“How We Fight White Supremacy” Looking at Grammy Nomination

By Caitlin Burns | November 5, 2020

By Nikolai Kachuyevski ’21

The 2019 audio book How We Fight White Supremacy: A Field Guide to Black Resistance, which includes a contribution by Dr. Bruce Campbell Jr., associate professor of Education, could be up for a Grammy. 

How We Fight White Supremacy examines how Black people from various backgrounds and professions have fought white supremacy, and includes contributions form comedians, lawyers, and artists. The audio book, which was released in December 2019, may see international recognition for its address of real-world issues. For Dr. Campbell’s contribution, authors and editors Akiba Solomon and Kenrya Rankin asked him to detail his personal experience and fight. 

“I wrote an essay that was really personal about where I go and what I do when I feel like I’m fighting white supremacy,”  said Campbell about the printed edition of the book. “That could be something like microaggressions that I deal with on a regular basis. I talked about being one of very few Black people in a lot of different spaces in my life and how I navigate those spaces in light of white supremacy.” 

Additionally, given Dr. Campbell’s background with music as DJ Junior and owner of Record Breakin’ Music, Solomon and Rankin asked him to curate a playlist (available on Spotify) that could appropriately coincide with the book. 

“What was interesting for me was that I was able to use two things that I’m really passionate about—social justice and music,” said Dr. Campbell.  “I used my own research for songs that were either uplifting or were fitting for protest, or honestly songs that I go to that I find soothing and put me in my happy place.”

Dr. Campbell credits the Black Lives Matter movement that started over the summer for the resurgence of interest in How We Fight White Supremacy.

“It’s interesting how in the spring this book came up again,,” said Campbell. “ It was on different people’s must-read lists and got a new life again.”