VIDEO: Race and the Carceral State

Why do people see mass incarceration as a racial problem? What does race have to do with incarceration and what does either have to do with philosophy?

The Social Construction of Race

“Unemployment, imprisonment, and other life events can change what race those around you perceive you to be.”

“Stanford sociologist Aliya Saperstein discusses her research showing that the perception of other peoples’ race is shaped by what we know about them…Race is a social construction, not just in the sense that we made it up, but in that it’s flexible and dependent on status as well as phenotype.”

 

Click here.

Black Friday brawl videos are how rich people shame the poor

You’ll notice producers from a variety of television programs — “Good Morning America,” Fox News, CNN — all asking for permission to use the video on their broadcasts, because they know this type of shopper-on-shopper violence is a huge draw. Mixed in with those, perhaps unsurprisingly, are a bevy of comments comparing the shoppers to animals, or savages, or making horrifically offensive racist comments.

…this kind of gawking shows how our lurid interest in these stories is connected to issues of class and race in America.

Click here.

Aziz Ansari on Acting, Race and Hollywood

From left, Mr. Ansari, Noël Wells, Lena Waithe and Eric Wareheim in the Netflix series “Master of None.” Credit K.C. Bailey/Netflix

The hilarious Aziz Ansari recently wrote an article for NYTimes about the lack of opportunity for PoC actors in the entertainment industry. He notes that even when the rare non-white character is available, the challenges of casting tend to lead to either a white-washing of the role or to the casting of a white actor in black/brown/yellow-face.

“Even at a time when minorities account for almost 40 percent of the American population, when Hollywood wants an “everyman,” what it really wants is a straight white guy. But a straight white guy is not every man. The “everyman” is everybody.”

On Facebook, Ansari calls for more effort on the part of producers to cast non-white actors to represent diverse roles: “We are all more sophisticated, compelling, and interesting than our ethnicities, accents, and stereotypical jobs. Let’s see that on TV and film.”

Click here to read the full article.


 

Ansari’s been on a roll tackling Race in America; during his Tuesday night interview with Stephen Colbert on The Late Show, Ansari pointed out the rare 50% percent diversity rate of​ a white guy and an Indian guy sharing the stage… “an all-time high for CBS!” ???

Shining a Light, A Concert for Progress in Race in America

Artists of different races and ethnic backgrounds will come together to perform once-in-a-lifetime duets and collaborations. The 2-hour special program will broadcast from the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on Friday, November 20 at 8pm ET/PT across A+E Networks and 150 iHeart radio stations. The concert will raise funds for organizations and individuals (through a sponsoring organization) that are working for racial justice and reconciliation.

Lineup

Zac Brown Band, Eric Church, Andra Day, Jamie Foxx, Rhiannon Giddens, Tori Kelly, John Legend, Miguel, P!nk, Jill Scott, Big Sean, Ed Sheeran, Sia, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Pharrell Williams & more

Click here for more info!

VIDEO: 2 Videos by The Atlantic

Mass Incarceration, Visualized

“In this animated interview, the sociologist Bruce Western explains the current inevitability of prison for certain demographics of young black men and how it’s become a normal life event. ‘We’ve chosen the response of the deprivation of liberty for a historically aggrieved group, whose liberty in the United States was never firmly established to begin with,’ Western says.”

The Enduring Myth of Black Criminality

Ta-Nehisi Coates explores how mass incarceration has affected African American families. “There’s a long history in this country of dealing with problems in the African American community through the criminal justice system,” he says in this animated interview. “The enduring view of African Americans in this country is as a race of people who are prone to criminality.”

TED: Skin Color is an Illusion

The author and speaker in this TED talk, “Nina Jablonski says that differing skin colors are simply our bodies’ adaptation to varied climates and levels of UV exposure. Charles Darwin disagreed with this theory, but she explains, that’s because he did not have access to NASA.”

http://https://www.ted.com/talks/nina_jablonski_breaks_the_illusion_of_skin_colorVideo Link

VIDEO: Bill Nye – Race is a Human Construct

Check out this video of Bill Nye the Science Guy using scientific evidence to argue that “race” doesn’t exist from a biological perspective. Nye first debunks the myth of purebred dogs by analyzing that canine breeding and evolution has yielded a broad spectrum of physical characteristics but no actual variance in species:

“We obsess about whether our dog is a pug-Jack Russell terrier mix with corgi overtones and an oaky finish…whatever. They’re all dogs, okay? And so the idea of a purebred is just a human construct. There’s no such thing – in a sense there’s no such thing as a purebred dog.”

He then draws s comparison between the idea of dog “breeds” and human “races”, both just being constructs:

“If a Papua New Guinean hooks up with a Swedish person all you get is a human.  There’s no new thing you’re going to get. You just get a human…for humankind there’s really no such thing as race. There’s different tribes but not different races. We’re all one species.

Any thoughts on Nye’s argument?