In the wake of more murders of Black Americans by police over the last few weeks and the ongoing plague of murders of Black trans women, many white Americans are turning to reading lists to make sense of the present moment and perhaps unpack some of the racism within themselves.
JSTOR, one of the largest sites for accessing academic journals digitally, released its own reading list --”Institutionalized Racism: A Syllabus”-- providing free synopses of some really important scholarship. At the same time, JSTOR increased the number of articles you can read after creating a free account. I wanted to highlight what I think are a few great picks from the “Syllabus” JSTOR put together as well as a few pieces on the history of Philadelphia that are relevant to our present: