Welcome to the Virtual Event series. I am the manager here. I arrived at the bookstore, we have a special event, a couple things before we get started. If you have a question for adam please use the q and a button, i love audience interaction. Make this fun and engaging live stream, submit your questions at any point in the presentation and get to as many as possible. I encourage you to purchase adams book, how to argue with a racist, whatever genes do and dont tell us. If you purchase the book through us you also get a signed book from adam, check out the chat room, click on the link and purchase the book, if you are on facebook live, the town scholar. Now it is my pleasure to introduce doctor adam rutherford, geneticist, Science Writer and broadcaster who study genetics at University College london. He was part of a team that identified the first known genetic cause of childhood virus. He has written and presented many awardwinning series and programs for the bbc including inside science, the cell, playing god for the leading science series, author of the book of humans and a brief history of everyone who ever lived. Once again, how to argue with a racist, here it is, a fascinating debunking of racial pseudoscience, it smashes race myth that plague society. If you would like to purchase the book, check out the link in the chat room. Please join me in welcoming to the screen doctor adam rutherford. Am i live . Thank you. Very generous introduction. Presenting the book of humans, showing me around the basement, was absolutely amazing. I will be back as soon as i can. I am a geneticist, exactly right. That means ideal in evolution and dna, my work in the last few years, i will share my screen with you has been slight technical issue here, it is not sharing my screen. Cold on just a second, let me try that again. Title screen. Primarily about race and eugenics and the quintessential role played in the development of the invention of race and enactment of future policies all over the world. I wrote this book because i felt compelled to. There are sensitive issues. Is in the last few years, science communicator, historical ideas about race and human genetics which are totally noncontroversial within the academic genetics community were not sure wellknown to the general public. As a result the changing landscape of global politics, race has been part of the Public Discourse now more than any time in living memory. The book is written to equip people with arguments about the history of science because that is part of the construction of race as we recognize it and also contemporary genetics, deconstructed the concept of race comprehensively. I will be talking tonight about the core ideas in the book about overt and Structural Racism, key ideas about racial purity and White Supremacists a little bit but in many ways they are distraction from i am primarily concerned with things like racial stereotypes, that people express. Often about attributes we consider complementary or positive like intelligence. The book is for people who get into these discussions with family members or with friends in parks or around thanksgiving tables or wherever where they feel they dont have the most contemporary scientific tools or understanding of the history of science and the construction of race so they can confront background stereotypes. And i think we need to lead these conversations, they are not necessarily very good at talking about the politics that emerge from their research but the fact is if you are a geneticist like me and talk about genomes and human variation you cannot not talk about race and the fact that it is a social construct and not routed to a biological classification system as we now understand human variation in the twentieth and 21st century. The Political Landscape is changed, some of the factors which drove me to write this book and discussions about race, the Public Discourse, we have this changing political atmosphere, rise of populism with the election of donald trump in your country and here with rightwing government and the whole brexit phenomena in. I love america, two years ago i spent a couple weeks there in harrisburg. It is the longest. Go i havent been in america my adult life. I find it heartbreaking that conversations about race are so prominent and racialized and there is a racist in the white house as we have a racist Prime Minister in the uk parliament. The fact is i dont need to tell you this the us never managed to reconcile its racist past and what we are seeing in the black lives matter movement, from the death of george floyd, the murder of george floyd is a frustration of structural institutional racism that has built over as it has done many times before 2020 and indeed the 21st century. Science is about discourse. It always has been. We see a huge growth in the maturation of human genetics, we just celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the human genome project. One of the great things about this is matching popular interest in genetics, this is what they want to talk about. The enormity and rise of the commercial genetics market related to ancestry. I take a pretty dim view of these companies or the products they are selling, i will be talking about that in just a minute and 2020 happened. This book was published in the uk in february, just before covid19 struck i had my six weeks before lockdown in the uk occurred, and was seriously ill during that period but covid19 itself was massively part of the conversation of race we are currently having. Origin of the virus in china has meant its been racialized in that way, and again i dont want to good on pout trump but he refers to it as the chinese virus which i know is technically correct, came from china. And then the spanish flu. That is an incorrect reverence. The spanish flu is call that because during the first world war, spain wasnt censors its journalists was the first country to report on this new pandemic when fa fact we dont in the origin of the pandemic itself. But we think either came from kansas, from a chicken farm, or possibly from france but certainly didnt come from spain. There has been more than 3,000 physical Violent Attacks