As well as protesting, listening, signing petitions and donating to social justice organisations, another positive step we can take right now is to educate ourselves about the history of systemic racism both within America and our own backyard. Below is a reading list designed to help you better understand the context of this particularly devastating moment and to help broaden your capacity for empathy.

Sister Outsider by Audre Lord
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall

The Hate Race by Maxine Beneba Clarke
White Tears, Brown Scars by Ruby Hamad
Freedom Is A Constant Struggle by Angela Davis
The Fire This Time edited by Jesmyn Ward
White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia by Anita Heiss
Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge

Fiction

The Yield by Tara June Winch
What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons

Terra Nullius by Claire G. Coleman
The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie