RESI Curated Library
We invite you to explore this carefully curated library of relevant resources on racial equity and social impact. These resources are intended to encourage inner reflection and dialogue around race equity and social justice, as well as foster a greater understanding of the historic implications and current challenges we face in our places of business, communities, and nation. Whether you are a C-Suite executive, a team leader or manager, or a front-line worker, there is something for everyone. This content is updated regularly so please check back often.
Color Coded Catalog KEY
C-Suite
The C-Suite assets are best suited for the executive suite! For the CEOs, CIOS, CFOs, and vice president levels. These curated resources are selected with a visionary in mind, one who seeks to impact strategy. With a strategic vision and impact in mind, there is a focus on Black scholarly work and perspective as well as business insights to guide executive decision making and to lead cultural shifts within an organization.
Manager
Managerial assets are best suited for managers and other leaders. The curated resources focus on best practices, key concepts in the racial equity dialogue, insights from DEI practitioners, to increase your racial equity awareness, knowledge and skills as a people manager to build a more inclusive and diverse work culture.
Individual
Individual assets are best suited for individual contributors in the workplace or simply anyone else who wants to learn more about building a more equitable society. We have included poems, novels, award winning literature from Black authors and general guidelines to understanding racism.
Catalog
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Videos
RESI, Session 1: Exploring the Intersections of Business & Community
RESI, Session 2: Race & Women in the Workplace.
Articles
Towards a racially just workplace
BY: Laura Morgan Roberts & Anthony Mayo
The authors call on leaders who want" to walk their talk, and spearhead much more meaningful change. Instead of undervaluing and squandering black talent, they must recognize the resilience, robust sense of self, and growth mindset that studies show, African-American people — as one of the most historically oppressed groups in the United States — bring to the table."The authors provide insights into wealth gaps between Black-and-white family income. The authors also make the case for “the illusion of inclusion.” The authors provide insights into the research with a four-step strategy to help companies move toward greater and better representation of black leaders. It involves shifting from an exclusive focus on the business case for racial diversity to (a) embracing the moral one, (b) promoting real conversations about race,(c) revamping diversity and inclusion programs, and (d) better managing career development at every stage. The article provides data revealing workplace racial inequities and the Black professional experience.
Companies promised diversity, but their boards are still predominantly White and male
The New York Times
"After Black Lives Matter protests last year and an economic crisis that disproportionately sidelined women, corporate America vowed to be more inclusive.... But in corporate boardrooms, little has changed. Boards have been, and continue to be, predominantly male and white, according to a new study that will be released on Tuesday.
The Economic Impact of Closing the Racial Wealth Gap
BY: Nick Noel, Duwain Pinder, Shelley Stewart, and Jason Wright
"There is a wide and persistent gap between white and black families...The widening racial wealth gap disadvantages black families, individuals, and communities and limits black citizens’ economic power and prospects, and the effects are cyclical. Such a gap contributes to intergenerational economic precariousness: almost 70 percent of middle-class black children are likely to fall out of the middle class as adults."
80+ Diversity Statistics in the workplace you should know
BY: Bailey Reiners
“Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace are arguably two of the most highly discussed and debated topics in the HR and recruiting realm. Companies are asking questions like 'what really is diversity?' and 'how does building a diverse and inclusive workplace impact business?’” Built In has got the answers for you.
Addressing diversity and inclusion: going beyond the benchmark
BY: Oracle Cloud HCM
"While the topic of diversity and inclusion (D&I) isn’t new, 2020 was a wake-up call for companies to reexamine their D&I initiatives. Advancing workplace diversity is more important today than ever before. Consumers are taking their business to companies with a proven commitment to D&I. A growing number of laws and requirements are being enacted to support greater diversity in the workplace.
Employees are looking to leadership to make a difference. Organizations must evolve or risk a shrinking candidate pool, reduced market share, and ultimately, lost profitability"
Being black in corporate America
BY: Center for Talent Innovation
Being Black in corporate America provides insights for managers on research data findings on Black professionals representation in leadership roles and how that is still lagging. The article presents data on access of Black professionals to senior management, their reporting of having experienced prejudice at work across the United States, and the wide gap between their ambitions and aspirations and a system that does not foster their realization. Findings also illustrate the level of frustration of Black professional millennials compared to older generations in relation to their experiences at work.
What Exclusive leadership Sounds Like
BY: Harvard Business Review
In their recent study, the authors applied a combination of computational linguistics, vocal mapping, and facial micro-expression analysis to determine what truly makes a leader inclusive in the eyes of an audience. Here they provide three behaviors that can be learned, practiced, and mastered. These insights could provide managers of how everyday communication in inclusive style looks like.
explaining White privilege to a broke white person
BY: Center for Talent Innovation
Being Black in corporate America provides insights for managers on research data findings on Black professionals representation in leadership roles and how that is still lagging. Presents data on access of Black professionals to senior management, their reporting of having experienced prejudice at work across the United States. Findings also illustrate the level of frustration of Black professional millennials compared to older generations in relation to their experiences at work.
Book selections
How to be an Antiracist
By Kendi, I. X. ⎮ United states: One World, 2019
This book of choice for the C-Suite executive reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism through a transformative concept of anti-racism and, even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. Dr. Kendi makes the argument that we are either racist or anti-racist and there is nothing in between. How to Be an Antiracist, in which one of the US’s most respected scholars of race and history steps away from documenting the racist sins of others, and turns the lens pointedly, uncomfortably, at himself thus inviting the notion to look inside one's own internal thoughts and biases. In similar vein, it invites retrospection and reflection on systemic racism in corporate America.
Stranger in the Village (essay)
By James Baldwin (from his book "Notes of a Native Son")
Baldwin offers a counter-narrative to the mainstream account of the relationship between Europe and America. The prevailing narrative of American history focuses on the experience of the settlers, who—facing persecution in Europe—fled to America in order to found a new country based on principles of freedom, equality, and democracy. However, Baldwin suggests that the more important account of the emergence of the United States should focus on the transmission of white supremacy from Europe into this new land. This is, after all, the only narrative that factors in the stories of all Americans, not just white people. This choice provides insights into racial dominance and historical insights that explain system racial inequities today.
The Water Dancer
Ta-Nehisi Coates ⎮ Hamish Hamilton, 2020
The Water Dancer is the story of America’s oldest struggle–the struggle to tell the truth. This is a vision of the world of slavery, written with the narrative force of a great adventure. Driven by the author’s bold imagination and striking ability to bring readers deep into the interior lives of his brilliantly rendered characters. It allows one to experience an alternative world through historically inspired characters.
Caste: the Origin of our Discontents
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is a nonfiction book by the American journalist Isabel Wilkerson, published in August 2020 by Random House. The book describes racism in the United States as an aspect of a caste system – a society-wide system of social stratification characterized by notions such as hierarchy, inclusion and exclusion, and purity. Wilkerson does so by comparing aspects of the experience of American people of color to the caste systems of India and Nazi Germany, and she explores the impact of caste on societies shaped by them, and their people.
Caste, which followed Wilkerson's 2010 book The Warmth of Other Suns, was met with critical acclaim and commercial success. It won or was nominated for several awards, and was featured prominently on nonfiction bestsellers lists and year-end best-books lists.
Insights
McKinsey Insights: Diversity Wins. How inclusion matters (May 19, 2020).
This report maintains the business case for the consistent findings that demonstrate the likelihood of financial outperformance for business that are more ethnically and culturally diverse at the executive level. In 2019, top-quartile companies outperformed those in the fourth one by 36 percent in profitability, slightly up from 33 percent in 2017 and 35 percent in 2014.
Harvard Business Review: What inclusive leadership looks like
In their recent study, the authors applied a combination of computational linguistics, vocal mapping, and facial micro-expression analysis to determine what truly makes a leader inclusive in the eyes of an audience. Here they provide three behaviors that can be learned, practiced, and mastered. These insights could provide managers of how everyday communication in inclusive style looks like.
Harvard Business Review: Success Comes from affirming your potential.
Find out how African-American leaders who, despite being underestimated, underappreciated, and under resourced, have prospered and achieved incredible success. How do they do it? This article if for anyone who wants to learn strategies that pave the way for success despite the odds. It also provides insights into racial inequities are added obstacles to be overcome with added stamina resilience and mindset...
Podcasts
Toward A Racially Just Workplace (Episode #45)
Laura Morgan Roberts is a Professor of Practice at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business and a visiting scholar at Harvard Business School's Gender Initiative. As an expert in diversity, inclusion, authenticity and identity development, Laura's extensive research formed the basis for her study of the influence of African American business leaders. She chats with Marcel Schwantes about her recent article, Toward a Racially Just Workplace, and tackles what is seemingly the most uncomfortable conversation in the work environment.
Laura Morgan Roberts
How to be an Anti-racist
Notes by Brene Brown: A groundbreaking approach to understanding and uprooting racism and inequality in our society—and in ourselves. At its core, racism is a powerful system that creates false hierarchies of human value; its warped logic extends beyond race, from the way we regard people of different ethnicities or skin colors to the way we treat people of different sexes, gender identities, and body types. Racism intersects with class and culture and geography and even changes the way we see and value ourselves. In How to Be an Antiracist, Dr. Kendi takes readers through a widening circle of antiracist ideas—from the most basic concepts to visionary possibilities—that will help readers see all forms of racism clearly, understand their poisonous consequences, and work to oppose them in our systems and in ourselves.
Brene Brown with Ibram X. Kendi on how to be an anti-racist.
