RESI Curated Library
We invite you to explore this carefully curated library of relevant resources on racial equity and social impact. These resources are intended to encourage inner reflection and dialogue around race equity and social justice, as well as foster a greater understanding of the historic implications and current challenges we face in our places of business, communities, and nation. Whether you are a C-Suite executive, a team leader or manager, or a front-line worker, there is something for everyone. This content is updated regularly so please check back often.
Color Coded Catalog KEY
C-Suite
The C-Suite assets are best suited for the executive suite! For the CEOs, CIOS, CFOs, and vice president levels. These curated resources are selected with a visionary in mind, one who seeks to impact strategy. With a strategic vision and impact in mind, there is a focus on Black scholarly work and perspective as well as business insights to guide executive decision making and to lead cultural shifts within an organization.
Manager
Managerial assets are best suited for managers and other leaders. The curated resources focus on best practices, key concepts in the racial equity dialogue, insights from DEI practitioners, to increase your racial equity awareness, knowledge and skills as a people manager to build a more inclusive and diverse work culture.
Individual
Individual assets are best suited for individual contributors in the workplace or simply anyone else who wants to learn more about building a more equitable society. We have included poems, novels, award winning literature from Black authors and general guidelines to understanding racism.
Catalog
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Videos
RESI, Session 1: Exploring the Intersections of Business & Community
RESI, Session 2: Race & Women in the Workplace.
Articles
Towards a racially just workplace
BY: Laura Morgan Roberts & Anthony Mayo
The authors call on leaders who want" to walk their talk, and spearhead much more meaningful change. Instead of undervaluing and squandering black talent, they must recognize the resilience, robust sense of self, and growth mindset that studies show, African-American people — as one of the most historically oppressed groups in the United States — bring to the table."The authors provide insights into wealth gaps between Black-and-white family income. The authors also make the case for “the illusion of inclusion.” The authors provide insights into the research with a four-step strategy to help companies move toward greater and better representation of black leaders. It involves shifting from an exclusive focus on the business case for racial diversity to (a) embracing the moral one, (b) promoting real conversations about race,(c) revamping diversity and inclusion programs, and (d) better managing career development at every stage. The article provides data revealing workplace racial inequities and the Black professional experience.
Companies promised diversity, but their boards are still predominantly White and male
The New York Times
"After Black Lives Matter protests last year and an economic crisis that disproportionately sidelined women, corporate America vowed to be more inclusive.... But in corporate boardrooms, little has changed. Boards have been, and continue to be, predominantly male and white, according to a new study that will be released on Tuesday.
The Economic Impact of Closing the Racial Wealth Gap
BY: Nick Noel, Duwain Pinder, Shelley Stewart, and Jason Wright
"There is a wide and persistent gap between white and black families...The widening racial wealth gap disadvantages black families, individuals, and communities and limits black citizens’ economic power and prospects, and the effects are cyclical. Such a gap contributes to intergenerational economic precariousness: almost 70 percent of middle-class black children are likely to fall out of the middle class as adults."
80+ Diversity Statistics in the workplace you should know
BY: Bailey Reiners
“Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace are arguably two of the most highly discussed and debated topics in the HR and recruiting realm. Companies are asking questions like 'what really is diversity?' and 'how does building a diverse and inclusive workplace impact business?’” Built In has got the answers for you.
Addressing diversity and inclusion: going beyond the benchmark
BY: Oracle Cloud HCM
"While the topic of diversity and inclusion (D&I) isn’t new, 2020 was a wake-up call for companies to reexamine their D&I initiatives. Advancing workplace diversity is more important today than ever before. Consumers are taking their business to companies with a proven commitment to D&I. A growing number of laws and requirements are being enacted to support greater diversity in the workplace.
Employees are looking to leadership to make a difference. Organizations must evolve or risk a shrinking candidate pool, reduced market share, and ultimately, lost profitability"



