Crystal Fleming | How to Be Less Stupid About Race (Audio)

“How to Be Less Stupid About Race” is your essential guide to breaking through the half-truths and ridiculous misconceptions that have thoroughly corrupted the way race is represented in the classroom, pop culture, media, and politics. Centuries after our nation was founded on genocide, settler colonialism, and slavery, many Americans are kinda-sorta-maybe waking up to the reality that our racial politics are (still) garbage. But in the midst of this reckoning, widespread denial and misunderstandings about race persist, even as white supremacy and racial injustice are more visible than ever before.

Combining no-holds-barred social critique, humorous personal anecdotes, and analysis of the latest interdisciplinary scholarship on systemic racism, sociologist Crystal M. Fleming provides a fresh, accessible, and irreverent take on everything that’s wrong with our “national conversation about race.” Drawing upon critical race theory, as well as her own experiences as a queer black millennial college professor and researcher, Fleming unveils how systemic racism exposes us all to racial ignorance—and provides a road map for transforming our knowledge into concrete social change.

Crystal M. Fleming, PhD, is a writer and sociologist who researches racism in the United States and abroad. She earned degrees from Wellesley College and Harvard University and is associate professor of sociology and Africana studies at Stony Brook University. Fleming writes about race, sexuality, and politics for publications including The Root, Black Agenda Report, Vox, and Everyday Feminism, and she has tens of thousands of followers on social media. She is the author of “Resurrecting Slavery: Racial Legacies and White Supremacy in France.”

Recorded September 19,2018

[OutSpoken]

I wish I was there. This was music to my ears. Thank you!

[wandaalexander]

Saw U on Cspan:
You are full of self-hatred. Your black genes and your white genes are locked in resentment & mortal combat! lololol.
Everyone who disagrees with U is "ignorant"=Faulty logic. (not a surprise though, considering your "educational" background steeped in P/C lies).
99% of USA Blacks carry the guilty white gene BABY. I am speaking of THEIR OWN great-great-great GRANDPA MAGNOLIA, who came from the minority CRIMINAL ELEMENT of rapist minorities of the white race, (by your standards), but in reality, it was a "cultural thing" then, and how well we know, "ALL CULTURES R EQUAL" according to liberal academia, (Now, but not then, and not THEM!).
 Did you know that there were BLACK slave owners in the old South, who, once freed by their own masters, jumped right into the slave culture and operated wealthy plantations on a mass scale? The first slave owner in America was a BLACK GUY.
WHO is descended from the RAPIST? Reportedly, ALL BLACK AMericans, BUT NOT ME! And none of my WHITE MALE forebears was a rapist! But YOURS probably were! SHARE THE WHITE GUILT BABY! Its GENETIC!
Now lets talk about the GUILTY WHITE MALE:
The white male CREATED the MODERN WORLD. NOBODY ELSE DID! Not even the intellectually superior robotic Japanese or Jew. 99%+ of ALL modern conveniences are THE WHITE MALE'S creations:
Electrical appliances, automobiles, air travel, telephones, radio, TV, modern factories/science/medicine/vaccinations, modern infrastructure, movies, television, modern plumbing, electrification of rural and ALL OF America, EVERY MODERN CONVENIENCE THAT U ENJOY! Thank the WHITE MALE. Blacks are far too limited intellectually to accomplish such things on a mass scale...just a FACT. (IQ average of Blacks in USA=85, in Africa=70) NOTHING to do with affirmative action, or the lack of a 'GOOD EDUCATION', which YOU DON'T HAVE. (U R brainwashed BABY!). Dumb dumb dumb!
U: "We BUILT this country" WRONG-O. The WHITE MALE CREATED THIS COUNTRY! 175 years of Photographic evidence is easy to find. Sky scrapers, factory workers, utility workers, railroad builders, (along with Chinese on the Western side). Go look at the photos. US CONSTITUTION/GOVERNMENT STRUCTURE=WHITE MALE! MOST BLACKS WERE FARMERS WHILE THIS WAS HAPPENING, (A good occupation), THAT is what you should brag about: "Blacks fed the nation!" Sounds good to me, since my WHITE forebears were farmers as well.
Michelle Obama: " I live in a house (THE WHITE HOUSE) that was BUILT BY SLAVES"....WRONG-O! OMG, Michelle is brainwashed as well! The federal government imported SCOTTISH STONE MASONS to build the White House because of their talent and ability to create beautiful stone structures. But U R taught lies by academia. Blacks did some of the grunt work, but so did WHITE MALES and mules.
I don't even CARE if U call me a racist, because that is what YOU are yourself. loloolol! What U need to do is to accept reality and THANK GOD for your intelligent WHITE GENES. Thank God that you escaped IQ85! U need to go back to college, NOT IVY LEAGUE, and learn some truth that is not based on CULTURAL MARXISM. I suggest Hillsdale College.
P.S. You cannot force people to like you...especially when you write hate books and rave-on about "GUILTY WHITE MALES" When I first saw U on CSPAN, I thought "What is CSPAN doing having the LIAR Rachael Dolizal on their channel?" UGH- BARF
P.S, Its not "entitlement", its TALENT AND BRAINS, something, sorry to say, the IQ 85 race is sorely lacking. Just a FACT, BABY. Just look at how those imported Chinese and Indians are making it BIG in America ALL BY THEMSELVES, surpassing the resentful Blacks in ghetto America, even surpassing many WHITE MALES in technology, (but never inventiveness, since THEY COPY US!) (CHINA). They even play OUR classical music, but WE don't play THEIRS...TOO UGLY. Classical music- WHITE MALES! Check it out BABY.
CASE CLOSED.

