It's Not OK to Do Nothing! Resources to Learn, Grow and Be Part of the Change

As the Site Leader for Adobe in Utah, I think my most important opportunity is to represent Adobe's core values and drive positive change. I am grateful to work for a company whose leaders are speaking out and voicing their outrage at the ongoing racially-motivated violence that Black fellow citizens and friends continue to endure. Speaking out collectively is what drives change, so I want to share with you all a perspective and resources I shared with my fellow Adobe Utahns today. 

The past several days have been very emotional and powerful, with the potential to truly spark change in how we all take personal ownership in making our world equitable for all people. Many emails have come my way that give me hope as people are recognizing that it's not OK to do nothing. 

I want to pass on to you some of the resource suggestions I've gathered, which I will be spending more time with. I am going to make this investment in learning because it's time that I try to truly understand what it means to give my children The Talk. As a privileged white person, this is fear and degradation I never have to think about. I realized that when people like me do nothing, we collectively forget that others are suffering and we move on. We can't just move on again. We can use this opportunity to drive change.

As you look through these resources, I want to encourage you to think deeply about your own perspective and whether it's where you want it to be. What do you need to understand better? What do you want your role to be in creating a world where all people have equal access to resources, education, opportunities, safety, security, and respect?

And to give you all a “close to home” view of how our local Utah community is not immune to the injustice, one of our Lehi employees, who has a Black son, sent a letter to a local Police Chief this week about her and her son’s experience. This letter made me cry, but don’t let that stop you from reading it. In fact, now is a good time to write letters to people who have the power to impact the systemic problems that perpetuate injustice. The Police Chief replied to her within an hour and the dialog has begun.

I hope you all will take this as an opportunity to learn and decide for yourself what you will do differently, or more of, to drive change that allows all people to live as equals.

RESOURCES: 

Media/Videos

• Black Parents Explain How to Deal with the Police 
• Podcast: Scene on Radio Podcast Series: Seeing White  
• Podcast: Your Money, Your Life

 Movies/Documentaries

• Netflix Series: When They See Us
• Netflix Documentary: 13th
• Black, White and Us

 TV Shows

• Black-ish
• Polly
• Little Fires Everywhere

 Social/People to Follow

• Light Watkins Videos
• For White People Who Are Asking What You Can Do?
• Acknowledging Racism – How to Do It and Where to Start
• Layla F. Saad (NYT Bestselling Author Me and White Supremacy, Host of @goodancestorpodcast)
• Ibram X. Kendi
• The Atlantic Article The American Nightmare - To be black and conscious of anti-black racism is to stare into the mirror of your own extinction.
• Book How to Be An Antiracist

 Fiction Books

• Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
• Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche

 Non-fiction Books

• So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
• Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, by Ibram X. Kendi
• Waking Up White, and Finding Myself in the Story of Race, by Debbie Irving 

 YA Books

• Dear Martin by Nic Stone
• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
• Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

 Children’s Books

• Catching the Moon: The Story of a Young Girl’s Baseball Dream by Crystal Hubbard
• Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters: An African Tale by John Steptoe
• African American Folktales for Young Readers collected and edited by Richard and Judy Dockery Young

 Where to Donate/Petition/Act

• Change.org – Justice for George Floyd
• NAACP.org
• 26 Ways to Be In the Struggle Beyond the Streets
• Minnesota Freedom Fund
• Reclaim the Block
• Petition: Color of Change
• Petition: We Can’t Breathe