in america, in the u. S. A. , on Chinese Americans and korean americans, which obviously makes no sense bus then often racism doesnt and its happening all over the world as well. A kid from my own university was beaten february didnt ox october Oxford Street in Central London about and he was front singapore. The one the comfort has been racialized. And the second way in march we began to notice in the uk black and, i people were at a much greater risk of infection and death than White British people, and the states it was black, asian or hispanic or latin x people at higher risk of infection. And death. Now, immediately this was part of the racialization of covid when people articles in the press suggesting that this was discretion of the biological reality of race, and that is this disease was somehow targeting nonwhite americans or british people in my country. Now that doesnt make a lot of sense anyway. Just serves to say there are two groups of people that are white people and other people. That doesnt make any sense to most hardens racist but people started putting forward proposals why this might be and some are of some interest. In a minor way shame point out that this version of the book you have in front of you is the american version, has an extra introduction several thousand lines which brings it to date with covid and blesser and more references in the full text. It is a specifically u. S. Version of the book. Now, the fact that people try to racialize biology include racialize this disease, i think was very telling how we think about race in the 21st century because the truth of the merit by far the easier better explanations for the disparitiy, racial disparitiy in peep getting covid and dying from it could be complained by socioeconomic factors, things like the fact that minority groups or nonwhites tend to live in urban areas, tend to live in Multigenerational Families with older people present who are more susceptible to infection and tend to have key work, jobs so less likely to be able to lock down or be able to selfisolate. So what we see is that the socioeconomic reasons that explain the disparity and the racialization of Covid Infection is much better understood without having to look at it because its not unique to covid at all. Race its already racialized for exactly the same reason down the socialow check in lines and as soon as covid happened we talked but racialization of the disease itself. So, this is just the background to where we are now. The world turned upsidedown in march and we are style trying to work our how its going to play out. Just want to just before i get stuck into the weeds but some of the consequences of the back, i want to talk but the overview, the first thing is, theres only four chapters its a deliberately short book, 45,000 words, four chapters and i talk but the origin of rate asian an invention from the 17n inch century from ouran expansionism, and i talk about a concept that is essential for some singapores of racism, White Supremacy, and i talk but race in sport. Even though people arent necessarily interest sports, i love my sport, i think its a really important battleground from the extending and contest something of the stereotypes we associate with race and race intelligence which is probably the most inflammatory and controversial subject in all of science. We talk about that and the origin of race tonight which are both subjects which warrant whole well meaning people, nonracist sometimes because they understood that race is not a biological categorization but a social one, sometimes tempted to say that race does not exist. This is really important that we dont say this because the fact of the matter is that race does exist. It exists as a social construct, not a biological for reality. This is very important. Sometimes people attack this idea by saying, well, race exists merely youre sayingraise merely exists as social construct as if social constructs are less involved or less important than biological reality. That is an absurd argument because almost all social interacts are socially moderate. Time is a social construct, money is a social construct. Dont get people saying im not going to pay you because money is just a social construct, and yet somehow in arguments against for the biological reality of race people sometimes say its just social construct. Its really important we recognize that races to exist because its a social construct and that is why its important. Race exists because we perceive it. So this is the part of the framework. Said this in the past. Well intentioned people try to be so nonracist and end up being potentially damaging some of the more sophisticated arguments. So, when we talk but race in sports forthe first bit and then purity in the next bit and then get on to the questions. So, as i said i think that sports is an important ball Battle Ground for talk about race in the 21st and 20th center because we see people from around the rest of the world as extremes of ability, elite athletic status, and its very easy to make judgments or make clumsy sometimes based on this. This is often considered to be positive attributes racism. So, it was last week we was the anniversary of one of the greatest events in american sporting history and indeed in any sporting history when jesse owens won four gold medals at the berlin olympics in 1936. This photo is in the book and is to my mind one of the most powerful photos in history. 