Zeteo is Reading / 15 November 2012

Rachael Benavidez

[N.B.: This is not part of the Fall issue of Zeteo, but one in an ongoing series of posts. For the full series see Zeteo is Reading.]

15 November 2012

Reading an NPR interview with Eric Deggans, author of Race-Baiter: How The Media Wields Dangerous Words To Divide A Nation. Deggans was called a “race-baiter” by Bill O’Reilly. The author not only critiques the media’s divisiveness, but believes that Americans lack the vocabulary to talk about race and therefore offers suggestions.

One of the things I do in the book is I talk about some concepts for how to have a discussion like this [about race] in a way that’s nonthreatening and might achieve something. And, you know, whenever I talk about this in public, I sort of set boundaries, and one of the things is, you know, you don’t attack people. One of the things is no one owns these subjects. …

Read an excerpt here. Then start a conversation.

Art: Conciliatory Manner (No. 18 from the Struggle Series) by Jacob Lawrence