An Anti-Racist Reading (and Action!) List
On taking action inside your organization
- Highlighted! How to get your organization's anti-racism work unstuck, by Healing Solidarity Advisory Circle, 26 May 2021
- Highlighted! Professional do-gooders, here’s 14 ways to be in action against anti-Black racism, by Healing Solidarity Advisory Circle, 1 June 2020
- Policymakers and racial justice activists came together to discuss decolonising aid. Here’s what happened…, The New Humanitarian, 11 August 2022
- Racism in aid sector is a hangover of colonialism, says scathing report by MPs, Guardian UK, 23 June 2022
- Dollars and Dissent: Donor Support for Grassroots Organizing and Nonviolent Movements, Benjamin Naimark-Rowse, September 2022
- Inhabiting Worlds Where Black Lives Really Matter, Ari Sahagún, 24 February 2022
- How racism manifests itself in NGO culture and structures, Lena Bheeroo and Andres Gomez de la Torre, 6 April 2022
- Time to Decolonise Aid: Insights and lessons from a global consultation, Peace Direct, Adeso, the Alliance for Peacebuilding, and Women of Color Advancing Peace and Security, November 2020
- ‘Grassroots means no brains': How to tackle racism in the aid sector, by Rashida Petersen and Jennifer Lentfer, in Guardian UK, 4 August 2017
- A Blueprint for Black Lives Matter in the Development Sector, by Hannah Rhyder, 29 June 2020
- How Funders Can Deepen Their Support for a Black-led Movement Ecosystem, by Rajasvini Bhansali and Nwamaka Agbo, 20 October 2020
- Time to dismantle racism in international development, Bond UK, 17 June 2020
- What capacities might white people in international development need to build in ourselves in order to commit to anti-racist practice?, Mary Ann Clements, 23 July 2020
- DEI Approach is No Longer Relevant: Operationalizing Racial Justice in Non-Profit Organizations, Maggie Potapchuk, 7 August 2020
- "A lot of talk but not much action": Are charities finally ready to tackle institutional racism?, Emily Burt, 3 August 2020
- We must translate anti-racism statements into action, by Dorothy Peprah, 30 Jun 2020
- From rhetoric to action — an equity roadmap for the aid community, by Roxanne Paisible in Devex, 22 June 2020
- Beyond lip service: Tackling racism in your development organisation, Lauren Reese in The New Humanitarian, 17 June 2020
- On equity in the international development sector — we need more intravists, by Blessing Omakwu in Devex, 5 June 2020
- INGOs can help dismantle development's 'white gaze,' PopWorks Africa founder says, Devex, 6 January 2020
- So What Do We Do Next?, by Marissa Germain, 23 June 2020
- Difficult Conversations: Why International Practitioners Must Do More to Address Racism at Home, Dost Bardouille, CDA Learning, June 2020
- Realizing Diversity, Accelerating Impact: State of Diversity in Global Social Impact, 2018, Farah Mahesri, Quantum Impact
- What role can privileged white people play in international development?, by Mary Ann Clements in Bright Magazine, 24 October 2018
- The only way to fight racism in our sector, by Jennifer Lentfer, 15 July 2018
Online resources
Tools to enhance your practice and resources for work
- Hegemony
- Ethnocentrism
- Ahistoricism
- Depoliticisation
- Salvationism
- Uncomplicated solutions
- Paternalism
- W - Western
- E - Educated
- I - Industrialized
- R - Rich
- D - emocratic
Keep learning from others’ lived experiences in our sector
(articles in chronological order - scroll to the bottom of this list so you know this conversation is not new)
- Highlighted! Uprooting racism in grantmaking, by Jane Tanner, Kamna Muralidharan and Kate Hitchcock in Alliance Magazine, 17 May 2021
- Highlighted! How international NGOs racialise and silence Palestinian civil society, by Falastine Saleh, 2 January 2025
- Highlighted! White Saviorism in International Development: Theories, Practices and Lived Experiences, anthology by Themrise Khan, Kanakulya Dickson and Maïka Sondarjee, 2023.
