“Never Mistake Presence for Power”

01/05/21 • 33 min

Economic and social inequalities between white and Black people gained global attention again this year. In this podcast episode, Rashad Robinson, president of Color Of Change — the largest online racial justice organization driven by more than 7.2 million members — spoke on the global racial reckoning of 2020 and how his nonprofit is working to fix the systems and structures that have hurt, harmed, and held the Black community back.

In a conversation with Professor Brian Lowery, Robinson discusses the importance of technology in channeling activism and why it’s important to create long-term infrastructure to harness people’s energy in productive ways. And he warns, in an age of social media, to not mistake visibility and awareness for the ability to change the system.

This is Leadership for Society: The Podcast, a series of conversations hosted by Brian Lowery, senior associate dean for academic affairs at Stanford GSB, that focuses on the most pressing issues of today. In this season of the podcast, Lowery explores the role of race in society, how race interacts with structures of power, and how systemic racism manifests itself in day-to-day business and policy decisions.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Previous Episode

“You Can’t Have Capitalism Without Capital"

In a country where policies blocking Black people from obtaining mortgages, land, and capital have created an immense wealth gap between Black and white Americans that persists to this day, inequality is a threat to our democracy, says Mehrsa Baradaran, professor of law and associate dean for equity, diversity and inclusion at University of California, Irvine, and the author of How the Other Half Banks and The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap.

In this conversation, Baradaran discusses the historic roots of economic inequity, how white supremacy doomed attempts by Black banks to keep wealth within their communities, and why it’s critical for business leaders to “get educated and learn the history.”

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Next Episode

“White Americans Need to Understand That Their Interests Coincide with Black People’s Interests”

In a conversation with Professor Brian Lowery, Dr. Spencer Crew, professor of history and art history at George Mason University joins Dr. Clayborne Carson, professor emeritus of history at Stanford and the director of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute, to discuss the role history plays in our identity as a country. Historical statues and monuments, the men say, tell very different narratives depending on who gets to tell the story.

“Many statues were created after the Civil War, at a time when Jim Crow was being implemented in the South,” says Carson. “Efforts to create these memorials were specifically designed to say, ‘You may think that things have changed since the Civil War, but we’re here to remind you that things haven’t changed.’”

This is Leadership for Society: The Podcast, a series of conversations hosted by Brian Lowery, senior associate dean for academic affairs at Stanford GSB, that focuses on the most pressing issues of today. In this season of the podcast, Lowery explores the role of race in society, how race interacts with structures of power, and how systemic racism manifests itself in day-to-day business and policy decisions.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.