The History of Politics and Race in America, 1968-Present

De: Candis Watts Smith

Narrado por: Candis Watts and The Great Courses

There’s a pattern to racial politics in America: We move two steps forward, and then one - even two - steps back. Why is it so hard for us, as a society, to embrace the egalitarian and compassionate aspects of our nature?

The answer lies in the intricate links between race, politics, and policy that form what we’ve come to call “structural racism”, a concept that has played out in various domains in the decades since 1968 - in housing and education, in wealth and debt, and in policing and immigration. Structural racism is more than just bigoted slurs and hateful violence; it’s about the role American political institutions play in shaping racial categories and in overseeing the rules, laws, and customs that dictate the allocation of rights and privileges across them.

Candis Watts Smith of Duke University is an expert in how race has shaped our modern political landscape. In her Audible Original, The History of Race and Politics in the US Since 1968, she brings that same expertise to an illuminating 10-lecture look at racial progress (and stagnation) in America. With both sensitivity and intellectual honesty, she explains the power behind racial politics and how it shapes our gut reactions to people, neighborhoods, schools, protesters, and policy initiatives. She also reveals how structural racism connects everything from segregated housing and misallocated health care to unequal wages and poor access to quality education.

©2022 Audible Originals, LLC (P)2022 Audible Originals, LLC.

Very informative and mind opening.

There is so much to learn on this subject. I thought I was aware and fairly knowledgeable. I was not. Narration was very good.

Draws Past and Present Together

The program is organized in a way that covers the history of each topic into clear view for the non-historian like me.

An excellent tool for educating myself on the workings of structural racism in the United States of North America.

history rhymes

I liked how issues and results, or lack of, were tied to events in politics.

WOW!!! I wish this was taught in primary school!

This podcast is amazing! Candid Watts voice and storytelling ability drew me in immediately and kept me rewinding to hear many parts again.
Candis connects the dots of America’s racism: the origins, the impacts, steps towards equity, and the consistent and evolving strategies of resistance to equity, how it manifests today.
I have been unlearning the racism indoctrinated in me for twenty years and I think about how much harm I have caused, perpetuated, and been complacent in harms and oppressions of Black, Indigenous, and other folx of color.
It makes me mad. If we actually learned about real comprehensive American history, perhaps us white folx would listen, believe, back minoritized people when they share their truths, realities, and solutions.

a must listen for Americans

A fabulous lecture series that sheds so much light on race, inequality and other issues in America presented in a matter of fact way that does not shame or judge.