Resources
Below is a list of resources that are really useful if you are interested in the themes broached in the film. The list is just scratching the surface of what is out there but hopefully you’ll find it helpful.
Intersectionality
Kimberlé Crenshaw Talks About Intersectionality
Articles
Why Intersectionality Can’t Wait – Kimberlé Crenshaw
Black Feminism: An Intro – Shay Akil
As a black feminist, I see how the wider movement fails women like my mother – Lola Okolosie
Further Reading
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde
An amazing poet, essayist and activist Audre Lorde’s work is hot on the lips of the new generation of activists. Her eloquent and pointed pieces on race, class, gender and sexuality are must reads.
Women, Race, and Class by Angela Davis
A powerful study of the women’s movement in the U.S. from abolitionist days to the present that demonstrates how it has always been hampered by the racist and classist biases of its leaders.
Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics by bell hooks
As with Angela Davis, bell hooks’ thought predates the coining of the term “intersectionality” but her thinking seeks to critique all systems of oppression whilst arguing for pragmatic coalitions in order to take down the global system of “imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy”.
Abolition
Angela Davis on Movement Building, “Defund the Police” & Where We Go from Here
Articles
Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish The Police – Mariame Kaba
Policing Is Fundamentally a Tool of Social Control to Facilitate Our Exploitation – Alex Vitale
Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind – Rachel Kushner
Would ‘Defund the Police’ Work in the UK? – Koshka Duff & Tom Kemp
Further Reading
Are Prsions Obsolete? – Angela Davis
Since the 1980s prison construction and incarceration rates in the U.S. have been rising exponentially, evoking huge public concern about their proliferation, their recent privatisation and their promise of enormous profits. But these prisons house hugely disproportionate numbers of people of colour, betraying the racism embedded in the system, while studies show that increasing prison sentences has had no effect on crime. Here, esteemed civil rights activist Angela Davis lays bare the situation and argues for a radical rethinking of our rehabilitation programmes.
The New Jim Crow – Michelle Alexander
In a bold and innovative argument, a rising legal star shows readers how the mass incarceration of a disproportionate number of black men amounts to a devastating system of racial control. This is a terrifying reality that exists in the UK as much as in the US. Despite the triumphant dismantling of the Jim Crow laws, the system that once forced African-Americans into a segregated second-class citizenship still haunts. The US criminal justice system still unfairly targets black men and deprives an entire segment of the population of their basic rights.
Despite a crime rate that has been falling steadily for decades, California has, what a state analyst called, “the biggest prison building project in the history of the world.” The first detailed explanation of California’s expanding prison population, Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s landmark, award-winning Golden Gulag looks at how political and economic forces, ranging from global to local, conjoined to produce the prison boom.
The End of Policing – Alex S. Vitale
This book attempts to jog public discussion of policing by revealing the tainted origins of modern policing as a tool of social control and demonstrating how the expanded role of the police is inconsistent with community empowerment, social justice—even public safety. Drawing on first-hand research from across the globe, Alex Vitale shows how the implementation of alternatives to policing, like drug legalization, regulation, and harm reduction instead of the policing of drugs, has led to reductions in crime, spending, and injustice.
Race In The UK
Akala Talks about Everyday Racism
Is Britain Racist? Data Journalist Mona Chalabi Investigates
Articles
Racism is still alive and well, 50 years after the UK’s Race Relations Act – Kehinde Andrews
Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race – Reni Eddo-Lodge
Black Britons face a double whammy – failed race relations law, now budget cuts – Kehinde Andrews
Blacklivesmatter in Britain Too: Why Does The Media Care Less? – Kiri Kankhwende
Why Black Lives Matter In The UK – Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff
Further Reading
Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
The book that sparked a national conversation. Exploring everything from eradicated black history to the inextricable link between class and race, Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race is the essential handbook for anyone who wants to understand race relations in Britain today.
Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire by Akala
Covering everything from the police, education and identity to politics, sexual objectification and the far right, Natives speaks directly to British denial and squeamishness when it comes to confronting issues of race and class that are at the heart of the legacy of Britain’s racialised empire.
The End of Tolerance: 21st Century Racism in the UK by Arun Kundnani
In this book Arun Kundnani provides a thorough critique of racism in the UK in the age of the “war on terror”. The book is especially enlightening in the wake of Brexit and the rise in overt xenophobia and islamophobia.
There Ain’t No Black In The Union Jack by Paul Gilroy
Paul Gilroy offers a thorough yet controversial exploration on the specificities of blackness in Britain.
And Still I Rise by Doreen Lawrence
A memoir written by the mother of Stephen Lawrence, a young black man stabbed to death by a group of white youth in South East London. The book explores Stephen Lawrence’s murder and the inadequacies of the subsequent investigation but more importantly it gives voice to a grieving black mother in a supposedly post-racial Britain.
No Place Like Home: A Black Briton’s Journey Through the American South by Gary Younge
Younge finds himself grappling with his own identity. Is he black, or British, or both? English people, he writes, don’t like to talk about race…In No Place Like Home Younge adopts an American frankness as he counterpoints his journey through the American South with his childhood and experiences of racism in Britain in this lucid and engaging travel memoir. –Tamsin Todd
The Good Immigrant edited by Nikesh Shukla
A collection of 21 contemporary black and brown British writers, The Good Immigrant offers interesting and varied perspectives into exactly what it means to be person of colour in the United Kingdom today.
History of Liberation in the UK
A Fascinating Account of the struggle in the 60s and 70s
A number of the first generation of Afro-Caribbean immigrants to the UK detail their experiences
Articles
The Black Panthers in London – Anne-Marie Angelo
Black History & Black Struggle: The Past In The Present – Ryan Erfani-Ghettani
Black British feminism then and now – Heidi Mirza
I too am Black and a Feminist: On the importance of Black British Feminism – Siana Bangura
Further Reading
Catching History on the Wing by A. Sivanandan
A selection of articles and essays by the one-time director of the institute of race relations and editor of Race & Class. A deeply influential thinker on the condition of black and brown people in the UK, racism in general and the global resistance movement.
Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
An essential read. Wretched of the Earth has been incredibly influential in the movements for decolonisation and liberation. It is seen as a text fundamental to the growth of resistance movements across the globe, informing movements in the US, South Africa, Palestine and Sri Lanka to name a few.
Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones by Carole Boyce Davies
A truly inspirational revolutionary, Claudia Jones was a Trinidadian who made significant contributions to black struggle on both sides of the Atlantic. Having spent a large part of her life in the United States, Claudia Jones was an outspoken communist black feminist. In the UK she is most noted for the creation of the West Indian Gazette, Afro-Asian News and Notting Hill Carnival. Davies chronicles the life of a historical figure you would do well to know more about.
Darcus Howe by Robin Bunce & Paul Field
A veteran in the struggle for racial justice in the UK, this biography of Darcus Howe is incredibly timely. Covering the uprisings of 1981 and 1985, The Black Peoples’ Day of Action, The trial of the Mangrove Nine the book not only charts the life of this magnetic activist but the important groups and events with which he was involved.
Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain by Peter Fryer
Peter Fryer reveals how Africans, Asians and their descendants, previously hidden from history, have profoundly influenced and shaped events in Britain over the course of the last two thousand years.
Active Campaigns
Below is a list of active campaigns in the UK that organise around issues similar to the ones that we talk about it Generation Revolution. The list is not exhaustive and we are not affiliated to any of the groups.
BlacklivesmatterUK
“A coalition of activists from across the UK who believe deeply that Black Lives Matter. The struggle is global, and so must be the solution.”
United Families & Friends Campaign
“The United Families and Friends Campaign (UFFC), is a coalition of those affected by deaths in police, prison and psychiatric custody, supports others in similar situations. Established in 1997 initially as a network of Black families, over recent years the group has expanded and now includes the families and friends of people from varied ethnicities who have also died in custody.”
London Campaign Against Police & State Violence
“Our aim is to support victims of police assault and to link them in a London-wide campaign. We will be monitoring police harassment of our communities and people of colour in particular. London Campaign Against Police & State Violence is bringing together families, communities and campaigners. ”
https://londonagainstpoliceviolence.wordpress.com/
The Ubele Initiative
“Ubele (Swahili for ‘The Future’) is a new inter-generational community building initiative which focuses on the African Diaspora community in the UK. It aims to increase our community’s capacity to lead, and create innovative and entrepreneurial social responses to some of our most stuck social issues.”