Camille Z. Charles, Walter H. and Leonore C. Annenberg Professor in the Social Sciences, presented at the School of Arts & Sciences Penn Lightbulb Cafe on the topic, "The Real Record on Racial Attitudes".
Issues of race and racial division have been prominent features of social organization and culture in the United States from as far back as the historical record goes. As a leading scholar in American race relations, Dr. Charles maps the major divisions of, and trends in, U.S. racial attitudes, and documents both significant progressive changes as well as substantial enduring frictions and conflicts that continue to make race such a fraught terrain. She will tackle the conceptually broad and analytically powerful record which is a strong caution against glib generalities that attempt to reduce an enormously multifaceted social phenomenon to simplistic catch phrases like “racist America,” “the end of racism” or, more recently, “post-racial America.”