Editors and contributors will read from the GGSC’s latest anthology, Are We Born Racist?, and discuss the science behind the book.
- Venue: Mrs. Dalloway's Literary & Garden Arts
- Date: October 28, 7:30pm
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UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center presents selections from its ground breaking new anthology, Are We Born Racist?: New Insights from Neuroscience and Positive Psychology.
Drawing on cutting-edge science, Are We Born Racist? explores the psychological roots of prejudice—-and how we can overcome it. Timely, practical, and provocative, the book brings together leading scientists, journalists, educators, and many others to shed light on why and how our brains form racial prejudices, the negative effects of racism, and steps we can take to reduce these prejudices. It has been called “the most revealing and important treatment of human prejudice to appear in years.”
The evening will feature Meredith Maran, the award-winning author of books such as Class Dismissed and the just-published My Lie, who will read her essay about her personal decision to raise her children in a racially diverse neighborhood; and Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, a professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and one of the book’s editors, sharing his personal and scientific insights into the roots of academic achievement gaps.
They’ll be joined by Jason Marsh, editor in chief of Greater Good magazine and another of the book’s editors, for an open discussion of the book and the science of racism.
Are We Born Racist? has already been receiving wide praise. Claude Steele, one of the country’s leading researchers on prejudice, had this to say about the book:
Revolutionary insight follows revolutionary insight in this broadly accessible book, accumulating to nothing less than a paradigm shift that will change how we think about everything from how prejudice affects our own lives to how laws and institutional practice can be used to reduce its ill effects. And it does it all with a brevity that I hope will insure what it deserves most: to be broadly read.
Please join us at 7:30pm on Thursday, October 28, at Mrs. Dalloway’s bookstore in Berkeley!