[maryburrell]

Heard her on Gaslit Nation podcast and read some of her blog. I am interested in reading her book.

[gailfordham]

Organic sweetness- Dr. Crystal, This is the first time I have ever listen to you. I do plan to get your book and read it. I was listening to you and the person Mariame Kaba, who thinks this is the worse time I am a 72 Year old American of African decent who will beg to differ with her . Living in the North of America you are not taught about your history. I don't know any one who has. If our history has been taught in the Public School System I am more than sure Our entire views would be different.

[DistortedV]

Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro people need to listen to this.

[hradmin]

As someone who's committed to keeping an open mind and is trying to remain a life long learner I was eager to hear the thoughts of someone steeped in the subject matter. I even recommended Ms. Fleming's work to my Facebook friends. I was raised right-of-center by my parents, but am pretty far left on social issues; you could say I'm in the "love is love" camp. After waiting for my transgender Latinx girlfriend to catch-up in her listening so we could discuss Ms. Fleming's presentation in real time; I decided to press on. As I've listened to chapters four through six it's become apparent that Ms. Fleming believes that her view on the subject matter is the definitive truth as she attempts to force people into a limited number of categories after eloquently elucidating so many of the complexities involved in the subject matter that clearly reveal it's not that simple. It's very much a "one world view" approach that is characteristic of those who spend their lives in academia. Perhaps working to fix something smaller, like the shade and intolerance that exists in the alternative sub-community (LGBTQIA+) would be a more reasonable challenge and undertaking, though it's daunting in its own right.

[wandaalexander]

The very START of your lecture is BIASED, (Orange man/tiny hands). Dan Rather is a caught-in-the-act liar.
Trump is DIFFERENT? THANK GOD FOR THAT! 20 years of WAR is quite enough, thanks anyway. Something "Brand NEW!" YAY!
Media was anti-Trump 30 years ago, and Trump is anti-media, FOR GOOD REASON! Twitter? No other president has had Twitter anyway...except maybe Obama during his latter years of his term. If they had had Twitter, who knows?
Discriminating against Af. Americans in housing? WHO THE HELL CAN BLAME THEM? Af. Americans bring their ghettos along with them like their own shadows...PROVEN MFFFF !Who cares? Build your own damn ghettos and leave white people alone DAMIT!
SEXISM? Ask Sara Huckabee, ask the many women now working for Trump...Ask the WOMAN who built Trump Tower! ASK ASK ASK!
"BIRTHER MYTHOLOGY"? Wrong-O. Go watch "The Birther Report" on YOUTUBE...PROOF: OBAMA'S BIRTH CERTIFICATE IS A COMPUTER HATCHED-9-LAYERED FAKE produced on Adobe photoshop, no doubt about it. Media ignored news conference/testimony by experts.. Sheriff Arpaio's MANY EXPERTS CONFIRM IT AS SO. WHY does Obama have a FAKE birth cert? I dunno....Hmmm...gotta be a REASON, DONCHA THINK? Also a fake SS# and Selective Service Card. WOW!

RACISM? Trumps many black friends might disagree with that to. Ask Mike Tyson, (the PUNK).
Stigmatizing immigrants? No, BABY...THEY stigmatize THEMSELVES when they climb over that flimsy fence and drop their stolen babies over from 18 feet in the air with drugs stuffed inside their shitty diapers. They want MY money, Libs want THEM to cancel-out MY VOTE. I RESENT THAT! That's the REAL TRUTH BABY. 90% of illegal immigrants have CRIMINAL RECORDS according to ICE.
Roy Moore was not "pro-slavery" you are a dolt for saying that LIE! A racist? Maybe, but not a pro-slavery. DEFINITELY NO!
STOP lying about Sheriff Arpaio you ignorant TWERP! Arpaio did an excellent job with MS13 and all the rest of the dirt-bags! Pink prison uniforms does not constitute torture.
Well here I am at the 9:18 point, That's enough of you and your lies...this A.M. on BIASED CSPAN and this on top of it is way too much. BYE TWERP.