Anti-Racism Resources - EOY 2025

[Accessibility description: On a black background is an illustration of three raised fists signifying People of Color. Above the image is the text “Anti-Racism Resources” and below is the text “Fascism.”]

Each month, we feature educational resources in the NAAFA Newsletter to support our community in working to dismantle systemic racism. These resources are also shared on our social media, blog, and website. Resources vary from month to month, and may include historical information, tools for personal reflection, or information about how to get involved and make change. Many of the resources we suggest will be introductory resources, and this information is never intended to be full coverage on the complex and nuanced topics that are chosen each month. We encourage you to continue learning, and we especially hope you will seek out and support scholars, artists, creators, and activists who represent the communities most impacted by the topic of the month. 

This month we invite you to join us in exploring resources about Fascism.

• What were some of the similarities between racism in Nazi Germany and the United States? - As Americans, we tend to think of fascism as something that happens “somewhere else” but unfortunately tenets of authoritarianism and extremism are a part of our story, too. In fact, the Nazi’s studied Jim Crow laws as models for their plans to eliminate Jews from Germany. We can learn from all of our history to find paths away from hate and eugenics and toward respect and freedom for all people.

• Racism and Fascism by Toni Morrison - In this brilliant address given at Howard University during its 1995 Charter Day celebration, Ms. Morrison talks about the societal tensions resulting from racism and fascism. It clearly outlines the steps that a fascist regime will take in establishing an "internal enemy" based on racial biases.

• Recovering Black Antifascism - This article reviews The Black Antifascist Tradition: Fighting Back from Anti-Lynching to Abolition by Jeanelle K. Hope and Bill V. Mullen, and highlights excellent parts of the book which show how generations of Black activists and intellectuals—from Ida B. Wells in the fight against lynching, to Angela Y. Davis in the fight against the prison-industrial complex—have stood within a tradition of Black Antifascism.

• Why We Need To Expose the Link Between Racism and Fascism - This article provides a really critical reminder that by fighting racism, we are subduing the initial threads of fascism and that racism is a tool of fascist regimes. By fighting against racism, we get extra bang for our buck because the two oppressive systems often go hand and hand, as we’re seeing in our current system. 

• The Long Shadow of Racial Fascism - This article highlights the Black and African-American scholarship that has been drawing parallels between fascism and colonization for decades.

• OP-ED: The People’s Ozempic: Thinness, White Supremacy, and Fascism - "Fatphobia aligns seamlessly with fascist ideologies by upholding rigid standards of what bodies should look like and who deserves full humanity. Fat bodies are cast as lazy, undisciplined, and undesirable—coded language that echoes broader societal disdain for those who deviate from white, patriarchal norms." We have to understand what is happening in our society in order to dismantle the systems of racism, fascism and fat hatred.

• How the far right is using thinness to radicalise women and teen girls - An exploration of how fascism impacts body politics, especially through the lens of white, thin supremacy. The essay explains how "for far-right women, there is no such thing as body positivity or body neutrality. Thinness is a moral imperative; it shows dominance over the body and aligns oneself with European beauty standards.” But when women who seek privilege through “dominating" their own bodies, what does that mean for all of us whose bodies will never conform to their standards?

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Other Articles from the EOY 2025 Newsletter