This page has been created to support my lecture series, “Dismantling the Racism Machine,” for the Leisure Learning Program of the Bernards Public Library, Basking Ridge, March to May 2019. Participants are also encouraged to visit the Resources tab on this site, which includes additional pages of links related to specific aspects of race and racism.
Part 1: Overview (3/18/19)
PowerPoint slides: Leisure Learning Gaffney Part 1 March 18 2019
Part 2: What does it mean to say that race is a social construct and not biological, and why does it matter? (3/25/19)
Powerpoint slides: Leisure Learning Gaffney Part 2 March 25 2019
Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Race
Race: The Power of an Illusion (companion website for the film)
Race: Are We So Different (companion website for textbook)
Race: The Power of an Illusion (info on how to watch the film)
“Race ≠ DNA: If race is a social construct, what’s up with DNA ancestry testing?”
“Genes for Skin Color Rebut Dated Notions of Race, Researchers Say”
“First modern Britons had ‘dark to black’ skin, Cheddar Man DNA analysis reveals”
“There’s No Scientific Basis for Race—It’s a Made-Up Label”
“The disturbing reason some African American patients may be undertreated for pain”
“I Don’t Feel Your Pain: A failure of empathy perpetuates racial disparities”
“Racial Disparities in Pain Management of Children With Appendicitis in Emergency Departments”
“Racial Bias in Perceptions of Others’ Pain”
“Race Best Predicts Whether You Live Near Pollution”
“How Racism Is Bad for Our Bodies”
Part 3: How did the invention of race serve to divide and conquer people in colonial America, and what impact did that have? (4/1/19)
Powerpoint slides: Leisure Learning Gaffney Part 3 April 1 2019
“Seeing White” (14-part podcast series from Scene on Radio that covers the social construction of race, the invention of whiteness, systemic racism, and more)
The Invention of the White Race by Theodore W. Allen
The History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter
Part 4: How were the mechanisms of the Racism Machine strengthened after the founding of the US? (4/8/19)
Powerpoint slides: Leisure Learning Gaffney Part 4 April 8 2019 expanded
The Princeton & Slavery Project
Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum (Facebook page and website)
An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
PBS: Unspoken: America’s Native American Boarding Schools
PBS: The Chinese Exclusion Act
Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race by Matthew Frye Jacobson
The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class by David Roediger
White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race by Ian Haney López
Part 5: How did the census serve as a weapon of white supremacy in the past? What is the relationship between the census and race today? (4/15/19)
Powerpoint slides: Leisure Learning Gaffney Part 5 April 15 2019
Karen Gaffney’s article “Confronting the U.S. Census as a Weapon of White Supremacy”
“In Donald Trump’s Census, Who Counts?” (NY Times)
NPR: Hansi Lo Wang (recommended coverage of US census)
Brennan Center for Justice: Litigation About the 2020 Census
Part 6: How and why has systemic racism persisted after the Civil Rights Movement?
Powerpoint slides: Leisure Learning Gaffney Part 6 April 22 2019
“A ‘Forgotten History’ Of How The U.S. Government Segregated America” (NPR Fresh Air interview with Richard Rothstein, author of The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America)
“Poor whites live in richer neighborhoods than middle-class blacks and Latinos”
“New Jersey’s Apartheid and Intensely Segregated Urban Schools”
“Wealth inequality has widened along racial, ethnic lines since end of Great Recession”
“Black Mamas Sound Alarm on Maternal Death Rate”
“State Variations in Infant Mortality by Race and Hispanic Origin of Mother, 2013–2015”
“What’s Killing America’s Black Infants?”
“Racism in the Kindergarten Classroom”
NJ Institute for Social Justice
“Race Best Predicts Whether You Live Near Pollution”
“Voter Suppression Is a Much Bigger Problem Than Voter Fraud”
e”Adam Ruins the Suburbs” (video from Adam Ruins Everything web video series about “The Disturbing History of the Suburbs”)
Part 7: How have specific racial stereotypes been used as divide and conquer strategies as part of the backlash to the Civil Rights Movement?
Powerpoint slides: Leisure Learning Gaffney Part 7 April 29 2019
“Income Inequality in the U.S. Is Rising Most Rapidly Among Asians”
“Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders: Facts, Not Fiction: Setting the Record Straight”
“Model Minority Stereotype for Asian Americans”
“The Professional Burdens of Being a ‘Model Minority’”
“How elite US schools give preference to wealthy and white ‘legacy’ applicants”
“The Real Reasons Legacy Preferences Exist”
“News media offers consistently warped portrayals of black families, study finds”
“Revealing the Lives of Black Fathers”
Michelle Alexander’s Ted Talk on mass incarceration (related to her book The New Jim Crow)
“Police Shoot at a Black Couple Near Yale, Prompting a Week of Protests”
“Jameek Lowery was paranoid and pleaded with police for help. He died two days later.”
NJ Institute for Social Justice
Part 8: What is white privilege, and why are white people often defensive about this term?
Powerpoint slides: Leisure Learning Gaffney Part 8 May 6 2019
divided no longer 