Being black in corporate America
BY: Center for Talent Innovation
Being Black in corporate America provides insights for managers on research data findings on Black professionals representation in leadership roles and how that is still lagging. The article presents data on access of Black professionals to senior management, their reporting of having experienced prejudice at work across the United States, and the wide gap between their ambitions and aspirations and a system that does not foster their realization. Findings also illustrate the level of frustration of Black professional millennials compared to older generations in relation to their experiences at work.
What Exclusive leadership Sounds Like
BY: Harvard Business Review
In their recent study, the authors applied a combination of computational linguistics, vocal mapping, and facial micro-expression analysis to determine what truly makes a leader inclusive in the eyes of an audience. Here they provide three behaviors that can be learned, practiced, and mastered. These insights could provide managers of how everyday communication in inclusive style looks like.
explaining White privilege to a broke white person
BY: Center for Talent Innovation
Being Black in corporate America provides insights for managers on research data findings on Black professionals representation in leadership roles and how that is still lagging. Presents data on access of Black professionals to senior management, their reporting of having experienced prejudice at work across the United States. Findings also illustrate the level of frustration of Black professional millennials compared to older generations in relation to their experiences at work.
Book selections



How to be an Antiracist
By Kendi, I. X. ⎮ United states: One World, 2019
This book of choice for the C-Suite executive reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism through a transformative concept of anti-racism and, even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. Dr. Kendi makes the argument that we are either racist or anti-racist and there is nothing in between. How to Be an Antiracist, in which one of the US’s most respected scholars of race and history steps away from documenting the racist sins of others, and turns the lens pointedly, uncomfortably, at himself thus inviting the notion to look inside one's own internal thoughts and biases. In similar vein, it invites retrospection and reflection on systemic racism in corporate America.
Stranger in the Village (essay)
By James Baldwin (from his book "Notes of a Native Son")
Baldwin offers a counter-narrative to the mainstream account of the relationship between Europe and America. The prevailing narrative of American history focuses on the experience of the settlers, who—facing persecution in Europe—fled to America in order to found a new country based on principles of freedom, equality, and democracy. However, Baldwin suggests that the more important account of the emergence of the United States should focus on the transmission of white supremacy from Europe into this new land. This is, after all, the only narrative that factors in the stories of all Americans, not just white people. This choice provides insights into racial dominance and historical insights that explain system racial inequities today.
The Water Dancer
Ta-Nehisi Coates ⎮ Hamish Hamilton, 2020
The Water Dancer is the story of America’s oldest struggle–the struggle to tell the truth. This is a vision of the world of slavery, written with the narrative force of a great adventure. Driven by the author’s bold imagination and striking ability to bring readers deep into the interior lives of his brilliantly rendered characters. It allows one to experience an alternative world through historically inspired characters.
Caste: the Origin of our Discontents
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is a nonfiction book by the American journalist Isabel Wilkerson, published in August 2020 by Random House. The book describes racism in the United States as an aspect of a caste system – a society-wide system of social stratification characterized by notions such as hierarchy, inclusion and exclusion, and purity. Wilkerson does so by comparing aspects of the experience of American people of color to the caste systems of India and Nazi Germany, and she explores the impact of caste on societies shaped by them, and their people.
Caste, which followed Wilkerson's 2010 book The Warmth of Other Suns, was met with critical acclaim and commercial success. It won or was nominated for several awards, and was featured prominently on nonfiction bestsellers lists and year-end best-books lists.
Insights



McKinsey Insights: Diversity Wins. How inclusion matters (May 19, 2020).
This report maintains the business case for the consistent findings that demonstrate the likelihood of financial outperformance for business that are more ethnically and culturally diverse at the executive level. In 2019, top-quartile companies outperformed those in the fourth one by 36 percent in profitability, slightly up from 33 percent in 2017 and 35 percent in 2014.
Harvard Business Review: What inclusive leadership looks like
In their recent study, the authors applied a combination of computational linguistics, vocal mapping, and facial micro-expression analysis to determine what truly makes a leader inclusive in the eyes of an audience. Here they provide three behaviors that can be learned, practiced, and mastered. These insights could provide managers of how everyday communication in inclusive style looks like.
Harvard Business Review: Success Comes from affirming your potential.
Find out how African-American leaders who, despite being underestimated, underappreciated, and under resourced, have prospered and achieved incredible success. How do they do it? This article if for anyone who wants to learn strategies that pave the way for success despite the odds. It also provides insights into racial inequities are added obstacles to be overcome with added stamina resilience and mindset...
Podcasts


