THE POWER OF AN ILLUSION, Episode Three Transcript http://newsreel.org/transcripts/race3.htm 1/7 ORDER TRACKING CONTACT US close home go to Race The Power of An Illusion Transcript RACE THE POWER OF AN ILLUSION Episode Three: The House We Live In (1:00:51) NARRATOR: It is all around us. It is an illusion and yet profoundly real. What we perceive as race is one of the first things we notice about each other. Skin: darker or lighter. Eyes: round or almond, blue, black, brown. Hair: curly, straight, blond, or dark. And attached to these characteristics is a mosaic of values, assumptions and historical meanings. Even those of us who claim we don’t believe the stereotypes can easily recite them. JOSEPH GRAVES, Geneticist: The average person on the street thinks that race consists of differences in physical appearance. They also think that from looking at a person’s physical appearance, that they can find out or know more subtle things about them. Race is not a level of biological division that we find in anatomically modern humans. There are no subspecies in the human beings that live today. ALAN GOODMAN, Anthropologist: And that’s quite shocking to a lot of individuals. When you look and you think you see race, to be told that no, you don’t see race, you just think you see race. Thatit’s based on your cultural lens, that’s extremely challenging. NARRATOR: Just because race isn’t a biological reality doesn’t mean it isn’t real. Being classified as Asian, or Black or Latino has never carried the same advantages in our society as being white. MELVIN OLIVER, Sociologist: Race in itself means nothingthe markers of race, skin color, hair texture, the things that we identify as the racial markers, mean nothing unless they are given social meaning and unless there’s public policy and private actions that act upon those kinds of characteristics. That creates race. […]