1936 in berlin hitler is watching this happening. This is wonderful. This is an amazing moment in sporting history. It was massively undermine a few years later when jesse owens coach was quoted by saying the anything degree excels in the events he does because he is closer to primitive than the white man. Wasnt long ago his ability to sprint and life was a life and death matter to him in the jungle. Scientifically ill lit rat and racist thing to say by jesse owens own cove. This is in the 1930s and when he said dismiss in the modern era overt racism like this is as generally passed. We are less racist than we have been in the past. But it is still present and present in the way we talk but the physicality of black athletes. Just to bring it up to the date to the end of the 20th century. This is Michael Johnson winning the 200 meeter in atlanta. He is my favorite athlete of all time. I just adored him when i was growing up and i continue to eyer to him as he has become an eller statesman of elder statesman of athletes and a commentator. In the 2012 olympics in london, johnson was on the commentating team for the bbc and the runup to the olympics there is was a documentary but him and his life and the tracked some of his west African Heritage via transatlantic slavery and did some genetic tests on him and in the program he commented this help said that all my life i believed i became an athlete through my own determination but its impossible to think thating descended from slaves has not left an imprint through the generations. Difficult as it was to hear, slavery has benefited descendents leak me. I believe theres a superior athletic gene within us. Im saying this and me thinking, thats kind of a heartbreaking in a couple of ways for someone like me. The couple of ways being i think its tragic that someone as successful as Michael Johnson, one of the greatest athletes of all time, find himself saying that his success is not actually predetermination, actually it is through ancestry and pernicious history that he is part of simply for the fact he is africanamerican in the 20th century. Also interesting because to me as a geneticist and this is a testable idea, an argument that is worth scrutinizing and we cant actually try to understand from evolutionary point of view and genetic point of view, and it does appear to be some genetic differences we can detect now in the third decade of the 21st century, in comparing africanamericans to africans to specifically west african, the people from whom the descendents of the enslaved were taken, and we see things like increased frequency for some diseases, hypertension and some certain forms of cancer. We see higher frequency of genes in africanamericans for diseases such as circle cell than in sickle cell then in west africans but circle cell is not a black disease its sometimes mistakenly said. It is a disease that takes people whose ancestors evolved alongside malaria because having two copies of genes means you have the disease and i was having one copy sickle cell trace its called youre immune to ma layer ian folks. So theres a higher proportion of circle cell in africanamerican buzz not exclusive to africanamericans and africans its not a black disease. We see similar effects when it comes to things like athleticism and you look at the begins sport with explosive energy success, which you see in sprint running. We see real differences between all people and elite levels of athleticism. Sportes definitely not a level Playing Field in that regard and yes Michael Johnson almost certainly has a genetic advantage over most humans but is that unique to black people or africanAmerican People . No, it is not. The question whether his genetic advantage is as a result of slavery, the idea being that during two or three hundred years of the slave trade in the americas, enslaved people were bred such that being strong or being fit was selective. This a scientifically testable idea that we can look at and two years ago when 29,000 africanamericans had their genos scanned, not looking specifically for a superior athletic gene as Michael Johnson speculated but just to see if there was any evidence of Natural Selection or artificial selection in the case of some of the breeding programs, and also was we didnt see the answer was we didnt see any evidence of selection in either direction, in the africanamerican genome compared to the african genome from whom their ancestors were taken. We dont see this at all. Theres no evidence for a superior athletic gone and yet it is such persistent myth and serious scientific crutch we find it even elite athletes say things like this. So, in a sense woe dont need to get to the genetic athleticism to undermine the sorts of ideas but sporting power, sport success being biologically encoded in descend dents of the enslaved. Thats speculate generously. Maybe selection is the biological difference even there thatter is no evidence for it for the overrepresentation of africanamericans in various sporting events. Lets leave out the fact that 200 or 300 years is nowhere enough time to see the fixation of those genes in a population that would spread into an entire population. Also doesnt exist. Lets just deal with the social aspect of this. Lets just say if there is a buyingologyat advantage in africanamericans, even though we cant see any evidence for it, that doesnt in any way explain the discrepancy we see in different sports. So, we do see dominance in short distance sprinting and explosive Energy Athletics of africanamericans but that should be able to translate into sort of Power Lifting where eastern europeans dominate, and a completely absence in sprinting. Or sports like squash, where dominated by egyptian people or indians or even british people occasionally. Dont see any africanamericans there. Why is it that africanamericans dominate in boxing but not in wrestling . As soon as you scratch beneath the surface you see this data set on which a really significant popular stereotype is based just falls apart after the tiniest bit of scrutiny. If africanamericans are biologically better at sprint athletics, track and field, why is there an absolute absence of them in short distance swimming . So, all of these types of ideas just fall apart when you take them apart. The same time theyre popular because the serve the narrative that is baked in our culture but a athleticism and the physicality of africanamericans and the descend dens of the enslaved. This is an example, a classic example of Structural Racism built into our cultures, and im going to ruin for the sports fans some commentary now because this accounted for in a paper by sociologist a couple years ago, analyzing some lying 3,000 analyzing 3,000 comments in main stream Immediate Use but olead athletes, and elite athletes and they found in the vast majority of case when day talk but elite athletes who were africanamerican, then the comment