NPR on Post-Racial America

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NPR on Post-Racial America

Some of the themes touched on include, but are not limited to:
  • the social construction of race and racial disparities
  • race, power, and institutions
  • the racialization of opportunity structures in the stimulus packages of the 1930s and the new millenium
  • colorblind ideology
  • language that bridges the color divide

Here is a more detailed description of the 20 minute segment:

Description

President Barack Obama is the country's first African-American president. For some, his victory has ushered in a post racial era in which there is less need for Americans to talk about race. But not everyone agrees. Professor and commentator Boyce Watkins, author Shelby Steele and John Powell, of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University, discuss whether a post-racial America really exists.


Some Notable Quotes (chosen at my discretion)

Shelby Steele: "what it means to me, a post-racial society, is a society where race is no longer connected to power..." (03:40)

Boyce Watkins: "...racism is not about good people or bad people. it's about the fact that our ancestors have created a mess that was created through deliberate action and must be cleaned up and corrected through equally deliberate action." (05:23)

Boyce Watkins: "the other element of our straitjacket reality in America is that...we are the only ones in the world, for the most part, who do not see the two-tiered society in which we live..." (15:50)

John Powell: "you create what's called empathetic space. you create space where every voice can be heard...people are much [more] willing to look at structures if you take off the table that you're...calling them a racist..." (18:08)


Listen with pleasure!

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