This Guide was compiled early June 2020 in response to the current Black Lives Matter protests sweeping the nation. It is a work in progress, and will continue to add new content as it becomes available or is discovered. All materials are available to Rock Valley College students, faculty, and staff from off-campus.
If you have suggestions for more resources to include on this Guide, please email us with details and links for consideration.
Click on the title or cover of the book you wish to access, and then follow the prompt to log in with your RVC credentials. You will then be able to download or read the eBook in your browser. For assistance, you can chat with a librarian or email us.
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Once in a great while a book comes along that changes the way we see the world and helps to fuel a nationwide social movement. The New Jim Crow is such a book. Praised by Harvard Law professor Lani Guinier as'brave and bold,'this book directly challenges the notion that the election of Barack Obama signals a new era of colorblindness. With dazzling candor, legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues that'we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.'By targeting black men through the War on Drugs and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control—relegating millions to a permanent second-class status—even as it formally adheres to the principle of colorblindness. In the words of Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, this book is a'call to action.'Called'stunning'by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David Levering Lewis,'invaluable'by the Daily Kos,'explosive'by Kirkus, and'profoundly necessary'by the Miami Herald, this updated and revised paperback edition of The New Jim Crow, now with a foreword by Cornel West, is a must-read for all people of conscience.
Recent years have brought public mourning to the heart of American politics, as exemplified by the spread and power of the Black Lives Matter movement, which has gained force through its identification of pervasive social injustices with individual losses. The deaths of Sandra Bland, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, and so many others have brought private grief into the public sphere. The rhetoric and iconography of mourning has been noteworthy in Black Lives Matter protests, but David W. McIvor believes that we have paid too little attention to the nature of social mourning—its relationship to private grief, its practices, and its pathologies and democratic possibilities.In Mourning in America, McIvor addresses significant and urgent questions about how citizens can mourn traumatic events and enduring injustices in their communities. McIvor offers a framework for analyzing the politics of mourning, drawing from psychoanalysis, Greek tragedy, and scholarly discourses on truth and reconciliation. Mourning in America connects these literatures to ongoing activism surrounding racial injustice, and it contextualizes Black Lives Matter in the broader politics of grief and recognition. McIvor also examines recent, grassroots-organized truth and reconciliation processes such as the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2004–2006), which provided a public examination of the Greensboro Massacre of 1979—a deadly incident involving local members of the Communist Workers Party and the Ku Klux Klan.
The election of Barack Obama gave political currency to the (white) idea that Americans now live in a post-racial society. But the persistence of racial profiling, economic inequality between blacks and whites, disproportionate numbers of black prisoners, and disparities in health and access to healthcare suggest there is more to the story. David H. Ikard addresses these issues in an effort to give voice to the challenges faced by most African Americans and to make legible the shifting discourse of white supremacist ideology—including post-racialism and colorblind politics—that frustrates black self-determination, agency, and empowerment in the 21st century. Ikard tackles these concerns from various perspectives, chief among them black feminism. He argues that all oppressions (of race, gender, class, sexual orientation) intersect and must be confronted to upset the status quo.
While considerable attention has been given to encounters between black citizens and police in urban communities, there have been limited analyses of such encounters in suburban settings. Race, Place, and Suburban Policing tells the full story of social injustice, racialized policing, nationally profiled shootings, and the ambiguousness of black life in a suburban context. Through compelling interviews, participant observation, and field notes from a marginalized black enclave located in a predominately white suburb, Andrea S. Boyles examines a fraught police-citizen interface, where blacks are segregated and yet forced to negotiate overlapping spaces with their more affluent white counterparts.
The Design of Dissent is a global collection of socially and politically driven graphics on issues including Black Lives Matter, Trump protests, refugee crises, and the environment. Dissent is an essential part of keeping democratic societies healthy, and our ability as citizens to voice our opinions is not only our privilege, it is our responsibility. Most importantly, it is a human right, one which must be fervently fought for, protected, and defended. Many of the issues and conflicts visited in the first edition of this book remain vividly present today, as simmering, sometimes throbbing reminders of how the work of democracy and pace of social change is often incremental, requiring patience, diligence, hope, and the continuing brave voices of designers whose skillful imagery emboldens, invigorates, and girds us in the face of struggle. The 160+ new works in this edition document the Arab Spring, the Obama presidency, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, the election of Donald Trump, Putin's continuing influence, the Women's March, the ongoing refugee crises, immigration, environment and humanitarian issues, and much more. This powerful collection, totaling well over 550 images, stands not only as a testament to the power of design but as an urgent call to action.
In the United States, racial profiling affects thousands of Americans every day. Both individuals and institutions—such as law enforcement agencies, government bodies, and schools—routinely use race or ethnicity as grounds for suspecting someone of an offense. The high-profile deaths of unarmed people of color at the hands of police officers have brought renewed national attention to racial profiling and have inspired grassroots activism from groups such as Black Lives Matter. Combining rigorous research with powerful personal stories, this insightful title explores the history, the many manifestations, and the consequences of this form of social injustice.
Students of American history know of the law's critical role in systematizing a racial hierarchy in the United States. Showing that this history is best appreciated in a comparative perspective, The Long, Lingering Shadow looks at the parallel legal histories of race relations in the United States, Brazil, and Spanish America. Robert J. Cottrol takes the reader on a journey from the origins of New World slavery in colonial Latin America to current debates and litigation over affirmative action in Brazil and the United States, as well as contemporary struggles against racial discrimination and Afro-Latin invisibility in the Spanish-speaking nations of the hemisphere.Ranging across such topics as slavery, emancipation, scientific racism, immigration policies, racial classifications, and legal processes, Cottrol unravels a complex odyssey. By the eve of the Civil War, the U.S. slave system was rooted in a legal and cultural foundation of racial exclusion unmatched in the Western Hemisphere. That system's legacy was later echoed in Jim Crow, the practice of legally mandated segregation. Jim Crow in turn caused leading Latin Americans to regard their nations as models of racial equality because their laws did not mandate racial discrimination— a belief that masked very real patterns of racism throughout the Americas. And yet, Cottrol says, if the United States has had a history of more-rigid racial exclusion, since the Second World War it has also had a more thorough civil rights revolution, with significant legal victories over racial discrimination. Cottrol explores this remarkable transformation and shows how it is now inspiring civil rights activists throughout the Americas.
Both significant and timely, Blackhood Against the Police Power addresses the punishment of “race” and the disavowal of sexual violence central to the contemporary “post-racial” culture of politics. Here the author asserts that the post-racial presents an antiblack animus that should be read as desiring the end of blackness and the black liberation movement's singular ethical claims. The book redefines policing as a sociohistorical process of implementing antiblackness and, in so doing, redefines racism as an act of sexual violence that produces the punishment of race. It smartly critiques the way leading antiracist discourse is frequently complicit with antiblackness and recalls the original 1960s conception of black studies as a corrective to the deficiencies in today's critical discourse on race and sex. The book explores these lines of inquiry to pinpoint how the history of racial slavery wraps itself in a new discourse of disavowal. In this way, Blackhood Against the Police Power responds to a range of texts, policies, practices, and representations complicit with the police power—from the Fourth Amendment and the movements to curtail stop-and-frisk policing and mass incarceration to popular culture treatments of blackness to the leading academic discourses on race and sex politics.
The New Jim Crow by
Once in a great while a book comes along that changes the way we see the world and helps to fuel a nationwide social movement. The New Jim Crow is such a book. Praised by Harvard Law professor Lani Guinier as'brave and bold,'this book directly challenges the notion that the election of Barack Obama signals a new era of colorblindness. With dazzling candor, legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues that'we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.'By targeting black men through the War on Drugs and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control—relegating millions to a permanent second-class status—even as it formally adheres to the principle of colorblindness. In the words of Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, this book is a'call to action.'Called'stunning'by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David Levering Lewis,'invaluable'by the Daily Kos,'explosive'by Kirkus, and'profoundly necessary'by the Miami Herald, this updated and revised paperback edition of The New Jim Crow, now with a foreword by Cornel West, is a must-read for all people of conscience.
Blinded by the Whites by
The election of Barack Obama gave political currency to the (white) idea that Americans now live in a post-racial society. But the persistence of racial profiling, economic inequality between blacks and whites, disproportionate numbers of black prisoners, and disparities in health and access to healthcare suggest there is more to the story. David H. Ikard addresses these issues in an effort to give voice to the challenges faced by most African Americans and to make legible the shifting discourse of white supremacist ideology—including post-racialism and colorblind politics—that frustrates black self-determination, agency, and empowerment in the 21st century. Ikard tackles these concerns from various perspectives, chief among them black feminism. He argues that all oppressions (of race, gender, class, sexual orientation) intersect and must be confronted to upset the status quo.
Race, Place, and Suburban Policing by
While considerable attention has been given to encounters between black citizens and police in urban communities, there have been limited analyses of such encounters in suburban settings. Race, Place, and Suburban Policing tells the full story of social injustice, racialized policing, nationally profiled shootings, and the ambiguousness of black life in a suburban context. Through compelling interviews, participant observation, and field notes from a marginalized black enclave located in a predominately white suburb, Andrea S. Boyles examines a fraught police-citizen interface, where blacks are segregated and yet forced to negotiate overlapping spaces with their more affluent white counterparts.
