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BackStory · June 26, 2015 · 56m

Drawing the Color Line: A History of Race in America

BackStory Hosts

How race became the defining category of American social life. The hosts trace how racial categories were constructed, institutionalized, and enforced — arguing that race is not a biological fact but a social technology for organizing power.

Highlights

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Race is a technology invented to justify exploitation
The hosts argue that racial categories were not discovered but invented — constructed in the 17th century to justify the enslavement of Africans and the dispossession of Native Americans.
ClaudeChatGPTGemini
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Categories created for one purpose persist long after that purpose disappears
Racial categories were created to organize slavery. Slavery ended 160 years ago. The categories persist — in census forms, social policy, cultural identity, and lived experience — long after their original purpose has vanished.
ClaudeChatGPTGemini