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On February 23, the Office of Race Relations, in partnership with Calvin University and the Antioch podcast, hosted a webinar discussion panel featuring Rev. Reggie Smith, Dr. Eric Washington, and Eric Nykamp.

The conversation centered around the question: Why do white people and Black people remember the history of racial injustice so differently?

Watch a recording of the webinar (59:20) at the bottom of this post. We hope this hour-long conversation will help you learn the importance of seeing history from perspectives other than your own, and arouse a curiosity in the collective story.

Directly below are some additional resources mentioned in the discussion.

Websites: 

https://www.crcna.org/race
https://antiochpodcast.org/
https://calvin.edu/
https://www.crcna.org/diversity
http://justice.crcna.org/
https://jemartisby.com/
https://eji.org/
https://standagainstracism.org/

Article 

What Does it Mean to be an Antiracist?” (7/21/20)

Attached Media
Remote video URL

Comments

The panelists are quite correct in suggesting people need to "educate themselves."  Toward that end, I've read Robin DiAngelo's "White Fragility" (mentioned in this podcast), Ibram X. Kendi's "How to Be an AntiRacist" and other authors who come from what I would consider to be a "Critical Race Theory" perspective.

But I have also read a couple of books on the subject of race and slavery from Thomas Sowell, a "black" author born in Brooklyn, who is and has long been a senior fellow at Standford University's Hoover Institution, who comes from a different perspective.  Sowell's credentials as a historian (and in other disciplines), both as to the US and the world beyond, is impressive indeed and his record of meticulously documented written works even more so.

Sowell's 2006 book entitled "Black Rednecks and White Liberals" deals quite specifically with the history of race -- both in the US and the world --, as well as the history of slavery -- again both in the US and the world.  I consider his 60 page chapter "The Real History of Slavery" a must read, but really the entire book is.

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