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Just a brief post to note that after this entry, I’m pausing my email newsletter for a bit. With everything happening in my country right now, I don’t feel right bombarding folks’ inboxes with blog entries. I debated even sending this note, but, well, I decided I’d at least mention it. If this is unwelcome noise to you right now, I understand, and I’m sincerely sorry.

I’ll likely keep writing, mainly to help with my anxiety. But I won’t be broadcasting new posts via email or Twitter. Of course, you can still sign up for my email newsletter, but new emails won’t go out until I turn things back on — probably in a week or three. In the meantime, folks subscribed to my RSS feed can still be notified of new entries.

For now, I’d like to leave you with a list of resources I’ve found helpful right now, as well as a list of organizations that could use your support. This list isn’t exhaustive or complete, but it does have a few things that’ve been helpful to me. Maybe they’ll be helpful to you, too.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Black lives matter.

Resources

Amélie Lamont wrote an in-depth critique of AIGA Design’s suggestion that violent, racist policing in the United States could be “redesigned.”
Nicole Zhu has compiled a list of books for “learning about the history and legacy of slavery and anti-blackness in America”.
- I’d like to note I read How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective and Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches in the last few months, and both have been running through my head lately.
Sameera wrote a Twitter thread filled with resources for designers looking to interrogate the Eurocentric biases at the heart of our industry.
- Related to that: Sameera already mentioned it in her thread, but I’d like to call out Senongo Akpem’s Cross-Cultural Design specifically. It’s a brilliant, timely book.
An important, critical perspective on anti-racist reading lists: Lauren Michelle Jackson’s “What Is an Anti-Racist Reading List For?”
Zyahna Bryant wrote an article filled with suggestions on how to educate yourself in this moment, and how to take action.
Tatiana Mac has written guides for white men and white women looking to make meaningful change.
Mariame Kaba’s guide to evaluating suggested policing reforms.
A New York Times opinion piece about mutual aid networks in the time of COVID-19.
Suggestions from American Friends Service Committee on how to create a mutual aid network if you can’t find a mutual aid network near you.
Ways to Help, a list of resources, organizations, and guides created by Nico.
Florida Elago compiled a database of organizations you can support, resources you can learn from, and actions you can take. (Found via Florida’s Instagram post.)

Organizations

Find a bail fund near you.
Black Visions Collective is “an organization dedicated to Black liberation and to collective liberation.”
Black Tech for Black Lives, a collective of Black leaders in tech organizing for policy and policing reforms.
Violence in Boston strives “to improve the quality of life & life outcomes of individuals from disenfranchised communities by reducing the prevalence of violence and the impact of associated trauma.”
Movement for Black Lives is “a space for Black organizations across the country to debate and discuss the current political conditions, develop shared assessments of what political interventions were necessary in order to achieve key policy, cultural and political wins, convene organizational leadership in order to debate and co-create a shared movement wide strategy.”
Reclaim the Block is a Minneapolis-based organization that works “to move money from the police department into other areas of the city’s budget that truly promote community health and safety.”
Protest Access is a volunteer-led Twitter account aiming to provide “captions and/or transcriptions for any [#BlackLivesMatter]-related videos.”
Color of Change, “the nation’s largest online racial justice organization,” has countless initiatives and campaigns fighting against injustice.