Anti-Racism Reading List October 2025

10+ informative articles to foster anti-racism learning and action

Author

Sharon Hurley Hall
October 29, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 11 minutes

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Hello friends,

It's a mixed bag this month, looking at misogynoir, whiteness, neurodivergence, and more, with articles focused on different parts of the globe. Ready to dive in?

This was a fascinating study, which shows that many of the biases that exist in real life have made their way into generative AI tools. This raises several potential issues in the workplace, in law enforcement and in everyday life:

“Professionalism is still seen through the lens of white culture. Black women who adhere to these white-centered norms (straightened hair) are perceived as more intelligent and professional. White women with curly hair may also be penalized under white-centered norms of professionalism”

Things are moving so quickly that a bunch more stuff has happened since I saved this article for the reading list. But the call to action, and to remember our history, is powerful.

“Truth is only the spark. It’s revolution that carries the fire. The civil rights victories we’re taught to revere didn’t come from respectability or silence. They came from disruption. From mass arrests and shutdowns. From bus boycotts and lunch counter sit-ins, to buses and whole cities on fire. From people who knew the system was rigged and risked everything to flip the table anyway.”

I love this insight into a different attitude to neurodivergence, and I believe based on general reading that this applied in Indigenous cultures too. (Note: it's getting harder to read Substack stuff without subscribing, but I believe the preview here still has value.)

“In these precolonial societies, neurodivergent individuals were not seen as broken. They were integrated into communal roles: healers, memory keepers, rhythm holders, energy workers, herbalists, and advisors. Their traits were understood through lived observation—not through pathology. Autism and ADHD were not illnesses; they were specific orientations toward sensory input, attention, language, and time.”

There's much to ponder in this article, but I'm sharing it as a pushback against the attempted erasure of history (and reminding us all that as long as we can hand down our own stories, as our ancestors did before pen and paper, they can never be entirely lost):

“My wife and I first visited the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture a couple years back. We marveled at how the museum does not begin with slavery but instead ancient Africa, who we were before being stolen and brought to the Americas, be it what is now the United States, the West Indies, or Latin America. It is a study in resiliency, and how, regardless of what we've endured, we have rarely treated others as we have been treated."

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Every word counts in this piece from Dr Sam. When Black women say "rest is resistance" (thank you, Tricia Hersey) or "rest is revolution", that's a frightening thing for those whose systems depend on our compliance and the extraction of our labour:

“The recent targeting of Black women through mass layoffs isn't coincidental. It's strategic. The moment Black women reclaim their labor to create security for themselves and their community, they are targeted and blocked."

6. Where are all the anti-racists? by Shay, Black Girl in Maine

Shay isn't the only one asking this question. For those of us in it for the long haul, it's been disappointing (but hardly surprising) to see the silence and disappearance of those who were riding a wave rather than making a commitment:

“But for the ones for whom it was a passing fad, and who are silent at this critical time because of fear or whatever, I am side-eying you hard. For the ones who almost certainly were higher paid at the height of the work’s popularity because you had the privilege to be able to write the books that helped earn you more money and who are now silent, woe to you. In many ways, how different are you from those other white people right now, who actively seek to take this country backwards?”

Sometimes I roll my eyes at the foolishness people like Jillian Michaels say. This author does better, and the importance of the human impact behind the incorrect data.

“The data rules too much out. Whether "2 percent" or 30 percent, slavery was not a side-quest in the United States. It was ironically the very engine room for the construction of its mythology of freedom. The plantation was the laboratory that instrumentalized African and Black bodies for the manufacturing of Empire. Jillian Michaels would probably vomit to know how "fitness" was determined by slavers and their admiring publics.”

I've used the subtitle here, both because the title of the piece is hella long, and because you'll get more impact when you check it out. It's a story of misogynoir and systemic bias - the kind of thing that happens every day, and never should.

“The following quotes come directly from the witness statements and oral evidence submitted during the public regulatory proceedings against this nurse. These statements — made almost entirely by white colleagues — were used to build the case for her removal, despite the absence of any patient harm or formal complaints. Their language reveals more than their intent: it exposes the racialised assumptions, bias, and coded language that shaped how this Black nurse was viewed, judged, and treated.”

One of the pieces of history that gave me most joy at school was the tale of the Maroons in Jamaica who fled to the hills and made a life there rather than submit to enslavement. This call to repair the damage comes from one of their descendants.

“It began on the plantations where people from across west Africa were taken in shackles after being kidnapped from their homes. Some had stood in markets, while plantation owners examined their bodies to determine their value. Some had felt the searing pain of the iron brand after purchase. And on the plantations they had witnessed and experienced unspeakable horrors that led them to conclude it was better to die seeking liberty than to live as a slave.”

10. History Is Now by Naomi Raquel Enright

Naomi is a regular on these pages (check out her essay There Is Only Us), and I love the defiance in every word of this piece:

“Thankfully, I have never internalized racist, ignorant beliefs about who I am and I proudly own being the daughter of an Ecuadorian immigrant, as well as being a native English and Spanish speaker.”

Of Note - Things Worth Highlighting

As always, feel free to share, either by commenting below or replying to the email, what stood out to you from this month's reading list, and what's the next intentionally anti-racist action you'll take as a result.

Thanks for reading,

Sharon

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*Note: all articles linked here were free to read when I put together this edition. However, some may be paywalled by the time it is published, because capitalism. There’s not much I can do about that, but I hope the included quotes give you a flavour of the content.

© Sharon Hurley Hall, 2025. All Rights Reserved.

I am an anti-racism educator and activist, the author of “I’m Tired of Racism”, and co-host of The Introvert Sisters podcast. This newsletter is published on beehiiv (affiliate link).

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