Writing this post is difficult. It is hard to know the “right” words or the “right” actions to take. We know there is no quick fix for racism, injustice and inequality. They are, after all, problems that have plagued our country for hundreds of years. They will not simply vanish without hard work and dedication.
Over the past couple weeks, so many members of our community have reached out to us with questions, trusted resources, and ideas about how Power Life can get involved. Our team is hard at work figuring out how to implement changes internally, and we are excited to communicate how those changes will shape the future of Power Life. We know we have work to do, and we are ready and willing to do it!
For now, we have worked with the entire Power Life team to compile the list of resources below. While it is by no means exhaustive, we hope it will inspire and enlighten our community to take up arms alongside us in the fight for racial equality. We welcome you to share even more information with us in the comments at the end of this post.
Please trust that we are committed to this issue. Power Life will be part of the change in our community, our country and our world!
WHO TO FOLLOW
- Our instructors recommend:
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- @rachel.cargle
- Academic, writer, speaker
- Founder of The Loveland Foundation & The Great Unlearn
- Owner of Elizabeth’s of Akron (online bookstore)
- “Her account has a multitude of lessons on the importance of language and how to look at information with a critical approach. I follow her to learn, hear her voice, and support change from her resources. I also appreciate the invitation she provides to work on ourselves from within.” – Megan W.
- @phyllicia.bonaro
- Yoga teacher, sound bath practitioner, Reiki certified
- “I think it’s really important to diversify your feed on social media. Her page features a lot of sound healing, crystals and restorative/yin yoga vibes.” – Molly F.
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- @sistersofyoga
- Global collective of yogis serving up mindfulness, representation and community
- “This is a great follow because it highlights women of color and other social media accounts that emphasize diversity in the health and wellness community.” – Molly F.
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- @confessionsofacleanfoodie
- Recipe developer, content creator, safer beauty advocate
- “Her recipes are clean–eating, easy and look so, so good! Also, she’s amazing.” – Crystal S.
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- @drjcofthedc
- Doctor, athlete, writer
- “I have been completely sucked in by Dr. Jason and his story. Bonus, he has the best dance moves!” – Crystal S.
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- @morganharpernichols
- Blogger, coach, and mental health advocate
- “She is authentic, raw and stands up for what she believes in. The content she posts is something I look forward to looking at. I also love Morgan’s artwork!” – Vernesa H.
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- @iamchrissyking
- Fitness coach, writer, speaker
- VP of Women’s Strength Coalition
- She encourages women to embrace their bodies and lives with compassion.
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- @knicolewriting
- Therapist, self-care advocate, writer, speaker
- Founder of KNW Collection (apparel)
- She provides followers with practical tools they can use to help manage their mental health.
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- @hellolaurenash
- Wellness visionary, yoga and meditation guide, writer
- Founder of Black Girl in Om
- Host of Black Girl in Om Podcast
- Works to expand the consciousness of black women and women of color.
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- @austinchanning
- Writer, speaker
- Author of I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness
- Works to provide great tools, meaningful conversations, and clear calls to action to advance the work of racial justice and prioritize the experience of Black womanhood.
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- @iamrachelricketts
- Racial justice educator, spiritual activist, healer, author
- Provides followers guidance for taking on the life’s toughest problems. Through shared dialogue, breathwork, yoga and meditation, Rachel can helps followers find tolerance to sit with discomfort, honor grief and expand into personal and collective freedom.
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- @mynameisjessamyn
- Yoga teacher, body positivity advocate, and writer
- Author of Every Body Yoga: Let Go of Fear, Get on the Mat, Love Your Body
- Jessamyn is unapologetic, fierce and crazy inspiring. Her yoga philosophy focuses on how students rather than how they look. She suggests a change toward a mentality that “strength comes in different shapes and sizes.”
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- @meditatingwithdeandre
- Meditation coach, yogi
- He believes that by unlocking the body and the mind through a regular yoga practice everything else in life becomes more aligned.
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- @andrew7sealy
- Yogi
- Founder of Yoga Revealed Podcast
- The continuous self–discovery process of yoga compels Andrew to embody progressive knowledge while positively influencing and empowering his students.
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- @blklivesmatter
- International Human Rights Movement
- Builds power to bring justice, healing, and freedom to Black people across the globe.
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- @colorofchange
- Nonprofit civil rights advocacy organization
- Designs campaigns powerful enough to end practices that unfairly hold Black people back. Champions solutions that move us all forward.
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- @booksfordiversity
- Blog
- Features an abundant amount of children’s books that focuses on diversity and the different cultures in our world. Each book post gives a brief paragraph about what the focus of the book is.