- Uncharitable Reading (a comic), by Yazan Al-Saadi and Hicham Rahma, 6 March 2023
- Localisation only pays lip service to fixing aid’s colonial legacy, Maha Shuayb, 8 February 2022
- Racism doesn’t just exist within aid. It’s the structure the sector is built on, Themrise Khan, 31 August 2021
- Decolonising aid is not supposed to be easy, Moky Makura, 23 August 2021
- Dear White Women In International Development, Lazenya Weekes-Richemond, 18 August 2021
- A racial reckoning at nonprofits: Black women demand better pay, opportunities, Washington Post, 11 July 2021
- Seeping Racism & The Paradox Of "Doing Good": What It's Like To Be A Black Woman In Leadership In The Development Sector, Joan Okitoi-Heisig, 23 April 2021
- When defensive becomes offensive, La Mehdood, 31 March 2021
- My privilege has given me opportunities. It’s time to use that privilege, Mohammed Ali, 25 February 2021
- Can Development Aid ever be Anti-Racist? Neha Kagal, 19 February 2021
- BIPoC in NGOs: Beware of Posting on Facebook, You Could Offend White Peers, Maria Rebeca Ortiz, 10 February 2021
- Why diversity, equity, and inclusion alone won't dismantle structural racism in globaldev, Angela Bruce-Raeburn, 9 February 2021
- Decolonisation is a comfortable buzzword for the aid sector, Themrise Khan, 15 January 2021
- From Words to Action: How to Begin to Dismantle Racism in Global Health and Development, Angela Bruce Raeburn, 15 January 2021
- So You’ve Hired a Diversity and Inclusion Expert? Here Are Six Ways You Could Be Undermining Them, Leila Billing, 11 January 2021
- Gender Equality NGOs, Stop Patronizing Us. An African Woman’s Perspective, Mwikali Mutune, 4 December 2020
- How Women of Colour Are Fighting to ‘Decolonise’ Global Aid, Vice, 26 Nov 2020
- We Need to Start Talking about Race, Power, and Privilege in the Education in Emergencies Sector, Jessica Oddy, 16 November 2020
- Exclusive: Half aid workers report racism at work in past year - poll, Reuters, 30 October 2020
- A hard look in the mirror: reflecting on racism and whiteness in the development sector, Kiza Magendane and Yannicke Goris, 24 September 2020
- How (and why) to compensate people of colour for their emotional labour, AidWorks, 21 September 2020
- Closing the race gap in philanthropy demands radical candour, Kennedy Odede, 7 September 2020
- Bearing witness inside MSF, Arnab Majumdar, 18 August 2020
- I've seen first-hand the toxic racism in international women's rights groups, Lori Adelman, 17 August 2020
- The South matters -- for the South, Themrise Khan, 2 August 2020
- Black Lives Matter: The emotional toll of speaking up, Cynthia Keza Birikundavyi, 21 July 2020
- “Our African colleagues”: On the limits of diversity in development, by Faten Aggad, 21 July 2020
- Can a chief executive ‘apologise’ for racism and stay? by Angela Bruce Raeburn, 16 July 2020
- Discrimination and prejudice in development, by Célestin Monga, 15 July 2020
- Decolonising aid, again, by Paul Currion, 13 July 2020
- Who Speaks for the Global South Recipients of Aid?, by Themrise Khan, 7 July 2020
- It's time the UN faced up to its treatment of black people like me, by Rosebell Kagumire, 6 July 2020
- Why global development needs Black activism, by Natalie Lartey, IIED, 25 June 2020
- White Supremacy In Global Health, by Anu Kumar, 18 June 2020
- A World in Which Many Worlds Fit by Aarathi Krishnan & Rahul Chandran in Global Dashboard, 16 June 2020
- Doing good and being racist, by Corinne Gray in The New Humanitarian, 15 Jun 2020
- The aid sector must do more to tackle its white supremacy problem, by Anonymous in The Guardian UK, 15 June 2020
- The hustle — white saviors and hashtag activism, by Angela Bruce-Raeburn in Devex, 12 June 2020
- Aid workers: It’s time to practise what you preach, by Thandie Mwape Villadsen in The New Humanitarian, 8 June 2020
- White Privilege: Overcoming Denial, Silence and Shame by Gemma Houldey, 8 June 2020
- Being Black Working In a White Male-dominated Aid Industry, by Rosebell Kagumire in African Feminism, 8 June 2020
- Is racism part of our reluctance to localise humanitarian action? by Hugo Slim, 5 Jun 2020
