logo
episode-header-image
Sep 2020
1h 11m

#217 — The New Religion of Anti-Racism

SAM HARRIS
About this episode

Sam Harris speaks with John McWhorter about race, racism, and "anti-racism" in America. They discuss how conceptions of racism have changed, the ubiquitous threat of being branded a "racist," the contradictions within identity politics, recent echoes of the OJ verdict, willingness among progressives to lose the 2020 election, racism as the all-purpose explanation of racial disparities in the U.S., double standards for the black community, the war on drugs, the lure of identity politics, police violence, the enduring riddle of affirmative action, the politics of "black face," and other topics.

If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.

Up next
Oct 20
#499 — The Birth of AGI
Sam Harris speaks with Kevin Roose about the race to build artificial general intelligence. They discuss Roose's book The AGI Chronicles, the scaling laws behind AI's rapid progress, Dario Amodei's "big blob of compute" memo, the birth of reasoning models, Roose's encounter with ... Show More
20m 52s
Oct 14
#498 — More From Sam: Bond Villains, Useful Idiots, Firing Squads, and More
In this latest episode of the More From Sam series, Sam and Jaron talk about current events. They discuss Alex Gibney's documentary on Elon Musk, Dara Horn's insights into antisemitism, the Democrats' Hasan Piker problem, Abdul El-Sayed and Zohran Mamdani, the Pentagon's plan to ... Show More
22m 54s
Oct 9
#497 — The Confidence Man
Sam Harris speaks with Alex Gibney about his new documentary, Musk. They discuss Sam's former friendship with Musk, the line between visionary and con man, the myth of Tesla's founding, the staged self-driving video, Musk's lurch to the right, DOGE and the dismantling of USAID, h ... Show More
21m 57s
Recommended Episodes
Jul 2020
Defining What Matters
When racial tensions flare, people often call for a conversation about race. But do we all share the same definition of racism? Don speaks with recent college graduate, Kennedy Mitchum about changing the definition of racism.  Linguist, John McWhorter explains how words succeed a ... Show More
28m 3s
Jul 2021
3 myths about racism that keep the US from progress | Candis Watts Smith
Racism morphs, spreading and hiding behind numerous half-truths and full-blown falsities about where it lives and who embodies it. In this actionable talk, political scientist Candis Watts Smith debunks three widely accepted myths about racism in the US and calls for a nuanced, m ... Show More
10m 36s
Aug 2020
The Absurdities of Race
Adam Shatz talks to Paul Gilroy about his intellectual background and the recent anti-racist protests in the UK and US. They discuss Gilroy’s experience growing up in North London in the 1950s and 1960s, the influence of African-American culture on his understanding of racial ord ... Show More
1 h
Jun 2020
Working Towards Change
Dean and Jared have an honest and vulnerable conversation about racism and the protests against police brutality throughout the nation.  Jubilee Sharpe (The Bachelor - Ben Higgin’s season and Bachelor in Paradise) joins Dean and Jared to educate, enlighten, encourage them about m ... Show More
47m 39s