Insights
“How Did We Get Here?” Curated 🎥 + 🎧 + 📘 Tracks from Our Black Engagement Network on Juneteenth, Systemic Racism, and Allyship
We all have different levels of familiarity and experience with topics related to slavery, race, and systemic racism.
As we look ahead to Juneteenth this coming Saturday, June 19, my colleagues in 2U’s Black Engagement Network (BNet) and I invite everyone to explore the “tracks” we've collectively curated below. Together, these links offer important perspectives on the holiday’s intertwining history with systemic racism, ways we can overcome bias through allyship, and various answers to the question “how did we get here?”
We welcome you to watch 🎥 , listen 🎧 , and read 📗 any and all of these resources. Be sure to then share and discuss what you learn with friends, family, and colleagues before honoring the holiday using this helpful Ways to Celebrate Juneteenth guide from fellow BNet member DeAndrea Chavis.
TRACK 1: The History of Juneteenth
TRACK 1: The History of Juneteenth
📗 Why’d it take so long for some of us to find out about Juneteenth? by Kyla Wright, Hampton University graduate
📗 The Black American holiday that everyone should celebrate but doesn’t by Slate’s former chief political correspondent Jamelle Bouie
📗 This Juneteenth, I don’t feel like celebrating. Instead, I’m cooking barbecue in memory of Black lives lost by author Lazarus Lynch on The Washington Post
TRACK 2: A History of Systemic Racism
TRACK 2: A History of Systemic Racism
🎧 Podcasts from The New York Times “1619” project:
📗 A vast wealth gap, driven by segregation, redlining, evictions, and exclusion, separates Black and white America by Trymaine Lee in The New York Times Magazine
📗 Black cities and towns that have been destroyed throughout American history, an RK Jackson Twitter thread
TRACK 3: Allyship and Anti-Racism
TRACK 3: Allyship and Anti-Racism
🎥 How to overcome our biases? Walk boldly towards them, a TedTalk with diversity advocate Vernā Myers
📗 Want to have better conversation about racism with your parents? Here’s how, an NPR interview with Ijeoma Oluo, author of So You Want to Talk About Race
TRACK 4: How Did We Get Here?
TRACK 4: How Did We Get Here?
🎥 How can we win with author Kimberly Jones, from filmmaker and photographer David Jones (a repeat link from above—it’s that powerful)