Opportunities for a Fresh start on Race
Trabian Shorters offers perspective and perception tools that we all can use to update our narratives on race, communities, and America’s future. He demonstrates how far too often, we focus on negative statistics about groups such as Black men, rather than emphasizing their strengths, positive contributions, and future potential. And he shows how a technique called “asset-framing” can help us tell positive stories about people and encourage the understanding, empathy, and optimism that are necessary for meaningful social change.
Asset Framing - Inside Social Innovation: Featuring Trabian Shorters Jun. 6, 2016 | 50 minutes
Is it time to say R.I.P to terms like 'POC' (People of Color)
NPR's Code Switch! An National Public Radio Podcast that covers a wide range of topics on race and identity in America. This episode addresses the controversial issue of the appropriate adjective to use when referring to others particularly people who are not of European White decent.
Code Switch - With Host Shereen Marisol Meraji
Sept. 30, 2020 | 38 minutes
Videos
Coming Soon
Video from RESI coming soon. Until then, please enjoy some of our other titles from our YouTube channel.
Racial Equity and Social inclusion, Session 1: Exploring the Intersections of Business & Community
First of a two-part panel discussion recording of professional development experience focused on how businesses and organizations can work toward racial diversity and social impact in Central New York. A panel of local and national experts explore the topics of race, equity, and community engagement.
Sponsored by Berkshire Bank.
Racial Equity & Social Impact, Session 2: Race & Women in the Workplace
Second of a two-part panel discussion recording of professional development experience focused on how businesses and organizations can work toward racial diversity and social impact in Central New York. A panel of local and national experts explore the topics of race, equity, and community engagement.
Sponsored by Berkshire Bank.
Stand Against racism
Watch Dr. J with others from the Onondaga area share their stories as they unite in standing against racism.
Stand Against Racism provides the opportunity for communities across the United States to find an issue or cause that inspires them to take a #StandAgainstRacism and to unite their voices to educate, advocate, and promote racial justice. Most importantly, we invite you to explore how the tools of civic engagement can advance the work of justice in your community and empower people of color.
Presentation Recap | Diversity & Women in Tech, with Maya Anthony
Maya Anthony discuss her experiences as a woman in the tech field. Anthony is a project manager at Fairbanks Morse, LLC, a diesel engine manufacturing company located in Beloit, Wisconsin. She is responsible for reviewing drawings, creating maintenance kits, and managing parts shipments to various locations where her company's engines are located. Anthony is originally from Cincinnati, OH and received her undergraduate degree in Biosystems Engineering at the University of Kentucky. She is currently pursuing her master’s degree online in Business Administration with a focus in project management. Sponsored by JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Webinars
How to be an anti-racist. A webinar with Ibram X. Kendi
Dr. Ibram Kendi explains his book on anti-racism and what that means. He presents his explanation and definition of racism. He talks about how the Black race has been historically oppressed and stereotyped. He talks about attainable and unattainable standards based on normalization of one race over another. He responds and connects concepts such as power, white supremacy, normalization of whiteness and racial implicit bias. He also speaks about internalized racism as well as allyship. This is a video provides a good overview of scholarly work and popular views on the topic of systemic racism.
Deconstructing White PrivilegE - with Robin D'Angelo- an anti-racist educator
Dr. Robin D'Angelo has been an anti-racist educator, and has heard justifications of racism by white men and women in her workshops for over two decades. In this webinar she provides examples and explanations of what being a privileged white person looks like.
How 'White Fragility' Reinforces Racism by Robin D'Angelo
Dr. Robin D'Angelo presents a compelling case for what this fragility means and how race has been a subject that most people are uncomfortable with. She highlights the normalization of a White color of skin and makes the case for how this status quo of normalization has gone unchallenged and caused harm.
"I Didn’t Tell You" - A poem for my white friends by Norma J.
"This poem was a cry from my heart to speak on a deeper level to my white friends and to attempt to relay to them that because of race, there is a palpable difference in the way our daily lives play out. And to my friends of darker hues, I offer this gift of voice."
Norma Johnson is a healer, inspirationalist and visionary consultant. For over 30 years, her work spans the realms from spiritual healing to teaching, facilitating and speaking in the areas of the healing arts, of personal & professional systems organization and community relationship dynamics.
Norma’s poetry about race is used enthusiastically by educators across the country.
Websites
Prohibited Employer Policies & Practices- EEOC
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is responsible for enforcing federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of the person's race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, transgender status, and sexual orientation), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information. The site provides a wide range of information on anti-discrimination laws in the workplace and types of discrimination.
Race, Racism And The Law considers race, racism and racial distinctions in the law. It examines the role of domestic and international law in promoting and/or alleviating racism. This website makes law review scholarship (and related material) more accessible to community activists, students, and non-legal faculty.
Race in the Workplace - TIME.COM
Join Shaun Harper, one of the world’s leading racial equity experts, and Zoom’s Chief Diversity Officer Damien Hooper-Campbell present nine episodes -a multi-part series focused on practical approaches to improving and advancing racial equity, diversity, and inclusion in organizations.
