Llewellyn Smith

challenges one of our most fundamental beliefs: that human beings come divided into a few distinct groups. This definitive three-part series is an eye-opening tale of how what we assume to be normal, commonsense, even scientific, is actually shaped by our history, social institutions and cultural beliefs.

Race may be a biological myth, but racism is very real. Our final episode, The House We Live In, focuses not on an individual behaviors and attitudes, but on how our institutions shape and create race, giving different groups vastly unequal life chances.

Who is white? In the early 20th century, the answer wasn't always clear. Often the courts had to decide, and they resorted to contradictory logic to maintain the color line. After World War II, whiteness increasingly meant owning a home in the suburbs, aided by discriminatory federal policies. European "ethnics", once considered not white, blended together as they reaped the advantages of whitenss- including increased equality as property values rose dramatically- while African Americans and other nonwhites were locked out. Today the average white family has eight times the wealth of the average Black family. Forty years after the Civil Rights movement, the playing field is still not level, and "colorblind" policies only perpetuate these inequities.… (mehr)