Tags: du bois, inequality, multiculturalism, prejudice/discrimination, race/ethnicity, theory, colorblind racism, institutional racism, post-racial America, unconscious racism, white privilege, white supremacy, 21 to 60 mins
Year: 2009
Length: 52:39
Access: YouTube

Summary: In this lecture, Robert Jensen, author of The Heart of Whiteness, argues that the U.S. is a white supremacist society, both ideologically and materially. He begins with a passage from W.E.B. Du Bois's Souls of Black Folk where Du Bois reflects on being asked by whites how it feels to be a problem. Jensen turns this question around and argues that the problem of racism is the problem of whites. He asks instead, "For those of us who are white, how does it feel to be a problem?" This video is useful for supplementing discussions related to racism and particularly white privilege, and the clip might work well in tandem with an interview Tim Wise recently gave on the Tavis Smiley show. The actual lecture is about 28 minutes, and the remaining 24 minutes is a discussion with Jensen's students.

Submitted By: Kendra Barber

Tags: consumption/consumerism, marketing/brands, media, multiculturalism, race/ethnicity, 00 to 05 mins
Year: 2010
Length: 0:31
Access: YouTube

Summary: Although this commercial exhibits multicultural marketing strategies (like this Sprite ad), casting a racially/ethnically ambiguous spokesperson, what's most intriguing about the ad is that the marketers actually name the marketing strategies employed throughout the commercial.  I find this clip is useful to use with students who critique sociology for "reading too much into" a particularly situation. Also noteworthy is the product name; marketed as having "you" in mind, this new Kotex product is called "U by Kotex."  But we might also point to the (not so) subliminal messaging: "you buy Kotex."

Submitted By: Valerie Chepp

Tags: consumption/consumerism, marketing/brands, media, multiculturalism, race/ethnicity, 00 to 05 mins
Year: 2009
Length: 1:00
Access: YouTube

Summary: This commercial nicely exhibits multicultural marketing strategies, portraying a largely racially/ethnically ambiguous (i.e., "multicultural") cast in order to broaden the consumer base and make implicit claims that appeal to colorblind race logics. The commercial serves as a nice companion piece to: Minjeong, K., and Chung, A. Y. 2005. "Consuming Orientalism: Images of Asian/American women in multicultural advertising." Qualitative Sociology 28(1).

Submitted By: Valerie Chepp