Resources

Whether in private practice, community-based organizations, or larger institutions, we all must help foster a sense of belonging as we work to achieve equity across the communities we represent and serve. Here are some resources that I find helpful for creating and maintaining positive change. I encourage you to engage with them on your own terms, consciously and even critically — and to reflect deeply on whatever information you find.

Organizations and Colleagues

ALLICE Kumares & Kumpares, also known as Alliance for Community Empowerment, is a nonprofit all-volunteer organization dedicated to promoting healthier relationships, homes, and communities through education.

Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative (BARHII) is a coalition of 11 public health departments committed to advancing health equity.

Filipino Mental Health Initiative is one of San Mateo County’s health equity initiatives. FMHI aims to improve the well-being of Filipinos countywide by reducing the stigma of mental health, increasing access to services, and further empowering the community through outreach and engagement. 

Mabuhay Health Center (MHC) is a free community health clinic run by UCSF students that strives to empower communities, foster the educational development of its volunteers, and bridge gaps in access to health care and resources by providing comprehensive and culturally sensitive services.

NAMI California, part of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, is a grassroots organization of families and individuals whose lives have been affected by serious mental health issues. 

National Equity Project (NEP) aims to dramatically improve educational experiences, outcomes, and life options for students and families who have been historically underserved by their schools and districts.

Public Health Awakened is a network of public health professionals organizing for health, equity, and justice. The program is part of Human Impact Partners, which brings the power of public health to campaigns and movements for a just society.

Race Forward is home to the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE), a national network of local governments working to achieve racial equity and advance opportunities for all. Race Forward publishes the daily news site Colorlines and presents Facing Race, the country’s largest multiracial conference on racial justice.

Dr. Melanie Tervalon is an internationally renowned physician, educator, community activist, and thought leader on cultural humility.

Books

The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D., reveals how a group of therapists and scientists — alongside their patients — struggled to integrate advances in attachment research, brain science, and body awareness into treatments for trauma survivors.

So You Want to Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo, carefully and closely examines race in America, providing ample material for meaningful conversations.

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, by Richard Rothstein, explains how segregation in the United States is the byproduct of biased government policies at the local, state, and federal levels.

How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi, uses ethics, history, law, and science to help us rethink our most deeply held beliefs about race and reexamine the policies and larger social arrangements we support. 

Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates, offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s racial history and current crisis. 

Just Medicine: A Cure for Racial Inequality in American Health Care, by Dayna Bowen Matthew, presents an innovative plan for eliminating racial and ethnic biases in the U.S. health care system and saving the lives that they endanger.

My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Path to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, by Resmaa Menakem, is the first self-discovery book to delve into white body supremacy from the perspective of trauma and body-centered psychology.

I’m Judging You: The Do-Better Manual, by Luvvie Ajayi, compiles the blogger, activist, and comedian’s essays into a modern manners guide that counters bad behavior with common sense. 

Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, by adrienne maree brown, draws on science and science fiction for radical scenarios — societal, planetary, and self-help — designed to shape the futures we want to live.

Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, by adrienne maree brown, challenges readers to rethink the ground rules of activism and change their mind-sets.

The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World, by Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu with Douglas Carlton Abrams, look back on their experiences of exile and oppression—and discuss how to find joy in the face of suffering.

Power and Love: A Theory and Practice of Social Change, by Adam Kahane, asserts that the two most common approaches to solving tough social problems — aggression or compromise — are fundamentally flawed, because the way forward is to combine the driving forces of power and love.

American Psychosis: How the Federal Government Destoyed the Treatment System, by E. Fuller Torrey, M.D., exposes how the dismantling of the institutions caring for people with serious mental illnesses, without ever replacing it, has had dire consequences for patients over the past 50 years.

Love for Imperfect Things: How to Accept Yourself in a World Striving for Perfection, by Haemin Sunim, a Zen buddhist teacher, shows us how taking better care of ourselves enables us to take better care of others.

How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community, by Mia Birdsong, notes that beyond the injustices related to race, class, gender, values, and beliefs, what divides Americans today is our denial of our interdependence and need for belonging. Instead of leaning on one another, we’ve isolated ourselves out of fear and discomfort. 

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, by Atul Gawande, delves into the health care system’s shortcomings related to end-of-life care and dying — and suggests how to have those hard conversations with our loved ones to make sure we’re truly looking out for their best interests.

Stamped From the Beginning, by Ibram X. Kendi, chronicles anti-Black racist ideas in American society and their immense power over the course of U.S. history.

From What Is to What If, by Rob Hopkins, asks why human imagination is on the decline and considers what we must do to revive and reclaim it in order to change the world for the better.

Racing to Justice: Transforming Our Conceptions of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society, by john a. powell, is a collection of meditations on race, identity, and social policy that challenges us to replace the attitudes and institutions that perpetuate suffering with those that foster relationships and allow us to transcend disconnection and separation.