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Celebrating Difference: The Trouble With Diversity

November 1, 2006

Walter Benn Michaels writer

Author Walter Benn Michaels looks at how the concept of diversity raises obstacles to equality and full participation by African Americans, women, and other marginalized groups. He examines whether or not the nation's celebration of differences has stimulated a search for genuine social justice and the role the language used to frame issues of equality plays in determining the kind of solutions we create.

Series:

African American Culture Series

Topics: Culture & Identity | Literature & Philosophy

Tags: Achievement Gap | economic inequality | Higher Education | Human Rights | Philosophy | Race | social diversity | Sociology

Presented by WGBH and Cambridge Forum:

Cambridge Forum

Arguing Affirmative Action / What’s the Purpose?

Lecture Seventeen: "Arguing Affirmative Action"

The Moral Side of Murder / The Case for Cannibalism

Lecture One: "The Moral Side of Murder"

The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

Wes Moore, combat veteran and former White House Fellow, discusses chance, fate, family, and accountability and his new book The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates. He then introduces representatives from non-profit organizations that work to provide opportunity for at-risk students.

What’s a Fair Start? / What Do We Deserve?

Lecture Fifteen: "What's a Fair Start?"

Putting a Price Tag on Life / How to Measure Pleasure

Lecture Three: "Putting a Price Tag on Life"

US Supreme Court and Race

Randall Kennedy

Two Harvard legal scholars discuss the complex and often misunderstood history of how decisions by the United States Supreme Court have affected the legal status of racial minorities in America, and ask if the Supreme Court has been a friend or a foe to African Americans.

The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality

Author: Walter Benn Michaels

Publisher: Holt Paperbacks (2007)

Binding: Paperback, 256 pages

The Shape of the Signifier: 1967 to the End of History

Author: Walter Benn Michaels

Publisher: Princeton University Press (2006)

Binding: Paperback, 232 pages

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