taters would refer to their physicality or their athleticism or their ancestry. And the vast majority of cases where a white athlete was being referred to, in same proportion, the typical comments were about their industriousness and intelligence and their hard bork. So hard work, Structural Racism whose history in the beginnings of the slave trade, the Transatlantic Slave Trade so rooted in our culture in the 21st century we still talk but the athleticism of black men and intelligence of white people. You have seen the him in, money get out , the physicality of black people. Our curly says clear to us, blackbraun, and whitebrains. One more sport briefly and that is swimming, which i mentioned is in complete contrast in the proportional representation of africanamericans at elite level compared to running. There is just effectively a complete absence of africanamerican swimmers. In fact to have been two in the whole history of the olympics so even the derritt parity is even more in swimming than track and field and almost a complete absence. And this he reflective at the elite levels and through the whole of culture. You probably no. This 70 of africanamericans cant swim, compared to 30 of european descendent americans who cant swim. Part of the stereotypes and mythology of that disparate y, at the notion that black people dont swim, also comes from some terrible pseudo science which is and there is a common myth, urban myth, shared by many, many people, omaha sure some of you have heard this, that black peoples bones are more dense and therefore they have loire lower boyan so i than white people and that accounts for the difference why black people dont swim compared to white people its as absurd as it sounds, drawn partially from some actual data but os youre for row sis but the bone density makes no difference whether people are buoyant or not and whether they can swim. Its so popular that many of my black friend here in the uk have said this to me. An idea bought interest by the black community in america and the uk and i fine that quite tragic because then a couple years ago when swimming americas in 2008, tried the identify the most significant factors in why black people are not represented in swimming at any level in the same ways that white people and are they come out like is in reverse order. So, an absence of role models just like the olympics. Access to pools, even after segregation ended in 1964 most pools were built in white areas, swim schools tend to be extracurricular so theres a cost. And then have parents or friends who dont swim so generations and keeps going, people dont swim and their children dont swim. The number one reason identified for why black people dont swim and it seems crazy that i have to say this, is not being taught how to swim. No one is borne a swimmer. Isnt an inherent buyingologialities mechanism system where people can swim or not. The only people who can swim have been taught how to swim. Feel angry about this because people come up with crazy biological explanations for this. Makes no sense biologically or scientifically at all when the easiest explanation is that you need to be taught to swim in order to swim. Its almost funny, this, until you realize that for children between ages of eight and 14, the death rate from drowning in america is three times higher for africanamerican kids than white kids. So, this is an example of a Structural Racism which is baked interest our culture and literally lethal. The death rate is three times hire for black kid than white kid because of this. In this case racism is literally lethal. Im going to push on and just talk but the concept of racial purity. This an essential idea for white supremacist and at any time want to focus on White Supremacy or neonazi its impossible to ignore them as their discourse is expressed in social media and Mainstream Media in the 21st show you a family tree from a genetics manual in which you have the two parents fork grandparents, and eight greatgrandparents and seven generations back and 250 people in your family tree, that men generations back. This is standardized so that we can work genetic inheritance because family trees never actually look anything like this at all because human does two things very well. We move around and we have sex as much as we possibly can. So in fact the family tree expands from us as you go back through time and begin to collapse in on each. Other this is a graphical representation of what we think that family trees look like more in genetic genealogy and genealogy is the thingle most popular pastime in america and its the second most popular in the uk where gardening is the top one. So, theres a big difference between us. So, what you seees accurate reigns of generational time is near the bottom two parents are four grandparents, then you begin to see the lines cross through individuals multiple times look the fourth generation back. This means you do have that number of ancestors and the number doubles every time you go back generation in time. The number of individuals on those ann sees central ancestral trees does not expand because there are more people alive now than any other time in history but the family trees show yous you have more an sees stores in the past than today. The family tree goes out and then collapse in on each other. And the math that emerges from this is a concept called the identical and all family trees cross through all individuals at the same time. I realize it is 6 00 over there, its almost midnight here in london, and but this is a completely headscrambling concept but absolutely true. Another way is saying at the point if you have living descend dents ten then they are the ancestors of everyone today and you can cease the chart. By the time you get to the 11th generation back and generations are 25 years in genetics, the lines become so dense that you cant separate them out and by the time you get 15 generations back it is just a block. Every single line from you and from everyone in the population crosses through every single individual by that stage. That means were ski depends from the same people, many many times over and humans are inbred as a species not