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CRE101 Culture and Society

This guide is meant to provide resources for the cultural diversity modules in CRE101.

Questions to Consider

1) What is racism? How do you know when someone is racist?

2) What does it mean to have "white privilege"?

3) How do you define racial profiling and can you give an example.

Articles

Racism: Overview
Racism is a system of advantage and disadvantage based on social, historical, and cultural constructions of race and ethnicity. From the Encyclopedia of Race and Racism.
Racial Profiling and Biased Policing
Racial profiling is a form of differential treatment based on an individual's racial or ethnic social identity. From the Encyclopedia of Race and Racism.
Whiteness and White Privilege
Race is a construct used to distinguish and subordinate certain groups of humans from others. From the Encyclopedia of Race and Racism.
Police Reform Alone Won't Stop Another George Floyd from Being Murdered; The first step towards reconciliation is for America to stop lying to itself about racism. South Africa and Germany reckoned with their pasts; now America must.
Visualizing Racism Photo Essays
This issue is devoted to photography that documents this moment — not just our external struggle with racism, but the internal struggles as well. Some of the images are beautiful and unsettling. Some are jarring. If some make us uncomfortable, that is progress. An easy conversation about racism is not a real conversation at all.
Eugene Robinson (introduction)
What we’ve learned about police shootings 5 years after Ferguson
These numbers show that black and white people live in two different Americas
The Anti-Racist Revelations of Ibram X. Kendi

Videos

Racism Has a Cost for Everyone

Racism makes our economy worse -- and not just in ways that harm people of color, says public policy expert Heather C. McGhee. From her research and travels across the US, McGhee shares startling insights into how racism fuels bad policymaking and drains our economic potential -- and offers a crucial rethink on what we can do to create a more prosperous nation for all. "Our fates are linked," she says. "It costs us so much to remain divided."

How We Can Make Racism a Solvable Problem and Improve Policing

When we define racism as behaviors instead of feelings, we can measure it -- and transform it from an impossible problem into a solvable one, says justice scientist Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff. In an actionable talk, he shares his work at the Center for Policing Equity, an organization that helps police departments diagnose and track racial gaps in policing in order to eliminate them. Learn more about their data-driven approach -- and how you can get involved with the work that still needs to be done.

How to Deconstruct Racism, One Headline at a Time

Baratunde Thurston explores the phenomenon of white Americans calling the police on black Americans who have committed the crimes of ... eating, walking or generally "living while black." In this profound, thought-provoking and often hilarious talk, he reveals the power of language to change stories of trauma into stories of healing -- while challenging us all to level up.

What It Takes to Be Racially Literate

Priya Vulchi and Winona Guo traveled to all 50 US states, collecting personal stories about race and intersectionality. Now they're on a mission to equip every American with the tools to understand, navigate and improve a world structured by racial division. In a dynamic talk, Vulchi and Guo pair the personal stories they've collected with research and statistics to reveal two fundamental gaps in our racial literacy -- and how we can overcome them.

How to Recognize Your White Privilege---and Use It To Fight Inequality
Many of us believe that we're living in a meritocracy, deserving of what we have and compassionate toward those with less. But that's not true: white people have been given a headstart and ongoing advantages due to the color of their skin, while people of color suffer from equally arbitrary disadvantages, says scholar and activist Peggy McIntosh. She explains what led her to recognize her privilege — and how it can be used by those with power to ensure a fairer life for others.
Race in America: Prison Reform with Common, Scott Budnick and Jarrett Harper
Prisons have become hotbeds for COVID-19 with over 50,000 cases recorded since June 30. Cramped conditions and limited access to soap and masks, as well as overtaxed medical facilities, have left the incarcerated exceedingly vulnerable. Rates of infection continue to rise. This crisis has increased the urgency of prison reform advocates pushing for humane practices across the criminal justice system. On Thursday, July 16 at 3:00 p.m. ET., artist and activist Common joins Washington Post Live to talk about his efforts to increase awareness around prison reform. “Just Mercy” executive producer and founder of the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, Scott Budnick, and campaign ambassador for Represent Justice, Jarrett Harper, will also join the program to discuss the grave impact of the pandemic on U.S. prisons. Washington Post columnist Michele Norris will moderate both conversations.