Race—The Power of an Illusion: Part III (Film Screening + Panel)
Event Information
About this event
Join us Friday, October 9 from 11am to 1pm PT for a screening of Part III of Race—The Power of an Illusion followed by a one-hour panel discussion with experts!
The film screening and panel discussion will happen at: racepowerofanillusion.org/events/
The documentary will not be screened on Facebook. However, the panel discussion that follows the screening will be live-streamed on this page, as well as on UC Berkeley's Facebook page.
Note: Members of the UC Berkeley community can access the documentary series at any time for free through Kanopy using CalNet authentication. If you are a member of another university or public library click here to access the documentary.
Event Schedule
Screening: 11:00am - 12:00pm PT
Panel: 12:00 pm - 1:00pm PT
Event Description
This event will consist of a one-hour screening of the award-winning docuseries Race—The Power of an Illusion: The House We Live In (Part III), followed by a one-hour live-streamed panel discussion. The video and panel will explore issues of racial formation and citizenship as they unfolded in the early 20th Century in the US. They will examine the creation of “whiteness” as a new racial category that collapsed diverse ethnic European immigrants into one group, replacing the focus on racialized differences between Europeans to differences between whites and non-whites.
“Whiteness” became critical as the legal standard for full American citizenship excluded all people of color in the US including Japanese and South Asian populations. The video and panel will also consider the implications of whiteness and racial discrimination in the construction of legalized housing segregation in post-War World II America. Housing discrimination helped create concentrated poverty in cities as well as the great wealth differentials between African Americans and whites that persist today in neighborhood and institutional segregation that constitute contemporary racial injustice. Finally, the discussion will turn to what can be done to dismantle systemic racism and economic inequality.
Expert panelists for the event include Jason Corburn (Professor of Public Health/City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley), Michael Omi (Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies and Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies, UC Berkeley), john a. powell (Director, Othering & Belonging Institute and Professor of Law, African American Studies, and Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley), and Leti Volpp (Professor of Law and Faculty Director at Center for Race & Gender at UC Berkeley) with moderator Rachel Morello-Frosch (Professor of Public Health/Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley).
To view the previous events in this series, as well as more details and resources, please visit the film website: https://www.racepowerofanillusion.org/events/
Event sponsors: Othering & Belonging Institute, UC Berkeley School of Public Health, Center for Research on Social Change, Center for Race and Gender, American Cultures Center
Event contact: Marc Abizeid, marcabizeid@berkeley.edu
Organizer Othering & Belonging Institute
Organizer of Race—The Power of an Illusion: Part III (Film Screening + Panel)
The Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley brings together researchers, organizers, stakeholders, communicators, and policymakers to identify and eliminate the barriers to an inclusive, just, and sustainable society in order to create transformative change. We are a diverse and vibrant hub generating work centered on realizing a world where all people belong, where belonging entails being respected at a level that includes the right to both contribute and make demands upon society and political and cultural institutions.
The Othering & Belonging Institute responds to issues that require both immediate action and long-term strategy. The Institute engages in innovative communications, arts and cultural strategy, and strategic narrative work that attempts to re-frame the public discourse from a dominant narrative of control and fear towards one that recognizes the humanity of all people, cares for the earth, and celebrates our inherent interconnectedness.
