The Difference Between Us (Race: The Power of an Illusion)

California Newsreel

It’s not uncommon to attribute differential group outcomes for SAT scores, musical ability, or athletic performance to innate racial traits—yet there are no characteristics, not even one gene, that distinguish all members of one “race” from another, as this program explains. The video follows a dozen students, including African-American athletes and Asian-American violin players, who sequence and compare their own DNA, only to discover their closest genetic matches are as likely to be with people from other “races” as their own. While it’s true that certain gene forms are more common in some populations than others, the students learn that these reflect ancestry, not “race.” Part of the series Race: The Power of an Illusion. (56 minutes)

The Story We Tell (Race: The Power of an Illusion)

California Newsreel

Ironically, it was the notion of political liberty and the natural rights of man that led to the ideology of white supremacy. Ancient peoples stigmatized others on the basis of language, class, and religion, but they did not sort people into races. As the Founding Fathers grappled with the hypocrisy of slavery in the new democracy, Thomas Jefferson was among the first to discuss “the natural inferiority of Africans”—a convenient justification for social inequality, and the same type of thinking that rationalized the seizing of Native American lands. In this program the history of the concept of “race” is explored, along with the 19th-century science that legitimized racism. Part of the series Race: The Power of an Illusion. (56 minutes)