Speaking of Race - Podcasts: Recent Episodes
Jim Bindon, Erik Peterson, Jo Weaver
Speaking of Race · Eugenics, Part 2In this episode we describe some of the early roots of eugenics and Erik describes his three-ingredient model for eugenics.TranscriptFile Size:1009 kbFile Type:pdfDownload File [...]
Speaking of Race · A Deeper SicknessIn this episode we interview Erik Peterson about the book he recently released with fellow historian, Margaret Peacock, about the crazy pandemic year of 2020. Race features prominently throughout!Some resources:The website that accompanies the book: adhc.lib.ua.edu/pandemicbook/The book: www.amazon.com/Deeper-Sickness-J…mic/dp/0807040290 [...]
Speaking of Race · Top 5 Scientific RacismsIn this episode we respond to a listener question about our top 5 examples of scientific racism. Unfortunately, in the five years of this podcast, we’ve only discussed two of these people/topics, so we’ve got a lot of work to do to get up to speed. The transcript (below) includes references and resources for these topics.Transcript.pdfFile Size:154 kbFile Type:pdfDownload File [...]
Speaking of Race · Great is whose sin?At least since Stephen Jay Gould's 1981 classic Mismeasure of Man, Darwin has been characterized as a kindly anti-racist while Morton has been characterized as a founding father of scientific racism. We argue that the two men were much more alike in their views on both slavery and race.Episode ScriptFile Size:319 kbFile Type:pdfDownload File [...]
Speaking of Race · Racism Not RaceIn this episode, we talk with evolutionary biologist Joe Graves and biological anthropologist Alan Goodman about their roles as thought leaders on public education around race, racism, and science. They tell us about how they came to collaborate on their new book Racism not Race: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions, which tackles many of these issues. As promised, here are the links to the Wikipedia pages for Joe and for Alan so you can see some of their m [...]
Speaking of Race · Eugenics, part 1Eugenics: the science and practice of promoting “good breeding” among humans. An early-20th-century movement so steeped in white supremacy that even some white people don’t count, much less people of color. Here we begin a series with more than you ever wanted to know about the sinister history of eugenics, including mass sterilization campaigns in the US and direct connections to the Holocaust.TranscriptFile Size:124 kbFile Type:pdfDownload File [...]
Speaking of Race · Race and Ancestry in Forensic AnthropologyThe idea that race is a biological reality has hung on longest and strongest in the parts of biological anthropology that deal with skeletal remains. In this episode we talk with two forensic anthropologists, Sean Tallman and Allysha Winburn, about how typological notions of race and ancestry have changed over time in this segment of the discipline. They have published a recent paper discussing this change (Tallman, S. D., Parr, N. M. [...]
Speaking of Race · FirminRacial equality is a new idea, right? Wrong! Meet Anténor Firmin, renegade Haitian intellectual of the late 19th century. He traveled all over the world, duked it out with elite scientific racists, hung out with Frederick Douglass, even ran for president -- but was exiled. Twice. On this episode, we discuss the Haitian anthropologist whose work is finally gaining the recognition it deserves, and why you've never heard of him.Joseph_Anténor_Firmin.pdfFile Size:198 k [...]
Speaking of Race · Skin Color, part 2In this episode we finish our discussion of skin color with genetic and evolutionary models proposed throughout the 20th and into the 21st century. Spoiler alert: It's complicated!Script and Resources available hereFile Size:413 kbFile Type:pdfDownload File [...]
Speaking of Race · History of Skin ColorSkin color is probably THE key thing we think of when we think about race these days, but it wasn't always that way. In this episode, we ask: where and when did skin color become the trait most associated with race? There's so much to talk about that we don't quite make it up to the present day--stay tuned for a sequel where we discuss contemporary understandings of skin color, genetics, and race! The pdf below contains a heavily footnoted and ref [...]
Speaking of Race · DecolonizingWhat does it mean to “decolonize” teaching and scholarship? Why would we want to do that? And how? We take on these questions and more in a panel discussion with social scientists and established scholars of race Lance Gravlee, John L. Jackson Jr., Stephanie McClure, and Yolanda Moses. Some Resources:Blum, Susan D., and Alfie Kohn, eds. (2020). Ungrading: Why rating students undermines learning (and what to do instead). West Virginia University Pres [...]
Speaking of Race · Karl Pearson and Geoffrey MorantIn this episode we interview historian of science Iris Clever about her research untangling the early 20th century entanglements of the biometricians, physical anthropology, and race. She pursues this topic through the exploration of work by the statistician and Galton protégé, Karl Pearson, and one of Pearson’s favorite students, Geoffrey Morant. Morant, who publicly opposed Nazi racism in the 1930s and 40s, maintained the biological reali [...]
Speaking of Race · Morton-Tiedemann-GouldIn this episode we talk with Paul Wolff Mitchell, of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, about the skull measurements of 19th century founding father of the American School of Anthropology, Samuel George Morton. Morton used his skull measurements to provide scientific support for polygenism (multiple origins of human races), slavery, and the ranking of races (as we discussed in earlier episodes: Monogenism and Polygenism and [...]
