Almost five years ago today, I saw a comment on LinkedIn by a well-known influencer, using a Martin Luther King, Jr. quote to claim that everyone benefits from being privileged in America. Their point was we shouldn’t catastrophize every bad experience based on race, or use “violent” rhetoric to divide the country.

Normally I’d roll my eyes at this cliché and swallow my frustration. However, staying quiet allows seemingly small acts to grow into dangerous threats. Too many Black lives were lost, and remain threatened, by not calling out the way people manipulate Black history. 

This month was designed for us to pause and reflect about our history— black, white, and every other race/ethnicity globally—through the eyes and lives of Black communities and leaders.

But as you pause, what are you using to reflect? And when it’s time to put reflection into practice, will you have the right words or tools to use?

The irony is that the quotes used by this white influencer represent the thoughts of people considered the most violent activists the world has ever seen.

The problem is that violence is given a different definition in a way that benefits a particular group of people. Perhaps the broadest definition of violence for them is anything questioning their right to not be questioned. 

They don’t really fear riots or destruction of property as much as they fear the public’s ability to see why they have so much more than those asking for just a fraction of what they’ve got.

The Pentagon recently banned “identity months”, and the current administration’s doublespeak includes honoring Black History Month while banning “illegal and immoral discrimination programs, going by the name ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (DEI).” Whether Americans are or are not supposed to continue recognizing Black contributions to American history is still up for debate, apparently.

Regardless, celebrating this month is pointless if we water down the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and other civil rights leaders, especially when misquoting thems. 

Black people—and less privileged people overall—will continue to die at the hands of poverty, anxiety, depression, and police brutality if we don’t understand the practical purpose behind holidays like Black History Month. 

During this designated month of meditation, I’m giving you an in-depth tool I pray will push you to rethink power and privilege, globally. I hope this will be the last time a resource like this is needed, and that this work isn’t in vain (because you’ll actually use it).

The reading lists are broken down by three common assumptions you might have, and books that will push you to reconsider that assumption. The reading lists could go on forever, but I’ll stick to the books I think do the best job. 

The books won’t always focus on Black people, because my goal is to illustrate that privilege and despotism is a universal, worldwide problem.

The first two recommendations I list will be, in my opinion, the most crucial texts. Each recommendation has information that can be fact-checked, so don’t gloss over anything you find difficult to believe. 

As I told my 8th-grade students while teaching, use your ANEEY sources (almanac, newspapers, encyclopedias, and eyewitness accounts) to find the evidence used to corroborate the details you find, whether or not it’s not the first time you’ve heard them.

Assumption 1: Education is the great equalizer.

All you have to do is “pull yourself up by the bootstraps”, study hard, and climb the social/corporate ladder out of poverty and into success, right?

Wrong. Several texts exist that reveal the political economy of education. They show and prove how the privileged in society use the idea of work ethic as a justification for their egregious wealth, and a way to blame others for living in poverty. Even worse, the privileged tell those they placed in poverty to just copy what rich people do and, poof, they’ll attain the same wealth and status.

I put it this way in a thesis I wrote about the topic: 

...the elite are in a precarious situation to maintain their ability to govern. On the one hand, they must provide the non elites with a sufficient safety net in order to prevent social uprising; on the other, the elite aim to prevent the non elites from entering their social realm and thus share their political power.

Here’s an easier way to say it— those aware of their privilege will never make it easy for anyone to take that privilege from them, and they’ll do anything to convince you that you have what you need to gain that same privilege.

Books and essays that go into depth about this include:

Pedagogy of the Oppressed, by Paulo Freire

The Political Economy of Education, by Martin Carnoy

Literacy and Racial Justice, by Catherine Prendergast

Inequality in the Promised Land, by R. L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy

First Class, by Alison Stewart

Despite the Best Intentions by Amanda E. Lewis

“As Higher Education Expands, Is It Contributing To Greater Inequality?”, by Martin Carnoy, published in the National Institute Economic Review, 215(1)

Assumption 2: Peaceful protests are just as, or more, effective than violent protests.

You might have seen memes about the irony behind the Boston Tea Party revolt that created the “greatest democracy on Earth”. If not, let the reading suggested below teach you this (in the words of Angela Y. Davis): freedom is a constant (violent) struggle. 

No significant movement against tyranny was won peacefully, be it the French Revolution, American Revolution, Haitian Revolution, or even the Protestant Reformation (there goes the argument that the Bible is for pacifists). 

If your definition of violence is destruction or bodily harm, do not flip the script and try to also label words or symbols against tyranny as violent. It’s not up to the oppressor to tell the oppressed how to resist their oppression. 

You cannot change your definition of violence simply to avoid dealing with any attack against a warped sense of entitlement.

Last, but certainly not least, please realize that your favorite peaceful and/or Christian activist to quote was once your forefather’s sworn (violent) enemy. If you’re going to quote them, get acquainted with the full intent behind their words.

Books that go into depth about this:

Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos or Community by Martin Luther King, Jr. (pay special attention to chapter 1, page 22)

The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon

Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Y. Davis

Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper

An Indigenous People’s History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

How Not to Get Shot by D.L. Hughley

Tortured for Christ by Richard Wurmbrand

Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman

God of the Oppressed by James H. Cone

Assumption 3: Slavery ended 400 years ago. We passed the Civil Rights Act. We shouldn’t be talking about this anymore. Blacks are in a much better place!

It’s not entirely your fault for thinking this way. The elite— politicians, the wealthy, tenured professors at esteemed universities, and some in the media— are like the Wizard of Oz. They built a reality that fits their beliefs, one that revolves around them being in a position to tell us what is true. 

The U.S. education system is designed to celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation and the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as milestones leading to the end of racial injustice in America. Rarely will anyone find a textbook drawing a clear line connecting data on Black Americans’ poverty, incarceration, and death rates to decisions made to perpetuate a system of inequity. 

That line, a literal timeline of Black American history, clearly shows a correlation between how Black people have been viewed since this country was founded. It also reveals how they continue to receive the same treatment at large, despite the tokenism of a few Black people with wealth and status.

U.S. textbooks conveniently leave out historical moments like the bombing of Black Wall Street, a clear sign that everything can be taken away from them even when Black Americans try to build something from nothing. They leave out discussions about the evolution of the Civil Rights Movement post-MLK, which includes the Black Panthers and proven abuse of federal power (e.g. when the FBI assassinated Fred Hampton). 

The question isn’t whether or not Black people still suffer from social and political inequality. The question is why would anyone want to deny this, despite the evidence that says otherwise?

If you can’t understand why Black Americans ask for reparations, why some smash windows in retaliation to police killing their friends, and why many feel the need to scream #blacklivesmatter at the top of our lungs, there are books providing the context you may lack.

Examples of readings about this include:

The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

Rest in Power by Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin

April 4, 1968 by Michael Eric Dyson

Coming of Age in the Other America by Stefanie DeLuca et al.

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

The Souls of Black Folk and Other Writings by W.E.B. Du Bois

A Colony in a Nation by Chris Hayes

These reading lists are not comprehensive. You won’t finish reading them in one month, or one year. Even if you did, many of you will wrestle with whether to change your mind about “wokeness” for some time.

Understand that the longer it takes, the longer pressure remains for Black people to speak up. Black people won’t stop demanding what’s fair and right because it’s taking you a while to get used to their courage or their voices.

The onus, now, is on you. How much longer do you want this to go on? How worse do things have to get?