For more information contact:
Heide Keith, secretary
Janesville LWV
Cell: 608.576.0676

Janesville League of Women Voters: Host a series of discussions following viewings of Race – The Power of an Illusion

JANESVILLE, WI – The Janesville League of Women Voters’ Diversity Committee will host a series of viewings and discussions of Race – The Power of an Illusion.  

When we say “race”, we make an assumption that the world’s people can be divided biologically along racial lines. Where did this idea come from?  Is it science, or is it myth?  The three-part film Race – The Power of an Illusion explores the curious and unexpected paths that brought us to our modern experience of race, and discusses its implications for society and our country’s future.

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.

Saturday, Oct. 20, 2018
Hedberg Public Library, Public Meeting Room
Film viewing: 10:30 a.m. -11:15 a.m.
Discussion: 11:15 a.m. -12 p.m.

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.”

Saturday, Oct. 27, 2018
Hedberg Public Library, Public Meeting Room
Film viewing: 10:30 a.m. -11:15 a.m.
Discussion: 11:15 a.m. -12 p.m.

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.

Saturday, Nov. 3, 2018
Hedberg Public Library, Public Meeting Room
Film viewing: 10:30 a.m. -11:15 a.m.
Discussion: 11:15 a.m. -12 p.m.

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