Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA) at AFP Advancement Northwest

“Institutional racism relies on the active and pervasive operation of anti-black attitudes and practices. A sense of superior group position prevails: Whites are ‘better’ than Blacks. Therefore, Blacks should be subordinated to Whites. This is a racist attitude and it permeates the society, on both the individual and institutional level, covertly and overtly.”

Kwame Ture (AKA Stokely Carmichael) and Charles V. Hamilton
Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America, 1967

AFP Advancement Northwest is one of the largest chapters in the international Association of Fundraising Professionals organization. As such, we are using our voice and influence to state our commitment to eradicating institutional racism within the philanthropic community and workforce.

We acknowledge that:

  • Institutional racism, also known as white-dominate culture, is a hierarchical caste system in which the dominant narrative is anti-Black oppression enforced by laws, customs and behaviors.
  • Anti-Black racism exists within non-Black communities of color who are also marginalized by race-based oppression.
  • Black, Indigenous, Asian, South East Asian, Pacific Islander, Mexican, Hispanic and Latino communities need to work together to eradicate all forms of racism to create a multicultural society in which intercultural understanding is a sustainable reality.
  • The history of philanthropy is complicated and racialized.
  • Philanthropy is a powerful tool with the great potential to make the world a better place by dismantling institutional racism.

However, acknowledgment on its own is insufficient without affirmation and action.

AFP Advancement Northwest will:

  • Support and mentor fundraisers of color in achieving their full potential as leaders who sit at the decision-making tables throughout the philanthropic community.
  • Thoughtfully recruit and retain people of color for the AFP Advancement Northwest board and encourage nonprofits to do the same.
  • Maintain an active DEIA committee that will serve as a barometer for our progress and as a valuable and respected resource for our membership.
  • Recognize that the “benefactor” and “beneficiary” relationship in philanthropy was often the result of colonization and institutional racism and work to ensure that people receiving services have a voice in how those services are offered and implemented.

AFP Advancement Northwest will take action against institutionalized race-based oppression within the philanthropic community and understands this will not be easy or comfortable for many of its members. We ask for your understanding, perseverance, respect, courage, collaboration, kindness, and hope. Our country was founded upon institutional racism and it is time that we dismantle this debilitating structure.

“It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.”
James Baldwin, 1972

For historical context and furthering your education, we suggest the following resources:

African Civilizations

Books

  • The African Americans — Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Documentaries

  • Africa’s Great Civilizations — Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Colonial America

Articles

The New York Times’ 1619 Project — observing the 400th anniversary of American slavery and its implications:

“The Slave Who Sued For Freedom” — American Heritage

“A Slave Named Gordon”New York Times

“The Making of Asian America”New York Times

“A Northern Family Confronts Its Slaveholding Past” — Smithsonian

“The Profound Significance of ‘High on the Hog’” — New York Times

 

Books

  • A People’s History of the United States — Howard Zinn
  • 12 Years a Slave — Solomon Northup
  • Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women and Everyday Resistance in the Plantation South — Stephanie Camp
  • Roots — Alex Haley
  • Inseparable: The Original Siamese Twins and Their Rendezvous with American History — Yunte Huang
  • The Great Negro Plot: A Tale of Conspiracy and Murder in Eighteenth-Century New York — Mat Johnson
  • Uncle Tom’s Cabin — Harriet Beecher Stowe
  • Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas — Frederick Douglass
  • Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” — Zora Neale Hurston
  • Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl — Harriet Jacobs
  • The Making of Asian America: A History — Erika Lee
  • Four Hundred Souls — Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N Blain
  • Strangers From a Different Shore — Ronald Takaki
  • Slaves in the Family — Edward Ball
  • The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story — Nikole Hannah-Jones
  • Caste — Isabel Wilkerson
  • The Chinese in America: A Narrative History — Iris Chang
  • Most Blessed of the Patriarchs: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination — Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter S. Onuf
  • The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family — Annette Gordon-Reed

Documentaries

  • Enslaved — Simcha Jacobovici
  • Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North — Katrina Browne
  • High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America — Roger Ross Williams

Film/Television

  • Roots: The Complete Television Miniseries — Alex Haley
  • Amistad —  Steven Spielberg
  • 12 Years a Slave — Steve McQueen
  • Harriet — Kasi Lemmons

Websites

Video

Civil War

Books

  • Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln — John Stauffer
  • The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery — Eric Foner
  • Lincoln on Race and Slavery — Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Film/Television

Emancipation

Books

  • Nothing But Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy — Eric Foner
  • On Juneteenth — Annette Gordon-Reed
  • Andrew Johnson — Annette Gordon-Reed

Documentaries

  • 13th — Ava DuVernay

Websites

Reconstruction

Articles

Books

  • Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 — W.E.B. DuBois
  • Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow — Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
  • Nothing But Freedom — Eric Foner

Documentaries

  • Reconstruction: America After the Civil War — Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
  • Slavery by Another Name — Samuel D. Pollard
  • The Birth of a Nation (1915) — D. W. Griffith

Websites

Jim Crow Laws & Separate But Equal

Articles

Books

  • The Souls of Black Folk — W.E.B. DuBois
  • Song in a Weary Throat — Pauli Murray

Film/Television

  • The Great White Hope — Jack Johnson
  • Imitation of Life (1934) — John M. Stahl
  • Imitation of Life (1959) — Douglas Sirk
  • Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner — Stanley Kramer

Civil Rights Movement of the 1950 - Present

PubArticles

Books

  • When Affirmative Action Was White — Ira Katznelson
  • White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf — Aaron Bobrow-Strain
  • Seattle in Black and White — Joan Singler, Jean Durning, Bettylou Valentine, Maid Adams
  • Hum Bows, Not Hot Dogs — Bob Santos
  • Bernie Whitebear: An Urban Indian’s Quest for Justice — Lawney L. Reyes
  • The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax System Impoverishes Black Americans – and How We Can Fix It — Dorothy A. Brown
  • The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America — Richard Rothstein
  • The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together — Heather McGhee
  • The Alchemy of Race and Rights – Patricia J. Williams
  • No No Boys — John Okada

Documentaries

  • Eyes on the Prize — Henry Hampton
  • Interviews from Eyes on the Prize
  • Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People
  • 4 Little Girls — Spike Lee
  • Fannie Lou Hamer: Stand Up — Mississippi Public Broadcasting
  • John Lewis: Good Trouble — Dawn Porter
  • I am not your Negro — Raoul Peck
  • The House I live In — Eugene Jarecki

Film/Television

  • Selma — Ava DuVernay
  • Sounder — Martin Ritt

Website

Race as a Social Construct is Why a Post-Race Society is a Myth

Articles

Books

  • Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents — Isabel Wilkerson
  • The History of White People — Nell Irwin Painter
  • The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness — Michelle Alexander
  • White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race — Ian Haney López
  • When She Was White: The True Story of a Family Divided by Race — Judith Stone
  • Passing — Nella Larsen

Documentaries

 

Philanthropy

Articles

Books

Websites

White Allyship

Articles

Books

  • White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism — Robin DiAngelo
  • So You Want to Talk About Race — Ijeoma Oluo
  • How To Be An Antiracist — Ibram X. Kendi

Video

Websites