Videos and podcasts about racism, collected

This post is a sub-section of Videos and podcasts about racism, collected, a section of Part 7 - Anti-racism reading and resource lists, which in turn is part of my series, On microaggressions, privilege, and systemic racism: A resource for white people. 

It’s not always possible to sit down and watch documentaries. But listening to them is also beneficial, even if it means missing out on the visual information.

The entries in this list all appear under various headings from my main index, which means you’ll also find information about Hispanics, Romani, transgender issues, and protests. I've gathered them here in hopes of making it easier for you to add them to your drive-time listening. They’re not in any particular order. Because some of them are fairly short, I suggest saving them to "watch later," or perhaps creating a new playlist. That way, you can just let them play through.

Available on YouTube:

• The Magical Negroes of Stephen King, uploaded Nov. 30, 2021, to the Princess Weekes channel on YouTube. (A fan's examination of author Stephen King's use of racial stereotypes in his most popular novels. "I AM NOT CALLING KING RACIST." she notes. "[I]n fact, every book I'm going to mention is one I really enjoy. That is why this topic is of interest to me.")

• The White Savior Trope, Explained, uploaded Jul. 1, 2020, to The Take channel on YouTube.

• Why Sci-fi & Fantasy Can't Fix Its White Savior Problem, uploaded Apr. 3, 2024, to the Princess Weekes channel on YouTube.

• White Evangelicals and Race, uploaded Feb. 15, 2024 to the Belief It Or Not channel on YouTube. (YouTuber Trevor Poelman's Belief It Or Not videos are always insightful, but this one is particularly relevant. There's a small caveat: Poelman's topic of choice is deconstruction, and his videos always come from a strong atheist viewpoint. However, his focus on Christian nationalism, the right's CRT panic, racism-denialist preachers — and a few who are openly racist — make this video worth your time, regardless.)

• "The New Jim Crow" - Author Michelle Alexander, George E. Kent Lecture 2013, uploaded Mar. 15, 2013 to the University of Chicago channel on YouTube. (Alexander is the author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration In The Age of Colorblindness, in which she argues "that mass incarceration is 'a stunningly comprehensive and well-disguised system of racialized social control that functions in a manner strikingly similar to Jim Crow'. The culmination of this social control is what Alexander calls a 'racial caste system', a type of stratification wherein people of color are kept in an inferior position. Its emergence, she believes, is a direct response to the civil rights movement. ...because of this ... Alexander argues for issues with mass incarceration to be addressed as issues of racial justice and civil rights.")

• Back to Natural: A Documentary Film, 2019 (69 minutes), currently available free with ads on YouTube. (Through interviews and historical footage, director Gillian Scott-Ward explores Black Americans' complex relationship with their hair, as well as our country's ongoing history of hair-based repression and discrimination.)

• The U.S. Owes $350,000 To Every Black American, uploaded Feb. 2, 2022 to the AJ+ channel on YouTube (12 minutes, includes a computer-generated transcript). *(This video presents the history of reparations in America, coupled with a solid overview of why reparations are considered necessary. In addition, it provides an international perspective, with background on European nations that participated in the enslavement of African people and the compensation paid to European enslavers {but not to their formerly enslaved workers}. At 9:35, the video summarizes the CARICOM Ten Point Plan for Reparatory Justice).

• Sex and Sensibility, uploaded Jan. 21, 2021 to Forrest Valkai's channel on YouTube (a computer-generated transcript is available). (Forrest Valkai is one of my favorite scientist/YouTubers. In this video, he delivers complicated scientific information in clear, concise and accessible terms — and, as always, he's fun to listen to. At 20:17 minutes, he explains one of the most important points: differences in trans people's brain structure. He closes by scrolling through a list of the 233 studies and peer-reviewed scientific papers he consulted for this video.)

• Growing Up Black: Families Confronting Racism. NBC's Craig Melvin hosts a conversation with families on the realities of parenting black children in America.

