Race: The Power of an Illusion

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Segregated Housing and the Racial Wealth Gap

by Larry Adelman

This explainer shows how government-mandated policies of segregated housing led to the creation of the extreme racial wealth gaps experienced across the US today.

A Long History of Racial Preferences: For Whites

by Larry Adelman

Executive producer of the Race series Larry Adelman provides a historical overview of how institutions and public policies have benefited whites at the expense of other groups to explain the extreme wealth gap between white and Black people.

Racial Preferences for Whites: The Houses That Racism Built

by Larry Adelman

Executive Producer Larry Adelman of the Race Series compares two families - one white, one black - to show how the playing field has been tilted to give whites an advantage over other groups.

When the white residents of Eight Mile Road in Detroit were told they were too close to a Black neighborhood to qualify for a positive FHA rating, they built this six foot wall... Once the wall went up, mortgages on the white properties were approved.

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Community & Urban Health: An Interview with Jason Corburn

Jason Corburn, a Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning and School of Public Health at UC Berkeley, discusses race and city planning, including racial segregation, environmental justice, his safe neighborhoods project, and how place, space and health reflect existing inequalities in the US.

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Immigration & Citizenship: Interview with Leti Volpp

Leti Volpp, the Robert D. and Leslie Kay Rave Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Race and Gender at UC Berkeley, discusses the problematic racial triangulation of groups in legal arguments, how we saw a new racial category post 9/11, the need to study pockets of resistance in response to legal rhetorical structures, and looking critically at the concept of a "model minority" as a symptom of anti-blackness.

The Story We Tell: “Civilization” Policy for Native Americans

"Thomas Jefferson, among many people, felt that the Indians were good human material, and the problem was not race, but culture. The Indians were savages but they could be civilized."

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Social Inequalities: Interview with Joanna Reed

Joanna Reed, Continuing Lecturer of Sociology at UC Berkeley, discusses how she relies on the film as a historical foundation for her students, tying it to scholarly articles and current events, and using it to introduce key sociological theories, such as Racial Formation.

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Images of the Horror of American Race Relations: Interview with Michael Mark Cohen

Michael Mark Cohen, Associate Teaching Professor of American Studies and African American Studies at UC Berkeley, discusses his use of visual imagery to teach about racial terrorism and race as socially constructed, incorporating Stephen Jay Gould's scholarship to demonstrate how whiteness was created, and how a shift away from color blindness led to the current resurgence of white nationalism amid a shrinking white demographic.

2020 panel discussion on Race—The Power of an Illusion, Part III

On Friday, Oct. 9, 2020, we hosted a screening of Part III of Race—The Power of an Illusion followed by a one-hour panel discussion with experts.

When is it okay to base social policies on race?

Does everyone have the same opportunities to get ahead? Where did the wealth gap between blacks and whites come from, and what should we do about it?

Melvin Oliver is currently (2019) President of Pitzer College. He is also the co-author along with Thomas M. Shapiro of Black Wealth, White Wealth, which won the Distinguished Scholarly Publication Award from the American Sociological Association.

What is the relationship between housing and wealth? Why does wealth matter and what does this have to do with race?

Dalton Conley is currently (2019) Henry Putnam University Professor in Sociology and a faculty affiliate at the Office of Population Research and the Center for Health and Wellbeing at Princeton University. He is the author of Being Black, Living in the Red: Race, Wealth, and Social Policy in America.

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Copyright 2018-2019, California Newsreel and Regents of the University of California. This website was jointly produced by California Newsreel, the Othering & Belonging Institute, the U.C. Berkeley Library, and the American Cultures Center at U.C. Berkeley, based on original material created by California Newsreel in 2003.