America has had a race problem for about … how old is this country again? But when George Floyd was killed by police in the spring of 2020, Americans finally had hard video evidence that this racism thing needed to be at the very least acknowledged, if not fixed. (It’s definitely not fixed. But they did finally free Uncle Ben from the rice box.)

It just so happens that the rich Virginian tobacco farmers who built this country weren’t the ones breaking a sweat. From the beginning, Black people have had to fight so hard for equality that they’ve been irreparably set back in the pursuit of equity. And whenever there’s real talk about finally righting centuries of wrongs, white people seem to hear: “They’re coming for us! Gloria, get the good silverware!”

Black people have been telling us for decades that systemic racism is the ultimate white-people problem. Here is a batch of articles my research team flagged as required reading for our episode on racism in America. Which I am sure won’t be controversial at all. —Jon Stewart