‘Til Black Future Month? The Toxins of Speculative Fiction, and the Antidote that Is Janelle Monae, N. K. Jemisin, (Sept. 30, 2013)
9 Phrases Allies Can Say When Called Out Instead of Getting Defensive, Sam Dylan Finch, Everyday Feminism (May 29, 2017)
4 Questions About Hair that Black Girls Are Tired of Answering, Jolie A. Doggett, HuffPost (Feb. 14, 2020)
Hair Love, Oscar®-Winning Short Film (Full), Sony Pictures Animation (Dec. 5, 2019)
Colorism (History, Facts, and Videos), National Conference for Community and Justice
Why Some Black Puerto Ricans Choose ‘White’ on the Census: The island has a long history of encouraging residents to identify as white, but there are growing efforts to raise awareness about racism, Natasha S. Alford, The New York Times (Feb. 9, 2020)
How to Convince a White Realtor You’re Middle Class, Karyn Lacy, New York Times (Jan. 21, 2020)
Who is "Karen" and Why Does She Keep Calling the Police on Black Men? On the Media (Podcast) (May 29, 2020)
Extra Resources
- Talking About Race - The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture today launched Talking About Race, a new online portal designed to help individuals, families, and communities talk about racism, racial identity and the way these forces shape every aspect of society, from the economy and politics to the broader American culture.
- Critical Racial and Social Justice Education: List of Resources, Robin DiAngelo, Ph.D.
- How to Overcome Our Biases? Walk Boldly Toward Them, Verna Myers, TED Talk (Dec. 15, 2014)
- Seeing White, John Biewen (14-part series podcast, 2017)
- Your Unconscious Bias Trainings Keep Failing Because You’re Not Addressing Systemic Bias, Janice Gassam, Forbes (Dec. 29, 2019)
- How to Be a Better White Person in 2020, Michael Harriott, The Root (Jan 9, 2020)
- The Anti-Racist Starter Pack: 40 TV Series, Documentaries, Movies, TED Talks, and Books to Add to Your List, Brea Baker