This page offers podcast and video recommendations for those interested in learning more about Anti-Black Racism.
Short and to the point
Quebec and Canadian content
Documentaries
Movies
Netflix suggestions
Ted talks
Quebec - Documentaire qui vise à faire prendre conscience à la majorité québécoise qu'il existe encore en 2019, pour les personnes racisées et autochtones, un code à suivre. Un code pour éviter le plus possible d'être discriminées, un code pour ne pas déranger… Car même si le Québec est l'un des endroits les plus ouverts au monde, il n'est pas parfait.
Québec - En lien avec le documentaire précédent, le Lexique présente de courtes vidéos de quelques minutes qui décrivent plusieurs concepts comme l'appropriation culturelle, le privilège blanc, les micro-agressions, etc.
Québec - This documentary 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.
Canada - This documentary pays tribute to a group of Canadians who took racism to court. They are Canada's unsung heroes in the fight for Black civil rights. Focusing on the 1930s to the 1950s, this film documents the struggle of 6 people who refused to accept inequality. These brave pioneers helped secure justice for all Canadians. Their stories deserve to be told.
Canada - This documentary reopens 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.
Canada - This documentary was created to start discussions about racism in Calgary and Canada in general. The subject of race can be very touchy, but if we as a society don't engage in the conversation, understand the problem and start with solutions at the systemic level that involve BIPOC Canadians, racism will never end.
Canada - "Canada's 'collective amnesia' towards the artists and storytellers who delve deeply into what I call "the hard stuff." These are content creators who draw the threads between art and politics in ways that generally don't fit the conventional narrative our country likes to tell about itself — pioneering culture-makers such as the Black Arts Movement or radio DJ Ron Nelson or these seven African-Canadian female filmmakers you need to know."
This documentary follows the lives and successive assassinations of three of the author's friends, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., delving into the legacy of these iconic figures and narrating historic events using Baldwin's original words and a flood of rich archival material. An up-to-the-minute examination of race in America, this film is a journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of #BlackLivesMatter.
This documentary mobilizes a treasure trove of 16mm material shot by Swedish journalists who came to the US drawn by stories of urban unrest and revolution. Gaining access to many of the leaders of the Black Power Movement, Stokely Carmichael, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis and Eldridge Cleaver among them, the filmmakers captured them in intimate moments and remarkably unguarded interviews. Thirty years later, this lush collection was found languishing in the basement of Swedish Television
This 3-episode documentary challenges one of our most fundamental beliefs: that humans come divided into a few distinct biological groups, telling an eye-opening tale of how what we assume to be normal, commonsense, even scientific, is actually shaped by our history, social institutions and cultural beliefs. Episode one explores how recent scientific discoveries have toppled the concept of biological race. Episode two questions the belief that race has always been with us. It traces the race concept to the European conquest of the Americas. Episode three focuses on how our institutions shape and create race
This 90-minute documentary challenges one of Americans’ most cherished assumptions: the belief that slavery in this country ended with the Emancipation Proclamation. The film tells how even as chattel slavery came to an end in the South in 1865, thousands of African Americans were pulled back into forced labor with shocking force and brutality. It was a system in which men, often guilty of no crime at all, were arrested, compelled to work without pay, repeatedly bought and sold, and coerced to do the bidding of masters. Tolerated by both the North and South, forced labor lasted well into the 20th century.
Based on the work of anti-racist educator and author Tim Wise, this documentary 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.
Based on this book, Starr Carter is constantly switching between two worlds: the poor, mostly black, neighborhood where she lives and the rich, mostly white, prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Now, facing pressures from all sides of the community, Starr must find her voice and stand up for what's right.
Oscar, a 22-year-old Bay Area resident who wakes up on the morning of December 31, 2008 and feels something in the air. Not sure what it is, he takes it as a sign to get a head start on his resolutions: being a better son to his mother, a better partner to his girlfriend, and a better father to T, their 4-year-old daughter. He starts out well, but as the day goes on, he realizes that change is not going to come easy. He crosses paths with friends, family, and strangers, each exchange showing us that there is much more to Oscar than meets the eye. But it would be his final encounter of the day, with police officers at the Fruitvale BART station that would shake the Bay Area to its very core.
After graduating from Harvard, Bryan had his pick of lucrative jobs. Instead, he heads to Alabama to defend those wrongly condemned or who were not afforded proper representation. One of his first cases is that of Walter McMillian, who, in 1987, was sentenced to die for the murder of an 18-year-old girl, despite a preponderance of evidence proving his innocence and the fact that the only testimony against him came from a criminal with a motive to lie. In the years that follow, Bryan becomes embroiled in a labyrinth of legal and political maneuverings and overt and unabashed racism as he fights for Walter, and others like him, with the odds — and the system — stacked against them.
In the early 1970s, Ron Stallworth becomes the first African-American detective in the Colorado Springs Police Department. Determined to make a difference, he bravely sets out on a dangerous mission: infiltrate and expose the Ku Klux Klan. He recruits a seasoned colleague, Flip Zimmerman, into the undercover investigation. Together, they team up to take down the extremist organization aiming to garner mainstream appeal. BlacKkKlansman offers an unflinching, true-life examination of race relations in 1970s America that is just as relevant in today's tumultuous world.
As the United States raced against Russia to put a man in space, NASA found untapped talent in a group of African-American female mathematicians that served as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in U.S. history. Based on the unbelievably true life stories of three of these women, known as "human computers", we follow these women as they quickly rose the ranks of NASA alongside many of history's greatest minds specifically tasked with calculating the momentous launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit, and guaranteeing his safe return.
A timeless love story set in early 1970s Harlem involving newly engaged nineteen-year-old Tish and her fiancé Fonny who have a beautiful future ahead. But their plans are derailed when Fonny is arrested for a crime he did not commit. Now the pair and their families must fight for justice in the name of love and the promise of the American dream.
In this thought-provoking documentary, scholars, activists and politicians analyze the criminalization of African Americans and the U.S. prison boom.
Students of color navigate the daily slights and slippery politics of life at an Ivy League college that's not nearly as "post-racial" as it thinks.
Five teens from Harlem become trapped in a nightmare when they're falsely accused of a brutal attack in Central Park. Based on the true story.
As two teen prodigies try to master the art of time travel, a tragic police shooting sends them on a series of dangerous trips to the past.
In the face of violent racist attacks, Martin Luther King Jr. leads a protest in Alabama that culminates in a historic march from Selma to Montgomery.
These three TedTalks will give you a very small sample of available talks that discuss these issues. If you want more (and there are many more interesting videos to browse and watch!), check these two playlists:
Please use the anonymous box below to share with us your thoughts on this resource or ways you think we could improve it.
McGill Libraries • Questions? Ask us!
Privacy notice