From United Nations: "The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is observed annually on the day the police in Sharpeville, South Africa, opened fire and killed 69 people at a peaceful demonstration against apartheid "pass laws" in 1960... On December 21, 1965, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD)... marking a groundbreaking step in the global effort to eradicate racism. As the first of the UN's core international human rights treaties, ICERD set the stage for future human rights advancements. Its commitment to eliminating racial discrimination and promoting equality underpins the ongoing fight against racist ideas and practices, aiming to foster global understanding and unity free from racial segregation."
This guide contains a variety of resources from Centennial Libraries to help students, staff, and faculty learn more about IDERD and the social, political, and cultural impacts of racial discrimination. Read on to learn about the history and current issues facing racialized people and how you can help end racial discrimination.
Try these subject headings to find additional resources:
Anti-racism | Antiracism | Racism | White supremacy | Race discrimination | Race relations | Race awareness
Race identity | Racial justice | White people -- Race identity | Civil rights movements | White supremacy movements
Click through the tabs to view select, award-winning films on anti-racism or click video collections tab to view even more films accessible through Centennial Libraries.
I Am Not Your Negro (2016)
Available via Kanopy
This Oscar-nominated documentary narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, I Am Not Your Negro explores the continued peril America faces from institutionalized racism. In 1979, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing his next project, Remember This House. The book was to be a revolutionary, personal account of the lives and successive assassinations of three of his close friends--Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. At the time of Baldwin's death in 1987, he left behind only thirty completed pages of his manuscript. Now, in his incendiary new documentary, master filmmaker Raoul Peck envisions the book James Baldwin never finished.
The Skin We're In: Pulling Back the Curtain on Racism in Canada (2017)
Available via CBC Curio
Urgent, controversial and undeniably honest, The Skin We’re In is a wake-up call to complacent Canadians. Racism is here. It is everywhere. It is us and we are it. Following celebrated journalist Desmond Cole as he researches his hotly anticipated book, this documentary from acclaimed director Charles Officer pulls back the curtain on racism in Canada.
Who Do We Think We Are? (2010)
Available via CBC Curio
The face of Canada is changing rapidly. One in three Canadians will belong to a visible minority by 2031, according to Stats Can. Once largely a nation of staid rural folk, today much of our population lives in competitive, fast-paced urban centres. And our economy, like all those of developed countries, is on the brink of a major green shift. Or is it? In this package of three mini-documentaries, The National investigates our assumptions about ourselves as a society, what Canadians are getting right and where we need improvement.
Ninth Floor (2015)
Available via National Film Board of Canada
Director Mina Shum makes her foray into feature documentary by reopening the file on a watershed moment in Canadian race relations – the infamous Sir George Williams Riot. Over four decades after a group of Caribbean students accused their professor of racism, triggering an explosive student uprising, Shum locates the protagonists and listens as they set the record straight, trying to make peace with the past.
Zero Tolerance (2004)
Available via NFB Campus
Being young is tough, especially if you're Black, Latino, Arab or Asian. In a city like Montreal, you can get targeted and treated as a criminal for no good reason. Zero Tolerance reveals how deep seated prejudice can be. On one side are the city's young people, and on the other, its police force. Two worlds, two visions. Yet one of these groups is a minority, while the other wields real power. One has no voice, while the other makes life-and-death decisions. When a policy of zero tolerance to crime masks an intolerance to young people of colour, the delicate balance between order and personal freedom is upset. A blend of cinéma vérité and personal testimonies, this hard-hitting film will broaden your mind and change your way of thinking. In French with English subtitles.
This work contains scenes of violence. Viewer discretion is advised.
White Like Me: Race, Racism & White Privilege in America (2013)
Available via Kanopy
White Like Me, based on the work of acclaimed anti-racist educator and author Tim Wise, explores race and racism in the US through the lens of whiteness and white privilege. In a stunning reassessment of the American ideal of meritocracy and claims that we've entered a post-racial society, Wise offers a fascinating look back at the race-based white entitlement programs that built the American middle class, and argues that our failure as a society to come to terms with this legacy of white privilege continues to perpetuate racial inequality and race-driven political resentments today.
The Science of Racism (2018)
Available via CBC Curio
From the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, this documentary explores the ways in which our brain compartmentalizes, classifies and subconsciously discriminates in order to make sense of the world around us.
White Right: Meeting the Enemy (2017)
Available via Kanopy
In this Emmy-winning documentary, acclaimed Muslim filmmaker Deeyah Khan meets U.S. neo-Nazis and white nationalists face to face and attends the now-infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville as she seeks to understand the personal and political motivations behind the resurgence of far-right extremism in the U.S.
Speaking with fascists, racists and proponents of alt-right ideologies, Deeyah attempts to discover new possibilities for connection and solutions. As she tries to see beyond the headlines to the human beings, her own prejudices are challenged and her tolerance tested. With a U.S. president propagating anti-Muslim propaganda, the far-right gaining ground in German elections, hate crime rising in the UK, and divisive populist rhetoric infecting political and public discourse across western democracies, White Right asks why.
This guide was compiled by School of English and Liberal Studies and IEDI Liaison Librarian, Stephanie Power. If you have any comments, concerns, or suggestions for the guide contact Stephanie.