Mourning in America by
Recent years have brought public mourning to the heart of American politics, as exemplified by the spread and power of the Black Lives Matter movement, which has gained force through its identification of pervasive social injustices with individual losses. The deaths of Sandra Bland, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, and so many others have brought private grief into the public sphere. The rhetoric and iconography of mourning has been noteworthy in Black Lives Matter protests, but David W. McIvor believes that we have paid too little attention to the nature of social mourning—its relationship to private grief, its practices, and its pathologies and democratic possibilities.In Mourning in America, McIvor addresses significant and urgent questions about how citizens can mourn traumatic events and enduring injustices in their communities. McIvor offers a framework for analyzing the politics of mourning, drawing from psychoanalysis, Greek tragedy, and scholarly discourses on truth and reconciliation. Mourning in America connects these literatures to ongoing activism surrounding racial injustice, and it contextualizes Black Lives Matter in the broader politics of grief and recognition. McIvor also examines recent, grassroots-organized truth and reconciliation processes such as the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2004–2006), which provided a public examination of the Greensboro Massacre of 1979—a deadly incident involving local members of the Communist Workers Party and the Ku Klux Klan.
The Design of Dissent, Expanded Edition by
The Design of Dissent is a global collection of socially and politically driven graphics on issues including Black Lives Matter, Trump protests, refugee crises, and the environment. Dissent is an essential part of keeping democratic societies healthy, and our ability as citizens to voice our opinions is not only our privilege, it is our responsibility. Most importantly, it is a human right, one which must be fervently fought for, protected, and defended. Many of the issues and conflicts visited in the first edition of this book remain vividly present today, as simmering, sometimes throbbing reminders of how the work of democracy and pace of social change is often incremental, requiring patience, diligence, hope, and the continuing brave voices of designers whose skillful imagery emboldens, invigorates, and girds us in the face of struggle. The 160+ new works in this edition document the Arab Spring, the Obama presidency, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, the election of Donald Trump, Putin's continuing influence, the Women's March, the ongoing refugee crises, immigration, environment and humanitarian issues, and much more. This powerful collection, totaling well over 550 images, stands not only as a testament to the power of design but as an urgent call to action.
Racial Profiling by
In the United States, racial profiling affects thousands of Americans every day. Both individuals and institutions—such as law enforcement agencies, government bodies, and schools—routinely use race or ethnicity as grounds for suspecting someone of an offense. The high-profile deaths of unarmed people of color at the hands of police officers have brought renewed national attention to racial profiling and have inspired grassroots activism from groups such as Black Lives Matter. Combining rigorous research with powerful personal stories, this insightful title explores the history, the many manifestations, and the consequences of this form of social injustice.
The Long, Lingering Shadow by
Students of American history know of the law's critical role in systematizing a racial hierarchy in the United States. Showing that this history is best appreciated in a comparative perspective, The Long, Lingering Shadow looks at the parallel legal histories of race relations in the United States, Brazil, and Spanish America. Robert J. Cottrol takes the reader on a journey from the origins of New World slavery in colonial Latin America to current debates and litigation over affirmative action in Brazil and the United States, as well as contemporary struggles against racial discrimination and Afro-Latin invisibility in the Spanish-speaking nations of the hemisphere.Ranging across such topics as slavery, emancipation, scientific racism, immigration policies, racial classifications, and legal processes, Cottrol unravels a complex odyssey. By the eve of the Civil War, the U.S. slave system was rooted in a legal and cultural foundation of racial exclusion unmatched in the Western Hemisphere. That system's legacy was later echoed in Jim Crow, the practice of legally mandated segregation. Jim Crow in turn caused leading Latin Americans to regard their nations as models of racial equality because their laws did not mandate racial discrimination— a belief that masked very real patterns of racism throughout the Americas. And yet, Cottrol says, if the United States has had a history of more-rigid racial exclusion, since the Second World War it has also had a more thorough civil rights revolution, with significant legal victories over racial discrimination. Cottrol explores this remarkable transformation and shows how it is now inspiring civil rights activists throughout the Americas.
Blackhood Against the Police Power by
Both significant and timely, Blackhood Against the Police Power addresses the punishment of “race” and the disavowal of sexual violence central to the contemporary “post-racial” culture of politics. Here the author asserts that the post-racial presents an antiblack animus that should be read as desiring the end of blackness and the black liberation movement's singular ethical claims. The book redefines policing as a sociohistorical process of implementing antiblackness and, in so doing, redefines racism as an act of sexual violence that produces the punishment of race. It smartly critiques the way leading antiracist discourse is frequently complicit with antiblackness and recalls the original 1960s conception of black studies as a corrective to the deficiencies in today's critical discourse on race and sex. The book explores these lines of inquiry to pinpoint how the history of racial slavery wraps itself in a new discourse of disavowal. In this way, Blackhood Against the Police Power responds to a range of texts, policies, practices, and representations complicit with the police power—from the Fourth Amendment and the movements to curtail stop-and-frisk policing and mass incarceration to popular culture treatments of blackness to the leading academic discourses on race and sex politics.