Facing the denial of American racism
As ongoing nationwide protests illustrate, a majority of Americans view the recent police killing of George Floyd as a reflection of the virulent and systemic racism in the nation. However, recent polling suggests that denial of the underlying issues still exists, complicating the search for solutions. To tackle this problem, the Radcliffe Institute on Thursday hosted “Naming Racism,” an online discussion focused on identifying the historic and ongoing social roots of this denial and discussing strategies for raising awareness. Radcliffe Institute Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin introduced the discussion between Camara Phyllis Jones, the 2019–2020 Evelyn Green Davis Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute, and David R. Williams, Frances Sprague Norman and Laura Smart Norman Professor of Public Health and chair of the department of social and behavioral sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Brown-Nagin said that the talk originally was envisioned as an examination of the racial disparities exposed...