dangerously so but but thats the way we are how die say that with confidence sniff we go back to the tenth century, that means that everyone alive in europe in the tenth century is the ancestor of everyone alive in europe today and by europe i also extend that to American People descended from europeans. So you can take a ruler such as william the conqueror and we know charlemagne has descendents today because we is royalty and we know the family tree and because he has descendents alive today that means he the ancestor of literally everyone in europe today and that means for all the white people watching this, your ancestor, your direct probably 42 generations, your direct ancestor, 0 so congratulations on that you are descend from royalty because everyone is. The isopoint for the world is 5,000 years ago, and so what is means is the concept of racial purity is a total absolute myth. Of course is is essential for white supremacist because they land on in this idea they are separate, they have lineages which cant be polite or cant be convoluted in the way im saying is the actual reality of biology, and they latched on to ancestry testing so that the sort of 23 and mes and the ancestry. Com in order to demonstrate that their racial puritiy. This is a classic example offing my using and misrepresenting a science in order to justify a political ideology. I spend time in racist, places like stormfront or seriously do not advice you to do this. Because one of the most hateful places on earth and i monitor these computes racial purity and genetics and the frequency of conversation from genetics, is absolutely enormous. Comes up in almost eave discussion threat. Dont look, theyre horrible, horrible places. Do it so you dont have to do it. One of the tiny glimpses of source of life in these otherwise taylor pits of despair is with so many White Supremacists and selfidentifying neonazis during these jeanettes tick ancestry tests occasionally the results come back and contain recent an city is fry from people who they despise, who they are obliged to hate. Heres an example from i screen grabbed a few years ago now because ive been tracking this since 201 2, but 2018 some sociologists actually accounted for this first akademik study and white supremacist discovered they that recent noneuropean ancestry in them and they conditioned for all the types of responses that followed these revelations, the first thing i need to say is none of the revelations were some kind of epiphany, that racism is wrong or the changed the world views there were all these televize continuing to justify their racist beliefs they already held so these were the top five. The first most popular spins is try another company for a different result and that sound ridiculous and is comical, but actually this the most scientific answer out of the one that follow. On the grounds that Different Companies use different jeanettes tick panels so when you send your specimen and 100 tuesday, if you send to its a Different Company you will get a slightly different result. So this one is not that absurd. However, theyre going to get much worse very quickly. The next one is that 23 and me is run by jews, try another company for a different result. At that were in proper conspiracy territory. 23 and me is round by jew. Try another company. I dont really understand how or why jewish people would want that or could do that, but we are well beyond rational arguments here. And then this emblem matic, direct quote from one tick response when a man discovered he had jewish ancestry. One response is look in the mirror. I youve dont see a jew, youre okay. Now i thought this is absurdity of this is so obvious. What is the point in doing the test if you can simply decide that you dont have jewish ancestry. So another classic example of usurping or misrepresenting science to justify a political ideology when the science doesnt agree you can just ignore it. This point in the book i quote Jonathan Swift and i al modernize the amazing thing he said which is that you cant reason a person out of a position that they didnt reason themselves into. So, the concept of the isopoint says something completely different from the white supremacist narrative bit genealogy and personal identity which is that we are descend from multitudes and we know that in the americas even more because africanamericans have significant proportions of european he ancestry and pretty much all european descend dented americans have africanamerican ancestry in them as well, as a result of 300 years of transatlantic slavery it and is true that people too move and have sex as often as they can and sometimes big moves in short period of time but most people are static over generational time and certainly more so in history than today and that can feel like a cultural and geo graphical anchor but the true is every nazi has jewish ancestors and every White Supremacy has middle eastern ancestors and they 1 2 because everyone does have the same ancestral pool after only a few generations back. A thousand years ago it tis pier population of europe, 3,000 years ago the spire population of the world, when i say african i dont just mean african because were an african species, homo sapiens evolved in africa. From definitely after classical times and definitely the modern ear remarks racial purityis era racial purityis a fantasy. Let me wrap up by talking about africa. We are an african speaks. We evolved in africa over the last well from 500,000 years ago and around 80,000 years ago we emerged very small proportion of people emerged out of africa and began populating the rest of the world. Most of our evolution occurred in africa and the major proportion of people on earth at this time within the last 100,000 years remained in africa. This is one of the migratoriy maps we should somehow how migration occurred. And tens of thousands of years in the last quarter million years but i prefer this one which shows the genetic diversity of the people of earth. So what that means is they differences between people that we see based on dna rather than any other characteristic, and in land maps are scaled and it appears that most of our evolution occurred in africa and were an african species. Theres nor genetic diversity within africa than the rest of the world and that makes absolute sense but at the truth is we have not looked at the african genome at 1. 