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Dismantling the Racism Machine and understanding White Fragility w/ Karen Gaffney and Robin DiAngelo
Part two of our two-part show on Racism featured two educators on Racism and Whiteness in America. How was Racism created? What is Whiteness, why do white people find it so difficult to discuss Racism, and how it is a white problem, not a black or brown problem? And finally, how can we dismantle Racism before it dismantles us?
Listen to audio here!
Stephen Eric Bronner on The Bigot: Why Prejudice Persists
Audio here!
What are the conditions which lead to bigotry? How common is bigotry in American society today, and how does it manifest itself in our post civil rights, gay rights, and women’s rights culture? Has the twice elected, first black president helped cool the flames of prejudice and racism, or has it fanned them instead? And how do we challenge bigotry if it is so deeply rooted in many segments of American culture and around the world?
We’ll talk about this and more this week with Stephen Eric Bronner. Bronner is a professor of political science and the Director of Global Relations at the ‘Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights‘ at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. He is also the author of over a dozen books including the subject of this show, “The Bigot: Why Prejudice Persists.”
“Dear White America…” w/ Tim Wise
Audio here!
Prominent anti-racist essayist, educator, and author, Tim Wise, joins the Equal Time For Freethought this Saturday with a message for white folks: shape up, because your status as a “majority” is about to be shipped out.
According to estimates, people of color will be the majority in the United States by no later than 2050. The change in demographics is just one of four fronts on which “white normativity,” as Wise calls it, is being challenged. In his latest book, Dear White America: Letter to a New Minority, Wise pens a 153 page letter directly to white Americans (as well as non-whites who subscribe to a destructive ideology of white privilege), that challenges and dismantles the roots of their beliefs.
Wise, who does not “hate white people” as many have claimed, says white folks of today should not assume blame for the racially motivated atrocities of their forefathers, but do have a responsibility to foster a socially just and equal society today.
In this interview, Wise will discuss changes on the other three fronts – political, economic, and cultural – as well as elaborate on points made in his book including how whites’ inability to identify with the pain of black and brown people – in particular, a failure to acknowledge and stop predatory lending practices in communities of color – may have contributed to the spread of high-cost mortgage tools into middle “white” America.
Dear White America is Wise’s sixth book. Others include his acclaimed memoir, White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son, and Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama.