About A Conversation about Race

from The Occidental Observer, June 1, 2009

The cover of Craig Bodeker's "A Conversation about Race"

“A Conversation about Race” is a film by Craig Bodeker concerning some silly but insidious misconceptions (or misconceptualizations) concerning “race” and “racism” that have become a standard aspect of Western ideology. The film, available as a DVD, was wonderfully reviewed by Greg Johnson in The Occidental Quarterly, and is a good counter to “political correctness.” I wish I had had it before retiring from teaching (e.g., a course in ethnic relations) as a tool for highlighting the “disconnect” between today’s conventional thinking about “race” and “racism”, on the one hand, and modern scientific conceptualizations and common sense, on the other. But there may be a minor problem with the film as a stand-alone educational device — and I’m here corroborating what Edmund Connelly noted earlier in TOO.

Like Connelly, after viewing it, I immediately bought nearly a dozen copies to send to friends and relatives. I assumed that after viewing it they would all cease writing off their father (or uncle, etc., as the case may be) as a right-wing bigoted kook and move to a higher plane of understanding race and other human relations!! . . . More