In the Wake of El Paso and Dayton, Beacon Press Offers Free eBook Resources
August 07, 2019
By Helene Atwan
Like most of us living in the US, I was sickened by this weekend’s news of shootings in El Paso and Dayton. Coming into work, feeling so stricken by these events, I was heartened by the fact that I could turn to a group of colleagues and immediately begin talking about what kind of resources we could offer in the wake of these senseless tragedies. I feel, as I often do, heartened to be working in an environment where it is our job to try to create these resources.
And as a nonprofit, we can make some of these resources available for free, or at least donate our profits to other nonprofits working on these issues more directly, as is the case with 2 of our books that address gun violence: “Guns Don’t Kill People, People Kill People”: And Others Myths About Guns and Gun Control, by Dennis A. Henigan, and the landmark poetry anthology, Bullets into Bells: Poets & Citizens Respond to Gun Violence, coedited by Brian Clements, Alexandra Teague, and Dean Rader. Both books are now available for free wherever eBooks are sold.
We also have resources for better understanding the rhetoric of hate, white supremacist groups that continue to spread hatred, several books about the contributions of immigrants to our society, and the struggles immigrants endure today. Please see the books and blog posts below. And join us not merely in empathy, but in pressing for action.
Dismantling White Supremacy and Hate
- Fourteen Steps Forward Together for America’s Third Reconstruction, Rev. Dr. William J. Barber with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove’s Beacon Broadside blog post, outlines fourteen steps to mobilize in the streets, at the polls, and in the courtroom to build a social justice movement
- The Alt-Right Curriculum, Linda K. Wertheimer’s Atlantic piece, highlights teachers who are facilitating conversations with students about white nationalism
- American Horror Story: 5 Myths About Hate and Violence in America, Kay Whitlock and Michael Bronski’s Beacon Broadside blog post, debunks five common myths and misconceptions about “hate violence” and explains the machinations of institutionalized violence
- White people assume niceness is the answer to racial inequality. It’s not, Robin DiAngelo’s op-ed in the Guardian, urges white people to move away from niceness to active antiracist action for racial equality
- It’s Come to This: White Nationalism Is Inciting Mass Murder in America, Alexandra Minna Stern’s Newsweek op-ed, explains the white nationalist ideology behind the El Paso, TX, shooting tragedy
- Why race science is on the rise again, Angela Saini’s essay in the Guardian, outlines how the false notions of race science has returned with the resurgence of the far right
- What’s in a Frame?: The Perils of “Domestic Terrorism”, Kay Whitlock and Michael Bronski’s Beacon Broadside blog post, argues that framing hate crimes as domestic terrorism only intensifies policing and surveillance rather than dismantle structurally violent polieces and practices
- Books: Gather at the Table, Considering Hate, The Radical King, White Fragility, Superior, Proud Boys and the White Ethnostate
- More resources
About the Author
Helene Atwan has been the director of Beacon Press since 1995.