New Yorker staff writer Jelani Cobb writes about the problems we have in this country with race and injustice. He says that race may just be a mythology, but it’s also a useful way of looking at our checkered history, and talking about it isn’t easy.
Thursday, we’re broadcasting our conversation with New Yorker staff writer Jelani Cobb. He joined us this week for our Realities of Diversity speaker series, our partnership with United Way of Salt Lake. Cobb’s writing deals with the problems we have in this country with race, politics and injustice. He says that race may just be a mythology, but it’s also a very useful myth for looking at America’s history of slavery and segregation and economic discrimination, and talking about it is never easy.
Jelani Cobb has been contributing to The New Yorker since 2012, and became a staff writer in 2015. He writes frequently about race, politics, history, and culture. His most recent book is The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress. He’s a professor of journalism at Columbia University. He won the 2015 Sidney Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism, for his columns on race, the police, and injustice.
The Realities of Diversity is a three-part speaker series that takes a deeper look at race and diversity in America, sponsored by KUER, RadioWest, and United Way of Salt Lake. Join us on September 12 for a conversation with social justice comedian and writer Negin Farsad, and on October 17 for an evening with Maria Hinojosa, host of NPR Latino USA.