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- @blackbabybooks
- Website
- Account features a variety of children’s books with Black characters.
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- @theconsciouskid
- Nonprofit organization
- Account focuses on parenting children through a critical race lens. It features information on how to talk to your children about race and books that support conversations on race and racism.
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- @ckyourprivilege
- Book, courses, podcast
- Founded by Myisha T. Hill (@myishathill)
- Guided journey that deepens your awareness to how your actions effect the mental health of Black, Brown, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPoC).
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- @whitehomework
- Antiracist education
- Founded by Tori Williams Douglass
- Community that provides space to unlearn racism in a holistic manner.
WHAT TO WATCH
- Our instructors recommend:
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- Dear White People (Netflix)
- This movie showcases racism in an ivy league school, and has a great storyline to follow. – Molly F.
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- 13th (Netflix)
- This documentary dives into the American justice and prison systems. It explores how it has been designed in a way so that people of color, in particular black people, are imprisoned at a disproportionate rate. It examines how legislation, from both political parties, has been harmful and ineffective in reducing crime rates and has, in some cases, incentivized keeping prisons full. This will hopefully make you begin to demand for prison reform throughout the United States and call for ending private prisons. – Melissa H.
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- When They See Us (Netflix)
- This is a true-crime series about the infamous Central Park Five case. The series examines each five of the young men who were wrongfully accused and sentenced for the sexual assault of a jogger. It dives into how biases in our justice system impact young black men, and it helps to increase understanding about how and why people give false confessions to police despite the fact that they might be innocent. This can be difficult to digest because it feels like things like this shouldn’t happen in America, yet they still are. It’s an important watch. – Melissa H.
- More impactful movies + docs:
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- Explained: The Racial Wealth Gap (Netflix)
- This series takes viewers deep inside a wide range of culturally relevant topics. In this episode, Cory Booker and others discuss how slavery, housing discrimination and centuries of inequality have compounded to create a racial wealth gap.
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- Becoming (Netflix)
- Becoming is a documentary film directed by Nadia Hallgren about the former First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama.
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- Who Killed Malcolm X? (Netflix)
- This documentary follows the work of Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, a historian and tour guide in Washington, D.C., who for more than 30 years has been investigating the assassination of Malcolm X.
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- LA 92 (Netflix)
- LA 92 is a documentary about the 1992 Los Angeles riots. It includes film and video from the 1965 Watts Riots, the 1973 election of Tom Bradley, the 1978 promotion of Daryl Gates, the shooting of Latasha Harlins, the Rodney King videotape and the subsequent riots and violence that erupted after the acquittal of the officers involved in King’s beating.
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- If Beale Street Could Talk (Hulu)
- Set in early-1970s Harlem, this romantic drama follows a young woman who, with her family’s support, seeks to clear the name of her wrongly charged lover and prove his innocence before the birth of their child.
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- Whose Streets? (Hulu)
- This documentary details the killing of Michael Brown and the Ferguson uprising. It’s told by the activists and leaders who live and breathe this movement for justice.
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- The Hate You Give (Hulu + Cinemax)
- This drama, based on a young adult novel of the same name, follows the fallout after a black high school student witnesses the police shooting of her best friend.
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- Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter Movement (Amazon Prime or YouTube)
- This documentary chronicles the evolution of the Black Lives Matter movement through the first person accounts of local activists, protesters, scholars, journalists and others.
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- Get Out (Amazon Prime or YouTube)
- This horror film follows a young black man who uncovers a disturbing secret when he meets the family of his Caucasian girlfriend.
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- Freedom Riders (Amazon Prime)
- This documentary chronicles the inspirational story of American civil rights activists’ peaceful fight against racial segregation on buses and trains in the 1960s.
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- Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story (Amazon Prime)
- This six-part docuseries re-examines the life and legacy of Trayvon Martin, whose death became a catalyst for the Black Lives Matter movement.
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- King in the Wilderness (HBO Go)
- This documentary chronicles the final chapters of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life, revealing a conflicted leader who faced an onslaught of criticism from both sides of the political spectrum.
WHAT TO READ
- Our instructors recommend:
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- Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
- While the book is more about African Americans (and others) on death row who have been wrongly convicted, the entire book touches on the racial bias rooted deeply within our criminal justice system, including police and prosecutorial misconduct. This book is also a true story written by an African American attorney. He, too, has faced various forms of racial inequality while practicing law. Anyone looking to educate themselves on the racial bias within our criminal justice system should give this book a read! -Andrea M.
