Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America
On Who We Are, host Carvell Wallace and ACLU Deputy Director Jeffery Robinson reach back to tipping points in American history, to examine the white supremacist foundation on which the nation’s legal, political and social systems were built. A podcast by Ben & Jerry’s and produced by Vox Creative.
Episodes
October 20, 2020 • 42 min
From slavery to sharecropping to mass incarceration, American institutions have reproduced cycles of social rupture and exploitation by design. Is it even possible to imagine true equity as long as the current carceral system stands? Carvell Wallace and Jeffery Robinson begin with Bill Clinton’s 1994 Crime Bill before turning to the ways in which incarceration ripples through questions of voting, health, wealth, and state violence....
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October 13, 2020 • 29 min
What does it mean to be well in America? Who is seen as deserving of healthcare? Racism has plagued the American medical system since its inception and continues to produce disparities in health and life expectancy to this day. In this episode, Carvell Wallace and Jeffery Robinson trace the decades-long epidemic of sharply higher mortality rates among both Black people giving birth and their babies. In conversation with OB/GYN and ...
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October 6, 2020 • 37 min
“To pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps” was originally a metaphor for the impossible. It’s now one of the most American of American idioms — encapsulating a belief that one’s fortunes and failures hinge on individual responsibility alone. It simultaneously obscures the systemic economic theft of Black people and other people of color in the US by state and commercial interests, as well as the systemic economic enrichment of white ...
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September 29, 2020 • 32 min
Black bodies have always been on the line in America, whether on the auction block or in a parking lot in Minneapolis. American law has enshrined the state’s ability to enact violence with almost total impunity. And, going back to as far as the Colonial Marines in 1808, reclaiming one’s body from this system has required fearless acts of rebellion. In this episode, Carvell and Jeffery trace the evolution of slave patrols into moder...
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September 22, 2020 • 44 min
The right to vote is the right to help define the future of the country. It’s at the heart of our democracy. But for much of US history, only property-owning white men had access to this right. Suffrage for Black men was hard won and enshrined by the 15th amendment after the Civil War. But, even that limited enfranchisement was quickly stymied by campaigns of terror and voter suppression that were then codified by the creation of t...
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September 15, 2020 • 26 min
Far from promising the fruits of equality and justice for all, the United States was founded on white supremacist ideals. Given this legacy, how do Black parents decipher and explain American history to their children? Or, even what it means to be Black in the US? These are questions that host and writer Carvell Wallace and ACLU Legal Deputy Director and attorney Jeffery Robinson have had to confront. Their answer has been to look ...
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August 28, 2020 • 2 min
If America was built on a white supremacist foundation, what does that mean for our lives today? Join journalist Carvell Wallace and ACLU Deputy Director Jeffery Robinson for an exploration of how white supremacy became the law of the land. This is Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America.
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