Anti-Racism Resources
All of us here at PearlArts Studios stand in solidarity with all who fight for freedom and equality and for all who act at every opportunity to do so.
Our mission is to honor the lives of our slain by being unapologetic about our Blackness and our support of Blackness. It is our mission to celebrate and honor our differences. Our Blackness.
No longer will we create work that disrupts our own peace and balance. No longer will we make work that makes us face the pain and suffering of our people and ancestors over and over, torturing our insides.
We make space for the truth and beauty in the here and now.
This webpage is updated regularly and includes resources we’ve shared through our newsletter which you can subscribe to here. To submit an anti-racism resource, click the link below.
This Week’s Featured Resources
14 Essential and Timely Resources on Antisemitism For American Jews and Allies of the Jewish Community
Check out American Jewish Committee’s (AJC) suite of resources and action items to help those inside and outside the Jewish community better understand and combat the antisemitic hatred on display in American society in recent weeks.
More Resources and Organizations to Check Out/Donate (Many on this list are Pittsburgh-based)
10 Documentaries To Watch About Race Instead Of Asking A Person Of Colour To Explain Things For You
Take some time to watch some (or all) of these important documentaries about race, racial prejudices and privilege within our society.
Black Feminism & the Movement for Black Lives: Barbara Smith, Reina Gossett, Charlene Carruthers
Black Feminism remains a foundational theory and practice guiding social justice movements for Black lives. Black Feminism challenges us to act on the inextricable connections of sexism, class oppression, racism, ableism, homophobia and transphobia. As the contemporary Movement for Black Lives has invigorated resistance to racism and structural violence, this panel feauturing Charlene Carruthers, Reina Gossett and Barbara Smith reflects on ways that Black Feminism shapes and informs the current struggles and successes.
Support Abolition Law Center
The Abolitionist Law Center is a public interest law firm inspired by the struggle of political and politicized prisoners, and organized for the purpose of abolishing class and race based mass incarceration in the United States. Abolitionist Law Center litigates on behalf of people whose human rights have been violated in prison, educates the general public about the evils of mass incarceration, and works to develop a mass movement against the American punishment system by building alliances and nurturing solidarity across social divisions.
Help Palestine
We can help by fighting for peace and justice for Palestine. Please see the petitions and donation links to help contribute to this cause.
FROM NY STATE PETITION:
"On November 12th, Israel launched a series of airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, igniting a multi-day conflict that by November 15th had killed 34 Palestinians. Half of the dead were civilians. Eight, including five children, belonged to a single family - murdered in an attack that leveled their home.
Palestinian fighters responded to the airstrikes with a volley of rockets at southern Israel, prompting Governor Cuomo to release a statement saying "attacks against a civilian population are wrong, plain and simple," which is why "New York stands with our brothers and sisters in Israel."
Violence against civilians is wrong. That's why the siege of Gaza is an atrocity.
Nearly two million people live in the Gaza Strip, an area one-tenth the size of Rhode Island. Half of them are children under the age of 14. And for more than a decade, they've lived under a punishing blockade that has crippled their economy, destroyed their infrastructure, and transformed their homeland into an open-air prison, all while enduring regular military bombardments that have killed thousands of civilians.
Some Palestinians have responded to these conditions through the use of violence, and Governor Cuomo's statement is just one example of the usual response: portray that violence as though it were unprovoked, the first step in a cycle that forces Israel to respond in kind."
1Hood Media
1Hood Media is a collective of socially conscious artists and activists who utilize art to raise awareness. The mission of 1Hood Media is to build liberated communities through art, education and social justice. Follow 1Hood Media on Facebook for weekly informational content. The mission of 1Hood Media is to build liberated communities through art, education, and social justice.
Bukit Bail Fund
The Bukit Bail Fund of Pittsburgh supports the abolition of all prisons and the criminal justice system that torture, exploit, and demonize Black, Brown, and poor people. Please consider donating to the Bukit Bail Fund. The more money they raise, the less people will be at risk of serious harm behind bars, and the more they can commit resources and energy into transformative alternatives to the current criminal (in)justice system.
True T Pittsburgh
Founded in 2010 by John Easter, Duane Binion, and Dalen Hooks, True T PGH (formerly True T Entertainment) serves as a community platform for LGBTQ resource sharing, queer arts, activism, and entertainment. Through community outreach and safe space making, True T provides meaningful resources while giving back to the community. Collaboration and volunteer work have allowed True T to build budding relationships with other numerous local and regional individuals and organizations.
TransYOUniting
TransYOUniting is a Pittsburgh-based Transgender LED supportive service network made up of transgender & non-binary individuals providing gender affirming mentorship & supportive human services to improve the wellbeing of gender expansive people.
The Alliance for Police Accountability
The Alliance for Police Accountability is a grassroots organization dedicated to criminal justice reconstruction, specializing in community/police relations.
Pass “Breonna’s Law” in Pittsburgh
This May, the voters of Pittsburgh have the power to ban the use of “no-knock” raids by police.