2 bill people 54 countries, until very, very recently, because just like society, science is also structurally racist and it base it is part of society. Not for any other row. Nothing special about science or Scientific Method which either inincludes out are exempts it from Structural Racism it is structurally arrest racist because it is part of society. And so therefore we need to look more around the rest of the world and most of our general northwest ticks is based on western europeans and we need to understand the by looking around the world and especially wind our homeland, which is africa. Moment have begun to this could and the key result is theres more variation in pigmentation in africa than the rest of the world. And we know theres more variation in pigmentation genes in africa than the rest the world put together and genes associated with light and dark skin predate homosapiens by hundred thousand years, almost a million years, skin variation, skin pigmentation light and dark has been part of us since way before we were homosapiens and only know best because we have found its within africa ill finish right now but just to wrap up i want to say this. Science is an intrying gal part of the development of race in the 18th and 19th but the trajectory is something we should celebrate because it is general it in ticks buy anthropology is an academic subject which has completely dissembled the biological concept of race in a way nat no other academic or human endeavor has done. And race is real as a social construct. It is real because we perceive it and racism is real because we enact it but neither every a foundation in science and my job and scientists job and your job if you want to read this pack and get equipped, is to contest the bastardsization of science as has happened in history to support a racist ideology. You cannot have my tools to justify your bigotry. If you want to be a racist thats fine. You have a fight on your hands from people like me and millions of others but you cannot use my tools to justify your bigotry. Let me finish with a quote from angela davis because i think that scientist have been too quiet for too long about this and science is a weapon in the context against racism in the ways ive described tonight and in the back and her quote says this absolutely perfectly. In a racist society is is not enough to be nonracist. You have to be antiracist. At the for listening. Thank you, adam. Hell head to the audience q a now if you see the q a button click. That if you want to submit question we have some time here for a few questions. Also, check out the chat link or the chat room. Youll see a link for how to argue with a racist, click on the link, head to our website and you can purchase a copy of the become with a kind book plate. Get your questions in and will will start going through a few here. The first question, during the discussion of jesse the coach said we are less rae cyst. The person says how are Something Like that is assessed in are People Better hiding racism or imbedding in system ford nor sneakily. Its a great question and difficult to answer. I attempt to answer it in the uk at the beginning of the book. When you survey people, ask people in questionnaires about racism, even if the surveys or anonymous people tend to not give honest answers if they think theyre socially unacceptable. Even when theyre anonymous we dont think we get honest answers to questions like are you a racist . And so the questions tend to be done by proxy and so since were in 1983, in the u. K. , theres been a National Attitude survey, and run by the Pew Foundation for many years in the states but let me talk bet the uk version. And in 1983 when the first time this was asked the question was phrased like this would you feel happy if your son and daughter was in a longterm relationship with a black or asian person . And when that question was asked in 1983 the results came back Something Like 40 of people in the uk said they would not be at all happy if their son or daughter were in a longterm relationship with a black or asian person. That is a racist viewpoint. When the question was asked in 2017 or 2018, that number had dropped to Something Like 15 . So by that metric, by that proxy question, the uk is less racist than it was 30 years ago. Now, in 2017 the first time they asked the question they also included the question, would you be happy if your son or daughter is in a longterm relationship with a muslim, and the number came out 40 of people thought that they would be very unhappy with that. And so in a sense what we see is that bigotry is permanent. But the types of bigotry are very fluid and very culturally determined, and antiislamic sentiment is much more prevalent in the 21st century and the uk than it was in the 1980s when i was growing up when that type of racialized bigotry was focused specifically on black british people. I think that the answer is pretty much the same. So, just one final point 0 answer this question. The construction of race in the 17th and 18inch century is a very real and noncontroversial thing within history. Not to say there wasnt prejudice before that. Its just that never manifested itself in the specific ways it has done for the laos 200 or 300 years where the west which is primarily initially determined by pigmentation. More bigotry and prejudice in prehistory. Its just its tends to be but things like culture, religion, language, accents, and this dates back to our oldest literature from things like homer in the iliad and the odyssey and a couple of thing is mentioned in the very first chapter of the become. I like this next question. When we hear someone make a statement we recognize is racist, but the person doesnt see themselves as being racist, and they put it in parenthesis, of course not what has your research shown or the best most effective ways to begin the challenging dialogue afterwards . Yeah. Thats a great question and its really important. This is kind of why i