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- The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives by Dashka Slater
- A true–crime novel that explores the aftermath of a mistake a young black teenager made when messing around with his friends on the bus ride home. Issues of race, socioeconomic status, education, gender identity, and the juvenile justice system are all explored. This book, complete with firsthand accounts and research, helps people better understand how our justice system can be largely flawed. It makes a compelling case for a shift to restorative justice. It examines issues that affect both the black community and the LGBTQ plus community. -Melissa H.
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- How Not to Get Shot and Other Advice from White People by DL Hughly
- A satirical look at advice that you might hear from white people about how black persons and people of color should behave. The book includes research on why this information is flawed, at best, and insulting, at worst. I listened to this on audio book and it is read by the author/ comedian DL Hughly, who does a great job at expressing some hard information. -Melissa H.
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- I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown
- In a time when nearly every institution (schools, churches, universities, businesses) claims to value diversity in its mission statement, Austin writes in breathtaking detail about her journey to self-worth and the pitfalls that kill our attempts at racial justice. Her stories bear witness to the complexity of America’s social fabric—from Black Cleveland neighborhoods to private schools in the middle-class suburbs, from prison walls to the boardrooms at majority-white organizations.
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- How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
- Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science with his own personal story of awakening to antiracism. This is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond the awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a just and equitable society.
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- White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson
- From the Civil War to our combustible present, acclaimed historian Carol Anderson reframes our continuing conversation about race, chronicling the powerful forces opposed to black progress in America.
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- So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
- Widespread reporting on aspects of white supremacy–from police brutality to the mass incarceration of Black Americans–has put a media spotlight on racism in our society. Still, it is a difficult subject to talk about. Oluo guides readers of all races through subjects ranging from intersectionality and affirmative action to “model minorities” in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest conversations about race and racism, and how they infect almost every aspect of American life.
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- Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla F. Saad
- Me and White Supremacy: A 28-Day Challenge to Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor leads readers through a journey of understanding their white privilege and participation in white supremacy, so that they can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on black, indigenous and people of color, and in turn, help other white people do better, too.
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- Racism Without Racists by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
- In Racism without Racists, Bonilla-Silva challenges color-blind thinking. He has now extended this challenge with a new chapter on Obama’s election addressing the apparent miracle of a black man elected as the 44th President of the nation despite the fact that racial progress has stagnated since the 1980s and, in some areas, even regressed. In contrast to those who believe the election of President Obama is a watershed moment that signifies the beginning of a post-racial era in America, he suggests this development embodies the racial trends of the last 40 years including two he has addressed in this book: the rise of color-blind racism as the dominant racial ideology and the emergence of an apparently more flexible racial stratification system he characterizes as Latin America-like.
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- Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America by Jennifer Harvey
- Raising White Kids is for families, churches, educators, and communities who want to equip their children to be active and able participants in a society that is becoming one of the most racially diverse in the world while remaining full of racial tensions.
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- The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
- A powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity, this novel asks powerful questions about race, class, and gender with the subtlety and grace that have always characterized Morrison’s writing.
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- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right.
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- Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
- Told in the captivating voice of a woman who refuses to live in sorrow, bitterness, fear, or foolish romantic dreams, Their Eyes Were Watching God is the story of fair-skinned, fiercely independent Janie Crawford, and her evolving selfhood through three marriages and a life marked by poverty, trials, and purpose.
WHAT TO LISTEN TO
- Our instructors recommend:
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- About Race
- Host Reni Eddo-Lodge addresses racism all over the world, including African Americans and other marginalized minority groups all over the world. Eddo-Lodge who also wrote the book Why I am No Longer Talking to White People About Race. – Molly F.
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- Code Switch (NPR)
- Code Switch is a podcast hosted by journalists of color. For years, Code Switch has explored how race impacts all different aspects of society, including movies, geography, voting, music, sports, health, and more. Episodes are easily digestible and most are under 30 minutes, which makes it a great, quick listen. Since it’s NPR, there is a ton of solid research that goes into each episode, and the hosts all have the trademark-NPR soothing voices. – Melissa H.
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- Yo, Is This Racist? (Earworlf)
- The two hosts (and usually a guest) answer questions from email and phone calls. The pod captures current events and everyday situations that people encounter – everything from transracial adoption, to marketing campaigns, to understanding the difference between race and ethnicity. Both hosts are candid and funny in their responses. – Melissa H.
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- Date Card Pod (Stitcher) & Here to Make Friends (Huffington Post):
- Both of these podcasts cover the Bachelor franchise (ABC). But they go beyond the typical recaps, and use their platform to explore gender and racial issues within the series. They look at how people of color on the show are often portrayed, noting that the experience is often different for them on and off screen. Date Card Pod recently hosted a recap from people of color in response to a former Bachelorette using the N-word. Both pods have been strong advocates for having a black bachelor. If you’re a fan of reality TV, you might want to listen in to consider how shows like this deal or do not deal with race. – Melissa H.
- More enlightening podcasts + episodes:
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- 1619 (New York Times)
- This series showcases how slavery has transformed America, connecting past and present through the oldest form of storytelling.
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- The Nod (Gimlet Media)
- The Nod tells the stories of Black life that don’t get told anywhere else. The pod ranges from an explanation of purple drink’s association with Black culture to the story of an interracial drag troupe that traveled the nation in the 1940s.
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- Come Through (WNYC Studios)
- It’s an election year, and whether people want to admit it or not, race is at the center of every issue — healthcare, jobs, climate change, the media, and more. Join host Rebecca Carroll for 15 essential conversations about race in a pivotal moment for America. She talks to great thinkers, writers, and artists about faith, representation, white fragility, and how it’s all playing out in 2020.
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- Pod Save the People (Crooked)
- On Pod Save the People, organizer and activist DeRay Mckesson explores news, culture, social justice, and politics with fellow activists Brittany Packnett Cunningham and Sam Sinyangwe, and writer Dr. Clint Smith. They offer a unique take on the news, with a special focus on overlooked stories and topics that often impact people of color.
WHERE TO DONATE
- Our instructors recommend:
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- University of Northern Iowa UMETT Program:
- UMETT is a program that focuses on introducing high school juniors and seniors of color to the teaching profession. As is the instance in many states, Iowa lacks teachers of color because of past educational and economic disparities. Research, however, indicates benefits for all students to have just one teacher of color in their K-12 careers. To help, UNI has created UMETT to introduce students of color to the education field. Participants spend a week on campus at UNI where they are able to interact with other students from across the state, professors at the University, and work with real students in schools. There is also a strong focus on learning about identity, the college application process, and college life as a whole. This program’s existence is still fairly new, and due to budget cuts it is threatened. For information on how to donate, please contact the program director Amy Lockhart at amy.lockhart@uni.edu. – Melissa H.
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- ACLU Iowa:
- The ACLU works to ensure that civil rights and liberties for all citizens are protected. They work on criminal justice reform and racial bias. They have long been involved in working on Iowa’s voting rights. As with many states, Iowa has recently implemented Voter ID Laws, these disproportionately impact the poor, people of color, and the elderly. The ACLU works with these groups so that they know their rights so that they CAN vote. Additionally, they have recently done work with trying to restore the voting rights of felons. Iowa is currently the only state that has this lifetime ban in place. – Melissa H.
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- Juneteenth Celebrations:
- Juneteenth is the day all slaves were officially freed after the Emancipation Proclamation took place on June 19, 1865. Many African American communities have Juneteenth celebrations each year to mark this day. This is a celebration and holiday that is important to the African American community and is often glossed over or not even taught in schools. If you would like to learn more about African American history and culture it might be worth your while to join in, view some of the celebrations, and donate if you are able. – Melissa H.
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- NAACP
- The mission of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is to secure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights in order to eliminate race-based discrimination and ensure the health and well-being of all persons.
- All proceeds from Power Life’s late cancellation/no-show fees are donated to the Des Moines or Kansas City NAACP chapters.
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- ACLU
- The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) exists to preserve and protect the liberties and privileges guaranteed to each individual by the Bill of Rights. These liberties include freedom of speech and expression, equal protection under the law, due process of law, and the right to personal privacy.
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- Color of Change
- Color of Change is a progressive nonprofit civil rights advocacy organization in the United States. It was formed in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in order to use online resources to strengthen the political voice of African Americans.
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- Black Lives Matter
- Black Lives Matter (BLM) is an international human rights movement, originating from within the African-American community, which campaigns against violence and systemic racism towards black people.
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- Black Visions Collective
- Exists to amplify and inspire, with personal stories and action steps, the leadership of powerful, everyday women.
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- Campaign Zero
- The comprehensive platform of research-based policy solutions to end police brutality in America.
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- Unicorn Riot
- Exists to amplify the voices of people from marginalized communities and to broadcast and bring context to stories that are not picked up by the mainstream media.
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- Loveland Foundation
- Loveland Foundation is committed to showing up for communities of color in unique and powerful ways, with a particular focus on Black women and girls. Our resources and initiatives are collaborative and they prioritize opportunity, access, validation, and healing.
Again, we welcome you to share additional resources in the comments below. Thank you for your support as we continue to listen, learn and grow.