These raids became infamous this past march, when Louisville police executed a no-knock warrant at the home of emergency room technician Breonna Taylor, opened fire when her boyfriend shot at these (announced) intruders, hitting her with eight bullets and killing her.
Pittsburgh, too, has suffered. In the past six years, multiple settlements costing hundreds of thousands of dollars have been reached between the city and victims of such police raids. This is unacceptable; while the practice has been supposedly discontinued temporarily, we must prohibit it altogether through an amendment to the city charter.
Click here for a printable petition & the full text of the charter amendment!
Stop Solitary Confinement
As detailed in the lawsuit filed by advocates against the Allegheny County Jail in October 2020, people inside the ACJ are routinely subjected to long stretches in solitary confinement as, essentially, punishment for having a mental illness.
Our ballot initiative will virtually end this barbaric practice, currently deployed by jail authorities in lieu of providing actual mental healthcare.
Click here for a printable petition & the full text of the charter amendment!
The Black Unicorn Library and Archives Project
The Black Unicorn Library and Archives Project is a Pittsburgh-based library & archive meeting at the intersection of literacy, art & history, focusing on the contributions of Black women, queer & trans people of color. The project was founded by Bekezela Mguni, who holds a Masters in Library & Information Science from the University of Pittsburgh, and was named an Emerging Artist & Judge’s Choice in the 2016 Three Rivers Arts Festival.
The Black Unicorn’s Pop-Up Reading Room is an installation/intervention which serves as a catalytic space for learning, exchange, dialogue & growth through reading & art. The Reading Room features a well curated collection of books, zines & other publications including Pittsburgh POC Zine Distro, plus an audio installation of interviews, readings & music, and is hosted at 732 E Warrington Avenue in Allentown through the support of Boom Concepts Studios & INdustry on INdustry program.
Steel Smiling
Steel Smiling bridges the gap between community members and mental health support through education, advocacy and awareness. Steel Smiling’s vision is to connect every resident in the region to resources and treatment. Programming includes: Mental Health Awareness Month Training Blitz, Suicide Prevention Month Forum and Beams to Bridges.
Black Pittsburgh Authors
Compiled by Jordan Snowden at Pittsburgh City Paper, check out these Pittsburgh-based writers including:
You Don't Have to Go to Mars by Yona Harvey
What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker by Damon Young
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw
The Skin I'm In by Sharon Flake
Read the full article for more Black authors you can add to your reading list.
Pittsburgh: A ‘Most Livable’ City, but Not for Black Women
Pittsburgh is the worst place for black women to live in for just about every indicator of livability, says the city’s Gender Equity Commission. Learn more at CityLab.
Anti-Racism Resources for White People
This document is intended to serve as a resource to white people and parents to deepen our anti-racism work. If you haven’t engaged in anti-racism work in the past, start now. Feel free to circulate this document on social media and with your friends, family, and colleagues.
African American History: From Emancipation to the Present
Free! The purpose of this course is to examine the African American experience in the United States from 1863 to the present. Prominent themes include the end of the Civil War and the beginning of Reconstruction; African Americans’ urbanization experiences; the development of the modern civil rights movement and its aftermath; and the thought and leadership of Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X.
Warning: Some of the lectures in this course contain graphic content and/or adult language that some users may find disturbing.
ACLU of Pennsylvania
Founded in 1920, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is the nation's foremost guardian of liberty. They are a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to defending and protecting our individual rights and personal freedoms. Through advocacy, education and litigation, ACLU attorneys, advocates and volunteers work to preserve and promote civil liberties including the freedom of speech, the right to privacy, reproductive freedom, and equal treatment under the law. They stand in defense of the rights of women and minorities, workers, students, immigrants, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, and others who have seen bias and bigotry threaten the rights afforded to all of us in this country by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
The Marsha P. Johnson Institute
Support is free and it doesn’t cost a thing to offer your love, but when you become a partner, you help the Marsha P. Johnson Institute employs black trans people, build more strategic campaigns, launch winning initiatives, and interrupt the people who are standing in the way of more being possible in the world for BLACK Trans people, and all people.
COLORLINES: Reform, Abolish or Defund the Police—Explained
The current racial unrest holding firm across the nation as a result of the recent back-to-back police killings of unarmed Black people—George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, Tony McDade—and the call to reform policing policies is nothing new.
In fact, police reform has been a topic for almost 100 years, as has abolition, the latter of which sociologist W.E.B. DuBois brought up in his 1935 book “Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880.”
But what is the difference, where does defunding fit in, and can the system be fixed?
Stop AAPI Hate
Stop AAPI Hate has several reports available and tracks instances of violence against Asians through first-person accounts. From Stop AAPI Hate: “In response to the alarming escalation in xenophobia and bigotry resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Asian Pacific Planning and Policy Council (A3PCON), Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA), and the Asian American Studies Department of San Francisco State University launched the Stop AAPI Hate reporting center on March 19, 2020. The center tracks and responds to incidents of hate, violence, harassment, discrimination, shunning, and child bullying against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States.”
While you’re at it, check out the other resources on the website and share. (Trigger warning: explicit descriptions of racial violence)