Library Spotlight: Posts

Beyond Resilience for SELF Preservation

On Friday, January 27 between 11am-12pm, join The Centre for Human Rights, Equity, and Inclusion for Humber's Black History Month Kick-Off Event with Aina-Nia Ayo-Dele featuring Black history, entertainment and so much more.

As part of Humber's Centre for Human Rights, Equity & Inclusion Dialogue 2022-23 series, Humber Libraries is highlighting additional resources related to this session. View a selection of resources Aina-Nia Ayo-Dele recommends for the journey of embedding African-centered knowledge systems to eradicate anti-Black racism.

Fiction Books

The African Trilogy by Chinua Achebe

Beginning with Things Fall Apart, The African Trilogy captures a society caught between its traditional roots and the demands of a rapidly changing world. Achebe's most famous novel introduces us to Okonkwo, an important member of the Igbo people, who fails to adjust as his village is colonized by the British. In No Longer at Ease we meet his grandson, Obi Okonkwo, a young man who was sent to a university in England and has returned, only to clash with the ruling elite to which he now believes he belongs. Arrow of God tells the story of Ezuelu, the chief priest of several Nigerian villages, and his battle with Christian missionaries.

Non-Fiction Books

A Map to the Door of No Return by Dionne Brand 

A Map to the Door of No Return is a timely book that explores the relevance and nature of identity and belonging in a culturally diverse and rapidly changing world. It is an insightful, sensitive and poetic book of discovery. Drawing on cartography, travels, narratives of childhood in the Caribbean, journeys across the Canadian landscape, African ancestry, histories, politics, philosophies and literature, Dionne Brand sketches the shifting borders of home and nation, the connection to place in Canada and the world beyond.

Lose Your Mother by Saidiya Hartman

In Lose Your Mother, Saidiya Hartman traces the history of the Atlantic slave trade by recounting a journey she took along a slave route in Ghana. Following the trail of captives from the hinterland to the Atlantic coast, she reckons with the blank slate of her own genealogy and vividly dramatizes the effects of slavery on three centuries of African and African American history.

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

"The only way to undo racism is to consistently identify and describe it -- and then dismantle it." Ibram X. Kendi's concept of antiracism reenergizes and reshapes the conversation about racial justice in America -- but even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi asks us to think about what an antiracist society might look like, and how we can play an active role in building it.

Decolonizing Educational Leadership by Ann E. Lopez 

Grounded in historical context, Lopez draws on her experience as a practitioner and scholar to methodologically examine ‘the continued tensions in education and schooling.’ Decolonizing education in these unprecedented times amid a pandemic and racial unrest is a call to action in schools and society

Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad; Robin DiAngelo

This eye-opening book challenges you to do the essential work of unpacking your biases, and helps white people take action and dismantle the privilege within themselves so that you can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on people of color, and in turn, help other white people do better, too.

Film

Ninth Floor (2015)

It started quietly when a group of Caribbean students, strangers in a cold new land, began to suspect their professor of racism. It ended in the most explosive student uprising Canada had ever known. Over four decades later, Ninth Floor reopens the file on the infamous Sir George Williams Riot – a watershed moment in Canadian race relations and one of the most contested episodes in the nation’s history.

About the Speaker

Aina-Nia's spiritual liberation activism role includes leadership in racial equity and social justice work. In 2016, she accepted the request as lead consultant for City of Toronto, Canada initiative to address anti-Black racism. She became integral to the creation of the Toronto Action Plan to Confront Anti-Black Racism and in 2018 established North America’s first government sanctioned strategy and permanent office to address anti-Black racism.

For her trailblazing work and the sterling contributions to the betterment of the African-Black-Caribbean communities, she was honored with a Lifetime Advocacy Award in February 2022. In 2018, Aina-Nia was named one of the 100 Most Accomplished Black Canadian Women. She was recognized as one of Jamaica’s 58 Best, honoring the country’s 58th Independence. Aina-Nia has also been recognized by the Ontario government for her contributions to community and was nominated as one of Toronto’s Most Inspiring Women in 2008.