Cooked: Survival by Zipcode (2019) tells the story of the tragic 1995 Chicago heatwave, the most traumatic in U.S. history, in which 739 citizens died over the course of just a single week, most of them poor, elderly, and African American. This is a story about life, death, and the politics of crisis in an American city that asks the questions: What if we approached poverty through the lens of disaster management?
Vox, 2021, 20:01… Education in the United States is supposed to be meritocratic, meaning a student’s achievement is measured solely by their efforts. But how do class and privilege affect opportunity, and does everyone really get the same shot? Glad You Asked host Fabiola Cineas explores how the myth of meritocracy perpetuates racism while keeping the American dream achievable only for a privileged few.
Hillbilly (2018) examines the history and continuation of disempowering rural stereotypes. Though the film is based around the 2016 election of Donald Trump, the content extends far beyond our current political landscape. It is also engaging to watch as it masterfully integrates media stereotypes from popular shows and movies. Some prominent sociological concepts evident in the film include othering, codeswitching, and cultural appropriation as hillbilly may have become the new hipster..
Vice, 2022, 9:58… Concerns surrounding the environment and the climate crisis are no longer just the focus of liberals and the left. Eco-fascism is a growing racist ideology on the extreme right, marrying the ideas of environmentalism with white supremacy and ethnonationalism. With the climate crisis worsening by the day, eco-fascist thought has deepened alongside it.
Vice News, 2021, 6:08… As debates around teaching Critical Race Theory in schools continue across the country, Hollywood has tackled exploring the conversation for decades. Science fiction is being used as a tool to tell stories of American history and a sociologist (Jean Beaman) tells Krishna Andavolu that it may actually be effective.
Vice, 2020, 6:17… Zing Tsjeng visits Oxford to examine the ongoing controversy as universities across the UK reckon with their unsavoury connections to colonialism. People like slave owners, slave traders and white supremacists have historic connections to some of the UK’s finest universities. They don’t put that bit in the prospectus, but it’s the truth.
Vox, 2020, 10:47… When it comes to who gets punished and removed from American classrooms, the US doesn’t treat all students equally. Black students get suspended and expelled far more frequently than their white classmates, and often for the same or similar offenses. And the weeks of school that Black kids miss each year can kick off a chain reaction that changes a child’s future.
The Take, 2020, 20:09… Films and TV shows have long used the onscreen interracial romance as a way to explore our own evolving relationships with racism. From I Love Lucy, to Jungle Fever, to The Big Sick, we’ve progressed from cautious depictions of interracial romance, to politically charged melodramas that confront them head on, to more modern tales where race is seen as just one of love’s many complexities. But even as movies and TV have increasingly normalized the interracial relationship, it remains a singular, and significant dynamic on screen—and an essential part of our cultural conversation. Here’s our Take on how all of these depictions of the interracial relationship bring something to the table, even if they come from different points of view.
The Take, 2020, 21:10… Why do so many stories about racism revolve around the White Savior? In 2020, as the Movement for Black Lives grew in the wake of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others, The Help experienced a resurgence in popularity, becoming one of the most-streamed movies on Netflix. The 2011 film about a white woman confronting racism may be well-intentioned, but—like Green Book, The Blind Side, and other White Savior movies before it—The Help centers its story on benevolent white characters, rather than on firsthand black perspectives. How did this trope become so persistent? Here’s our Take on the dangers of the White Savior, and how we can change our own narratives and conversations to become more anti-racist ourselves.
Vox, 2021, 22:53… Many of us assume that tech is neutral, and we have turned to tech as a way to root out racism, sexism, or other “isms” plaguing human decision-making. But as data-driven systems become a bigger and bigger part of our lives, we also notice more and more when they fail, and, more importantly, that they don’t fail on everyone equally. Glad You Asked host Joss Fong wants to know: Why do we think tech is neutral? How do algorithms become biased? And how can we fix these algorithms before they cause harm?
Vox, 2021, 22:08… Housing policy in the United States has a long history of deepening segregation. Redlining, exclusionary lending, and targeted zoning laws have all played a role in isolating minority populations while simultaneously privileging white residents. Glad You Asked host Lee Adams wants to know how this happened, and what effect residential segregation has on your future.
Vice News, 2021, 5:01… A small group of activists in Chicago's Southeast side just finished a month-long hunger strike to protest the movement of a metal shredder to their neighborhood, saying it will cause dangerous pollution and make their community sick. They're calling it an environmental justice issue -- and they see it as life or death.
Vox, 2020, 9:09… The image of sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their fists during a medal ceremony at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City is an enduring image of silent protest. But the key to understanding it goes beyond the black-gloved fists. All three medal winners, including silver medalist Peter Norman of Australia, wore buttons that read “Olympic Project for Human Rights.” The Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR) was a coalition of prominent athletes formed in 1967 that threatened to boycott participating in the upcoming Olympic games, in order to draw attention to systemic racism in the United States.
Inside Edition, 2021, 4:45… Many Asian Americans were angered when “The Mahjong Line” went viral for their pricey mahjong sets, which some are calling cultural appropriation. “[It’s] this ownership and profiteering from Asian culture that white America loves to do,” Andrew Ti, of the podcast “Yo, Is This Racist?” told Inside Edition Digital. The founders have since apologized, but is that enough? Inside Edition’s Johanna Li explains.