Speaking of Race · CasteIn this episode, Jo invites Alan Goodman back to review Isabel Wilkerson’s book, Caste. They provide some context from a science and history perspective on both caste and race. Some resources:Here’s the source that Alan refers to: Egorova, Y. (2009). De/geneticizing Caste: Population Genetic Research in South Asia. Science as Culture, 18(4), 417-434. doi:10.1080/09505430902806975Speaking of Race, Race in India playlist: https://soundcloud.com/user-88955638/se [...]
Speaking of Race · Redlining, Health, and VotingScriptFile Size:122 kbFile Type:pdfDownload FileDid you know that how your neighborhood was assessed by a government agency over 70 years ago had an impact on your health and even your voting rights today? In this episode we talk about how the Home Owners Loan Corporation gave systemic racism in the U.S. a huge boost with their neighborhood ratings from the 1930s to the 1950s! [...]
Speaking of Race · Scientific RacismIn this episode we discuss a speaker who came to UA in Fall 2019 to give a presentation about the evolution of human diversity—but it was actually a presentation of scientific racism in evolutionary clothing. Erik and Jim were part of a panel that rebutted his presentation and we share our experience with Jo.Low quality (especially the audio) videos of our rebuttal presentations are available here:Jim’s presentation: https://www.facebook.com/ALLELEseries/ [...]
Speaking of Race · The Protests about the Death of George FloydIn this episode we discuss issues surrounding the demonstrations in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. Resources Crowdsourced spreadsheet documenting police violence: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YmZeSxpz52qT-10tkCjWOwOGkQqle7Wd1P7ZM1wMW0E/DiAngelo, R. (2018). White fragility: Why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight (June 7, 2020): h [...]
In this episode we talk with two past presidents of the American Anthropological Association who played key roles in presenting the public face of American anthropology with regard to race over the past several decades: Yolanda Moses and Alan Goodman. They discuss the outreach efforts of the AAA. Some Resources: Blog posts on Sapiens:Five posts on race from 2016 and 2017 by Yolanda Moses: https://www.sapiens.org/authors/yolanda-moses/Goodman’s post from Mar 2020: https://www.sapiens. [...]
In this episode we give our take on the rapidly growing information about racial disparities in the face of the current pandemic. Some resources:Early Data Shows African Americans Have Contracted and Died of Coronavirus at an Alarming Rate. https://www.propublica.org/article/early-data-shows-african-americans-have-contracted-and-died-of-coronavirus-at-an-alarming-rateCOVID-19 is hitting black and poor communities the hardest, underscoring fault lines in access and care for those on margins [...]
In this episode we continue our discussion with the sociologist, David Embrick. Here, we talk first about white public space including academia and anthropology as well as museums, where Dr. Embrick has looked at this issue. Next we talk about reverse racism as illustrated by Dr. Embrick’s work on the imbalance of racial slurs.Some Resources:Embrick, D. G., & Henricks, K. (2013). Discursive colorlines at work: How epithets and stereotypes are racially unequal. Symbolic Interaction, 36(2 [...]
In this episode we interview the sociologist, David Embrick, about structural and institutional racism and diversity ideology. If you’d like to learn more about the relationship of structural racism and other inequities to the impact of the COVID pandemic, listen to this podcast from This Anthropological Life: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/episodes/A-Virus-Without-Borders-The-Design-of-Public-Health--Inequality--and-Hope-ebot2d.Resources for this topic:Bonilla-Silva, E. (1997). Rethink [...]
We finally fulfill our promise to talk about the seven thug skulls that arrived at the Edinburgh Phrenological Society in 1833. We also discuss how phrenology has been used to bolster biological ideas about race.TranscriptFile Size:292 kbFile Type:pdfDownload File [...]
Franz Boas is the father of racial constructivism. In this episode we interview an expert to learn more about how Boas came to his views on race and how he followed them with actions throughout his life.Program NotesFile Size:146 kbFile Type:pdfDownload File [...]
In this episode we explore the history of racial ideas about blood pressure. We focus on problems with many genetic explanations of racial differences seen in hypertension in the U.S. Finally we discuss some of the better alternative explanations for racial differences based on the history of racism in America.Race and Health, part 3File Size:194 kbFile Type:pdfDownload File [...]
In this episode we tackle one of the most misunderstood aspects of race and biology: sickle cell. We demonstrate how the history of its discovery in the U.S. combined with the historical demography of North American colonialism and the slave trade all conspired to create the illusion of a race-based genetic condition. The history of this first "molecular" disease along with its connection to malaria can help to dispel lingering ideas of genetic races.Race and Sickle CellFile Size:130 kbFile Type [...]
In this episode we begin the long and sordid saga of how race is entangled with health and medicine, and along the way you’ll find out how a rail-riding hobo took over two issues of the Journal of the American Economic Association in 1896 with 329 pages that shaped ideas about African American health for decades. Sources are available in the transcript.Race and Health, Part 1File Size:168 kbFile Type:pdfDownload FileListener Al Ryan, a biological anthropologist, offered this comment: E [...]