- Have nonprofits and philanthropy become the “white moderate” that Dr. King warned us about?, by Vu Le, 1 June 2020
- How White People Conquered the Non-Profit Industry (And why they won’t be going anywhere, anytime soon), by Anastasia Reesa Tomkin, 28 April 2020
- An open letter to International NGOs who are looking to ‘localise’ their operations, OpenDemocracy (be sure to check out the signatories in the comments), 8 Mar 2020
- Not fit for this future, by Aarathi Krishnan, 6 April 2020
- Our Silenced Voices: What we lose while working with international “humanitarian” organizations, by Ayah Al-Oballi, 5 January 2020
- The tyranny of “technical expertise”, by Arbie Baguios, 20 December 2019
- Philanthropists Bench Women of Color, the M.V.P.s of Social Change, by Vanessa Daniel, 19 November 2019
- White optimism and the erasures of racism in global development, by Dr. Arathi Sriprakash, 7 November 2019
- Decentring the white gaze of development, by Robtel Neajai Pailey, 1 October 2019
- 'Development' is colonialism in disguise, Arturo Escobar, Ashish Kothari, Ariel Salleh, Federico Demaria and Alberto Acosta, 9 September 2019
- The Politics of Funding and Funders: My Personal Experience, Fungai Machirori, 31 July 2019
- Degan Ali on the systemic racism impacting humanitarian responses, Q&A in Devex, 20 June 2019
- The Bias of ‘Professionalism’ Standards, by Aysa Gray, 4 June 2019
- We need to talk about racism — in the development sector, by George Jones, 6 March 2019
- The dangers of NGO-isation of women’s rights in Africa, Hala Al-Karib, in Al-Jazeera, 13 December 2018
- We need to talk about racism in the aid sector, by Tindyebwa Agaba & Anonymous in Open Democracy, 7 December 2018
- De-colonising development is both personal and political, by Grace Labeodan, 18 July 2018
- The cost of diversity without inclusion, by Rosebell Kagumire, 8 June 2018
- The encounter, by Rajasvini Bhansali, 18 May 2018
- What now? Beyond the #OxfamScandal, by Marie-Rose Romain Murphy, 26 Feb 2018
- When the fox guards the hen house, by Angela Bruce-Raeburn, 16 February 2018
- Reparations as Philanthropy: Radically Rethinking « Giving » in Africa, Uzodinma Iweala, 11 November 2017
- Why grassroots activists should resist being ‘professionalised’ into an NGO, by Sunil Babu Pant, in The Guardian UK, 7 July 2017
- 'International development' is a loaded term. It's time for a rethink, Jennifer Lentfer, in The Guardian UK 3 May 2017
- Wrestling with my white fragility, by Jennifer Lentfer, Open Democracy, 15 Dec 2016
- The White-Savior Industrial Complex, by Teju Cole, 21 March 2012
- The elephant hasn’t left the room: Racism, power & international aid, by Sasha Rabsey, 17 January 2012
- “Development aid and racism” by Jacob Holdt - an essay from 1981(!)
Give a listen
- Event Recordings/Summaries: Decolonising Humanitarian Action, Racism & White Privilege in Humanitarian Aid, Women In Dev Presents: Donors and Movements, Decolonising Aid: (Part1) Humanitarian ‘neutrality’ and ‘White Supremacy, The West’s humanitarian reckoning, How to be Anti-Racist in Aid, How May We Help You? A Conversation on Consent in Global Development
- Embodying Change: Cultivating Caring and Compassionate Organisations: A podcast on cultivating care and compassion in aid and development, CHS Alliance
- Rethinking Development Podcast: Episodes address ethics, systemic challenges, experiences of power dyanamics, discrimination, microaggresions, accountability, etc.
- Tiny Spark podcast: What Can We Do about the White Savior Complex? Episode on why racist and colonial structures persist in the sector and how they can be fought.
- Power in the Pandemic Podcast: Dr. Robtel Neajai Pailey and Maria Faciolince talk racism and development
- Change Making Women and The Feminist Leadership Project
- Philanthropissed
- The Ethical Rainmaker
- Seeing White
Other sector-specific reading lists
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The Healing Solidarity Collective (https://collective.healingsolidarity.org) is an online platform created to promote healing from the past, generating a new narrative, and establishing new ways of working in the international aid and philanthropy sector. Join us!