RACE: THE POWER OF AN ILLUSION

Produced

• 2003

Key Features

3 episodes, 56 minutes each, available on VHS

DVD version includes all 3 episodes on 1 DVD

The division of the world's peoples into distinct groups - "red," "black," "white" or "yellow" people - has became so deeply imbedded in our psyches, so widely accepted, many would promptly dismiss as crazy any suggestion of its falsity. Yet, that's exactly what this provocative, new three-hour diversity training series by California Newsreel claims. Race: The Power of an Illusion questions the very idea of race as biology, suggesting that a belief in race is no more sound than believing that the sun revolves around the earth.

Yet race still matters. Just because race doesn't exist in biology doesn't mean it isn't very real, helping shape life chances and opportunities.

Episode 1- The Difference Between Us examines the contemporary science - including genetics - that challenges our common sense assumptions that human beings can be bundled into three or four fundamentally different groups according to their physical traits.

Episode 2- The Story We Tell uncovers the roots of the race concept in North America, the 19th century science that legitimated it, and how it came to be held so fiercely in the western imagination. The episode is an eye-opening tale of how race served to rationalize, even justify, American social inequalities as "natural."
Episode 3- The House We Live In asks, If race is not biology, what is it? This episode uncovers how race resides not in nature but in politics, economics and culture. It reveals how our social institutions "make" race by disproportionately channeling resources, power, status and wealth to white people.

By asking, What is this thing called 'race'?, a question so basic it is rarely asked, Race: The Power of an Illusion helps set the terms that any further discussion of race must first take into account. Ideal for human biology, anthropology, sociology, American history, American studies, diversity training and cultural studies.

This diversity training program is also available individually on VHS cassette.

CRITCAL REVIEWS:
“So why did RACE- The Power of an Illusion floor me? The show explains how contemporary science debunks old notions of race, how these ugly falsehoods evolved, and where race does live -- in institutions that disproportionately, and often invisibly, grant power and wealth to whites.”
Donna Britt, Washington Post

"By far the best documentary series on race of the last decade."
Troy Duster, president-elect, American Sociological Association

"One of the most honest and compelling documentary series I've ever seen on race and its impact on this nation's culture and politics, as well as on the economic status of nonwhite citizens."
Acel Moore, Philadelphia Inquirer

Note: The pricing reflected for this diversity training program IS the price for educational and governmental agencies. The only other discount for this program would be for volume (multiple copy) discounts.

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