Our Mission:
The Antiracist Database aims to promote racial literacy and antiracist education by offering a large variety of tools and resources that can help us all to better ourselves, understand our privileges, dismantle white supremacy, and work towards racial justice.
What is Racial Literacy?
You may be wondering, what does it mean for something to be part of this category of ‘racial literacy’? When we say we provide resources for racial literacy, that really means anything that can help educate us about race, racism, whiteness, privilege, anti – racism, systemic racism, or the experiences of people of color in America. This grouping can include instructional books and resources, historical accounts of racism in the US and beyond, fiction that speaks to the very real experiences of people of color, or information transmitted through other media; as long as it can help someone understand their privilege, heritage, bias, misconceptions, or life experience, see the world through a new lens, get more comfortable talking about race, dismantle white supremacy, or learn to be an antiracist, it’s racial literacy.
What is Antiracism?
About Us:
The Vision:
The ultimate vision of the Antiracist Database is the cultivation of a community here in Portland, Oregon and beyond where everyone feels seen and heard and is treated with respect; where every individual actively and independently engages in antiracist education, helps others do do the same, and is driven to do so by their own eagerness to understand different perspectives; where we are all comfortable with being uncomfortable and having conversations about race; and where children, students, adults, legislators, and citizens alike are combatting racism on both a personal and an institutional level.
Navigating the Database:
As you will see, our resources are organized into age-based categories; Young Children (ages 1-5), Elementary School (ages 6-11), Middle School (ages 11-14), Adult/High School (ages 14+), and Parent/Educator. Keep in mind that the given ages are recommendations, and the depending on your reading level, some of the books listed in your age category may not necessarily be the right fit in terms of maturity or difficulty.
Each age category has a home page and a dropdown menu that has all our racial literacy resources organized by type (article, book, film, miscellaneous, podcast). You can use these tools to filter content and find racial literacy resources, or alternately, you can use the search bar, the ‘recent posts’ bar, or the tag cloud on the left side of your screen to look for specific topics and themes. Lastly, you can read through this ‘Home’ page for more information about the Antiracist Database, or visit the ‘Contribute’ tab to give our website Editors feedback, criticism, etc. and/or recommend more resources that you think should be added to the Database.
Sourcing Books:
Disclaimer: