Inclusivity Statement, Resources & Action Items

As anti-violence advocates, we will not turn a blind eye to the murders in the Black community.  We grieve with the nation, and our deepest condolences go out to the families, friends, and communities who are mourning these and other losses.

The Board of Directors, staff, and members of the Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence join and support our partners in calling for an end to the discrimination and structural racism that underlie police brutality and state-sanctioned violence. It is our long-standing belief that all forms of violence and oppression are connected, and you cannot fight against one form of injustice and not fight against others. Today, we renew our commitment to pursue equity and inclusion. Our mission to end violence cannot be fulfilled until we identify our role in and dismantle the white supremacist systems and legacies that exist in our country.

We understand that even though we are actively working on projects to foster and promote racial equity in Indiana, many of us at ICADV have benefitted from the structural racism that exists in our society and our movement. This issue belongs to all of us, regardless of race, and we all have a role to play in creating a solution.

We, the Staff, Board and Members of ICADV, are holding ourselves accountable both as individuals and as an organization in checking our privilege and moving the power we wield as an organization to end systemic racism.

To ensure this commitment goes beyond words, we will work to create systemic change by reallocating funds and resources to center the voices of those who have been historically underrepresented and marginalized. We are re-aligning domestic violence services for the state of Indiana to be aligned with and supportive of communities of color. We will support and elevate the voices of Black Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC)-led organizations and individuals doing anti-racism work in our communities. We will work to ensure our board, committees and personnel are more representative of the diversity of the survivors and communities we serve.

We know that undoing these structures and creating true equity in opportunity will take time and we are committed to being part of the change, within ourselves, our Coalition, our communities, and the state of Indiana.

We will release our full Organizational Inclusion Development Plan in the coming weeks on this web page. We invite our stakeholders to join us in creating their own Inclusivity and Accountability Plans, and to hold us accountable to our commitments.

Racial Justice Resources

 bit.ly/ANTIRACISMRESOURCES: 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.

RACIAL EQUITY READING LIST

FROM THE BARNARD CENTER FOR RESEARCH ON WOMEN

26 Ways to Be in the Struggle Beyond the Streets

Resources and reading lists

Recommended Books

Audio and Video

Watch/Listen to “A Class Rebellion: Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor on How Racism & Racial Terrorism Fueled Nationwide Anger,” Keeanga Yamahtta-Taylor on Democracy Now! 6/1/20

FROM THE DESMOND TUTU PEACE LAB AT BUTLER UNIVERSITY:

The New York Time 1619 Project is an important intervention and corrective to the US history you may have been taught, as noted by Jake Silverstein the in the introductory essay: “Out of slavery — and the anti-black racism it required — grew nearly everything that has truly made America exceptional: its economic might, its industrial power, its electoral system, its diet and popular music, the inequities of its public health and education, its astonishing penchant for violence, its income inequality, the example it sets for the world as a land of freedom and equality, its slang, its legal system and the endemic racial fears and hatreds that continue to plague it to this day”  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/20/magazine/1619-intro.html

If your time is short, start with Nikole Hannah-Jones, “The Idea of America.” You can read all of the different essays that are part of the 1619 Project here:

The Idea of America, by Nikole Hannah-Jones

Capitalism, by Matthew Desmond

A Broken Health Care System, by Jeneen Interlandi

Traffic, by Kevin M. Kruse

Undemocratic Democracy, by Jamelle Bouie

Medical Inequality, by Linda Villarosa

American Popular Music, by Wesley Morris

Sugar, by Khalil Gibran Muhammad

Mass Incarceration, by Bryan Stevenson

The Wealth Gap, by Trymaine Lee

Hope, a Photo Essay, by Djeneba Aduayom

400 Years: A Literary Timeline

See also:

Erica Buddington on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/ericabuddington/status/1266531249914601472

Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Case for Reparations
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/

Prescriptions for what we can do to change policing practices here: “New Era of Public Safety. An Advocacy Toolkit For Fair Safe and Effective Community Policing:

https://www.obama.org/wp-content/uploads/Toolkit.pdf

There are also many antiracism resources here: https://www.obama.org/anguish-and-action/

Quick reads/viewing that contextualize, document, humanize the current situation include:

Ibram X. Kendi, “The American Nightmare”, June 1, 2020. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/american-nightmare/612457/

An article from Gen-Zine that was written by BLM youth activist Abeer Tijani. It is powerful testimony: https://www.gen-zine.com/post/your-silence-aids-and-abets-violent-oppression

A wealth of facts and statistics on disproportionality are provided this piece by Brian Resnick, “Police Brutality is a Public Health Crisis”, https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/6/1/21276828/pandemic-protests-police-public-health-black-lives-matter

Mark Greif, “Seeing Through The Police”, https://nplusonemag.com/issue-22/police/seeing-through-police/

Watch: “Before You Call The Cops” The Tyler Merritt Project/Now This.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKeITMzMn7w

Watch: “Get Your Knee Off My Neck”, Jenifer Lewis’s spoken word poem in honor of George Floyd, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV-5ff1dyos

Books:

  • Charlene A. Carruthers, Unapologetic: a Black, queer, and feminist mandate for radical movements (Beacon Press: 2018).
  • Mathew Desmond, Evicted. Poverty and Property in the American City (Broadway: 2017).
  • Ibram X Kendi, Stamped From The Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America (Bold Type Book: 2017)
  • Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele. When they call you a terrorist : a black lives matter memoir (St. Martin’s Press: 2018).
  • Ijeoma Oluo, So you want to talk about race (Seal Press: 2018)
  • Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric (Graywolf Press: 2014)
  • Barbara Ransby. Making all Black lives matter: reimagining freedom in the twenty-first century (University of California Press: 2018).
  • Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (Liverright: 2018)
  • Bryan J. Stephenson, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (One World: 2015)

Organizations to Follow and Support

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