try not to focus on White Supremacists too much because like i said theyre people who havent reasoned themselves into these positions and theyre quite damaged in many ways. But it is the family members or friends who say things which you think are, gee, im not sure but i think that might be a little bit racist and they need to have the gumption and tools to answer this sensibly. The evidence very clearly suggests that local networks, close friend networks, including family, and this includes social media as well i are by the most effectty ways of change peeps opinions. So this why these conversations need be ignited at the dinner table or in bars or in coffee shops in midtown. Then they need to be nonaggressive as well because we know very well from psychology as well that people tend to doubledown if you just shout that youre wrong. So, im no diplomat. Im a pugnacious kind of guy. The to it of the book is deliberately provocative. So you have to judge the situation where someone says something but i think that the answer is, close relations, trust egg relationships and saying to people, you know im not sure thats right. And why dont we talk but that. I read this become the other day and blah blah blah, and actually turns out that blah blah blah. Sports is a way to deconstruct tis ease limit music is another one, another positive at tribuddh and seem day black people have better rhythm than white people and dance better. Doesnt want to be a bert musician or a better dancer but again, what you are doing is, its arguably not true, and i talk but the difference between the success of black artists and particularly compared to complete access. Its hiphop so fundamentally different from classic music it is genetically encoded . Of course not. What they too is they reinforce the historical notion that, for example, in this case, black people are not intellectual dont have intellectual prowess and this sowed by european wheel. Ist. Even though it feels positive the truth is you are just reinforce instrument Structural Racism which is untrue and based upon the White Supremacy out our past. The person asks, earlier in the talk you said modern genetics have done to more to dismantle the race concept than any other branch of science and this person wants to know what youre thoughts are on the field of anthropology over the last four or five decade. Anthropology is a very broads field and many ways im guessing the person might be an anthropologist ski hope that this wasnt a sort of microaggression toward anthropology as a discipline is which is very honorable. He says backtracking as quickly as he can the right to is iming of the historical evolution of the subject. Im part of and most passionate about which is effectively genetics is from anthropology and anthropology has a broader sense, closely tied to european colonialism, and it becomes a particular direction of anthropology becomes formalized in the 19th and 20thys center. On throwing on the 20th century, and i include geneticness that, was or some people within anthropology were somewhat responsible for reinforcing or trying to science racial categorizations that came before. That. Thyme not saying general not tick is this best science but quite obviously is. The reason i say that so strong by about its being the one area that has disspelled racismus be those from which human variation can be drawn is in genomes and look all over the world, what you see, what people are actually like at a molecular level, and that is where the misalignment occurs. Were visual speaks and we look at person and say youre man or woman and but evolution has deceived us because we categorize a billion African People as having dark skin and say theyre black, when i n fact as we said theres more variation in african pigmentation and africanamerican pigmentation than in white pigmentation. So this is why i feel confident in rooting my antiracist science in jeanette ticks jeanette ticks rather than any other subject. I know its midnight over there so well have a couple more questions and then let you go. Ive been up 24 hours. This next person elaborate on not every racist we meet will be a White Supremacy. They talk us about microaggression and death by a thousand cuts which happens to black people all the time. How do you approach or talk to these types of people, microaggression versus very overt racism. Thats super hard base these types of things baked in our culture and relate to how the comments about athletes from media commentators and so on these are types of things which are part of the everyday experience of any group that is racialized in this manner. This is my book is one of many that have public to emerge in back to emerge in the last couple of years by other i dont like to use anticipating our discourse but racism changing and becoming much more public and the best way tons is a you just need to educate yourself and read. Mine is unique in that its one of very few, possibly the only one that approaches it from scientific point of view, because thats what i do, and im not a race historian or a cultural historian but the fact that race the history of racism intertwined with genetics and anthropology and the birth of science itself, make the i have an angle on which to tackle it but a ton of other books which i thoroughly recommend, which are about the lived experience of people of color or people who are racialized. And i think the answer is we listen. You listen to people. You listen to what their experiences are and dont assume, dont mack the casual stair sometimes. I was sitting in a car with a very prominent social biologist one time and as we stopped at a traffic light, this is in london, there there was a group of black teenagers hanging around, doing what ah all teenager does and he locked the doors from the idea and i thought, wow, you just shown your cards, just reveals something pout your about your heart and i that is where it is. Those are the sorts or inbuilt prejudices we have to really forcibly confront in ourselves and i think you do it by listening to people of color and educating yourself, and its starts with books. Well end on this final question which i think is really fitting, from