As a Jesuit institution, Loyola University Chicago Libraries is committed to provide services that promote social justice. The abuses perpetrated by the nations police continue to lead to an unprecedented number of wrongful killings of people of color. It is our duty to educate ourselves and our community on race and anti-racism.
The University Libraries developed a research guide to facilitate our pursuit to dismantle systemic racism. The list includes resources available in the library collection on the topics of race, politics, economics, education, and justice. We are asking our community to use this guide and make suggestions. Please email Niamh McGuigan at nmcguigan@luc.edu with your requests.
Here are a few examples:
From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation by Keeang-Yamahtta Taylor
“The eruption of mass protests in the wake of
the police murders of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in
New York City have challenged the impunity with which officers of the law carry
out violence against Black people and punctured the illusion of a postracial
America. The Black Lives Matter movement has awakened a new generation of
activists.
In this stirring and insightful analysis,
activist and scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor surveys the historical and
contemporary ravages of racism and persistence of structural inequality such as
mass incarceration and Black unemployment. In this context, she argues that
this new struggle against police violence holds the potential to reignite a
broader push for Black liberation.” –Good Reads
The New Jim Crow: mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
“As the United States celebrates the nation’s “triumph over race” with the election of Barack Obama, the majority of young black men in major American cities are locked behind bars or have been labeled felons for life. Although Jim Crow laws have been wiped off the books, an astounding percentage of the African American community remains trapped in a subordinate status–much like their grandparents before them.
In this incisive critique, former litigator-turned-legal-scholar Michelle Alexander provocatively argues that we have not ended racial caste in America: we have simply redesigned it. Alexander shows that, by targeting black men and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control, even as it formally adheres to the principle of color blindness. The New Jim Crow challenges the civil rights community–and all of us–to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America.” –Good Reads
