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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!
Reconsidering Race w/ Dr. Joseph L. Graves, Jr. and Dr. Ann J. Morning
ETFF speaks with evolutionary biologist Joseph Graves and sociologist Ann Morning about their essays in the new text, Reconsidering Race: Social Science Perspectives on Racial Categories in the Age of Genomics.
Audio can be heard here!
Two-Part (belated) Darwin Day Special!
Audio 1 here!
Audio 2 here!
“What’s all the Fuss About? Darwinism and its Discontents”
Featuring Dr. Joseph Graves, Jr. and Dr. John Bellamy Foster
As we’ve just bypassed both the 200th anniversary of the great Naturalist Charles Darwin’s birth on February 12th, and the 150th anniversary of perhaps the most influential scientific text of all time – “On the Origin of Species” (11/24/09) – the humanist and Freethought community in general, and the world at large, has once again grappled with the significance of the scientific theory of evolution via natural selection.
In most of the developed world, and elsewhere, Darwin’s theories have not only been understood and championed, but put to the real tests of understanding not only the origins and complexity of life forms on Earth, but via the treatment of diseases for which evolution’s tenets are absolutely vital. Still, populations – usually those where religion still carries great meaning for many people (particularly the Abrahamic religions), including many states in the US – have not only been reluctant to embrace evolutionary science, but have actively fought against the teaching of evolution and it’s very existence.
The strong hold of Creationism in both Christianity and Islam has swayed more people in these areas then Darwinism ever had, and many freethinkers tend to believe the core of these problems lie in the supernaturalism and “scared” texts of which religion is built. But does there lay a deeper, more systemic reason for the sway of Creationism over Darwinism which scientific advocates fail to, or don’t wish to discuss when combating anti-evolution sentiments and activism? Indeed, can understanding one of the core reasons Charles Darwin himself sought out the science behind life’s’ diversity – especially with regards to human beings – shed some light on the vehemence aimed at evolutionary theory?
Race & Racism in the 21st Century: A Humanist Approach w/ Tim Wise & Joseph Graves
Audio here!
It can be argued that perhaps the key issue which separates the United States from the other 17 world democracies is that this nation was built in no small way on the backs of chattel slavery, an institution which has had an impact not only on the “race” of people whom were enslaved, but the entire sociopolitical structure of the nation itself. Not only has slavery, and the justification of slavery and domination which we know today as racism, affected the relationships between those of African-Americans and the dominant “race” (Caucasians) – as well as other people of color whose entrance and experiences in this nation, however problematic, were different by the very nature of how they came to be in America – but it has also blurred the line between the powerful and rich and the rest of us who share a class consciousness’ (or who should!)
And now, with the rise of Barack Obama to the most powerful position of power on the planet, many Caucasians – especially conservatives, but many liberals as well – have decided that the U.S. is a post-racial society, and that the only thing that really stands between other African-Americans and their potential Obama-like success is what whites perceive of as a lack of “personal responsibility” on behalf of blacks in America.
Continue reading “Show 273: Race & Racism in the 21st Century: A Humanist Approach”
Fund Drive Show: Tim Wise – Director of the “Association for White Anti-Racist Education” in Tennessee and author of White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son & Chris Mooney – senior correspondent for “American Prospect” & author of Republican War on Science.
Audio here!
Continue reading “Show 157: Fund Drive Show: Tim Wise & Chris Mooney”