michelle. They ask say, they teach in a predominantly white school. How too you suggest we use your books argument to open an antiracist discourse in our classrooms . Yeah. Well, knowing your history is step one because the history is feels wild by different this the same arguments are used historically as they are today which is using science as a crutch to justify bigotry and thats what i say the beginning and say at the end of the book, you cant have that because thats not what the science actually says. There was a pretty good documentary that broadcast here a couple of months ago, during lockdown, in which they tried to get a school, school kids to confront their own inherent biases, theyre own builtin prejudices that they werent necessarily aware of and did a very powerful demonstration of this, which is on the start line of a racetrack, all the kids were line up and the proportions were i dont know 25 of black kids kids and 75 were whe kids. Theyre not racist, theyre kids. Grinch the whole group and they said he arele do a race but before we start, just going to ask you a couple of questions. Anyone has been stopped by the police or knows anyone who ha been stopped by the police, take a step backwards. And all of the black kid take a step backwards and all the white kids stay in the same place. And they say okay, another question. If any of you have expressed any prejudice based on your skin color or based on your hair texture, and the black kids all take a step back and the white kid stay where they are and what was striking is the sort of weariness of the black kids doing this because they just this is part of their lived experience, and the complete shock of the white kids who were standarding there going, would had no idea. Seriously, every single one of you knows someone or has been stopped by the police in random stop and searches which is the policy of the current government in the uk. And what was really answer and tran formative is it was the white kids going, wow, we just i just didnt realize this is the lived experience, and i thought that was a very powerful demonstration and so to i think it was michelle you said, that clip is Available Online and cant remember the exact title, Something Like the school that fought racism and sump a powerful demonstration and i recommend all teacher does that, watch it and maybe try it. We have to wrap up. Thank you again adam for joining us virtually here he we cant wait to see you in person again and have you at the store, but thank you again, adam, and thank you to at the viewers for tuning in. The book again is how to argue with a racist he. He check out the chat room. You can see link. Head to the link and you can purchase the book itself will included a signed become plate from adam. I want to give you the last word. I cant wait to come back to the States States and see so may friends out there which midtown scholar is the best book store in the america. Think about that angela davis, that quote of that its not good enough to be nonracist i. Think we have to be antiracist. Thanks, adam. Stay safe, everyone. Katy looked at how women experience and manage power. Heres a portion of the program. The photograph of simone deabovear, takennin 1950 by the photographer art shaye and as you can see she is in her 40s, she is getting ready and in a bathroom, wearing very high heels, pretty up putting up her care and somehow the photograph is always obsessed me and its the contradictions of it. The fact she is wearing heels but is naked, she wasnt really didnt technically give her permission for this photograph but did leave the door open with this strange man who was the photographer sitting right there. And he says, he heard the clicking and she was kind of like naughty boy and at any time really care, but what you see on the photo is sort of her not caring that the world is seeing her in this intimate moment and thats what sort of projected there, and i guess the two things that inspired this book from that photograph are both the idea that maybe its okay to at a certain point in your life to sort of show yourself in that kind of intimate, unguarded moment, like the real self, the real you and that is one thing but the photograph. And the other thing about the photograph that interests me is something that she herself was really interested in, which is kind of showing women in all their contradictions. The kind of weird, jarring, facet she is putting her hair up and wearing heels but is naked. All these contributions of who she is in that moment, brilliant fem nest but a woman getting ready in the mirror and all of that kind of contradiction that going into be a self interested me in this book. And so the second thing that inspired the book also relate something she said, one of her biographers asked her, talking abouter regs show with onjohn paul she was very they had an open relationship, very tormented. She was extremely obsessed women him her whole life but they sort of mutually had this open relationship but she basically wanted more of him than he wanted of her. She was sort of an unequal relationship and she would write million a letter saying without you i am mutilate and her relationship with him was her greatest achievement which irks some people because she was sip a Brilliant Writer and philosophyer. So she said what do you say to feminists who say your relationship with soar throw was at odds with your feminist and she said im sorry to disappoint the feminists but i just dont give a damn. I live how i want and its too bad so many of them police live in theory so many of them live in theory and not real life. Found that quote interesting. That concept of disappointing the feminist because i mishave disappoints the feminists for many decades and the idea that that gap between theory and life. You could be somebody who lived a sort of subject gentleman gate sub gentleman gated yourself to a man but youre incredibly powerful person in your life and that paradox was at the heart of this back. And sometimes they are not purged back to watch the rest of this discussion visit our website booktv. Org and search katie or the title of her book, the power notebooks. Still at high everydy