• Karen Needs to Go To Jail Part 1: A History of Dangerous White Behavior, uploaded Jun. 3, 2020 to Dr. Joy DeGruy's channel on YouTube. (The speakers get off to a bumpy start, but stay with it. Dr. DeGruy outlines the historic, fatal impact of white women's tears, discusses systemic racism, and emphasizes the need for laws against racist 911 calls. Alternately speaking to white and Black audiences, she and her colleague describe what it's like to live in an America where racism and race-based danger are part of their everyday lives. To me, this is a must-see video, not only for the material covered, but because of the conversational, this-is-how-it-is delivery. White people often complain that Black people won't explain things to them; this is your chance to hear it on a deeply human level.)

• Critical Race Theory: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), uploaded Feb. 21, 2022 to the LastWeekTonight channel on YouTube. ("Through his trademark combination of humor with political and social commentary, John Oliver explains what critical race theory is — and what it isn’t.")

• 3 step method on CRT, uploaded Oct. 14, 2021 to the The Dialogue Company, LLC channel on YouTube. (An explanation of a 3 step method for transforming divisive debates about critical race theory into potentially useful dialogues.")

• The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords, directed and produced by Stanley Nelson, 1999. (Black newspapers began as a direct response to discrimination in American media. Nelson's 83-minute documentary "chronicles 150 years of Black journalists, printers, and Black-owned newspapers in the United States." For an overview, see The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords, a page of the MacArthur Foundation website.)

• A Dangerous Idea: Eugenics, Genetics & The American Dream, a 2016 documentary, uploaded to YouTube (1 hr. 48 min.). (The long-discredited "science" of eugenics is still a factor in American society, impacting women of color as recently as the Nixon-era sterilization programs, and Flint, Michigan's children in the ongoing battle over lead-contaminated water. In "A Dangerous Idea," these stories and others are spelled out in horrifying detail. The documentary also details recent discoveries in genetics, their implications for the future of humans -- and the continuing danger of the eugenics movement.)

• The Economy of Incarceration: Ruth Wilson Gilmore, a video uploaded to The Laura Flanders Show, a YouTube channel, May 26, 2015. (A re-imagining of America's prison system, featuring Ruth Wilson Gilmore, a founding member of the anti-prison group Critical Resistance and the author of "Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California.")

• 13th, ©2016 Netflix, uploaded Apr. 17, 2020, to the Netflix channel on YouTube. (This 140-minute, award-winning exploration of incarceration in America discusses the complex political and social history of mass incarceration, corporate involvement in the prison system, police violence toward Black people, and the extent of the racial imbalance in our justice system. It is enlightening and anger-inducing — and at times, horrifying.)*

• John Oliver takes a look at why people of color are routinely excluded from becoming jurors, who their absence impacts, and what we can do to create a fairer system.

• Transformative Criminal Justice Reform: Where Do We Go from Here?, Brennan Center for Justice, uploaded to YouTube on Sept. 25, 2020. Offers insights into how poverty and racial inequality lead to higher rates of incarceration among Black people and people of color, America's excessively punitive sentencing, the racial disparity in recovering from incarceration, and other issues related to the prison system.

• The racism of the US justice system in 10 charts, a YouTube video by Vox, Aug. 19, 2014.

• Crime + Punishment • A Hulu Original Documentary, uploaded Jul. 17, 2020 to YouTube's Hulu channel. (This two-hour documentary "chronicles the real struggles of a group of whistleblower cops in NYC as they fight back against the illegal arrest quotas they’re pressured to abide by." Woven through the narrative is the story of a young Black man, wrongfully arrested and held at Rikers Island.)

• Let's get to the root of racial injustice | Megan Ming Francis | TEDxRainier, Mar. 21, 2016.

• RACE – THE POWER OF AN ILLUSION How the Racial Wealth Gap Was Created, uploaded Jul. 30, 2022 to YouTube's California Newsreel channel. ("These scenes are excerpted from California Newsreel’s acclaimed three-part documentary series, Race-The Power of an Illusion." To see the entire series, see "RACE - THE POWER OF AN ILLUSION" a page of the California Newsreel website.)

• Of particular interest to Greater Kansas City residents: Our Divided City, uploaded Feb. 2, 2016 to the Kansas City PBS channel on YouTube. (A locally-produced discussion of life in Kansas City's segregated neighborhoods.)

• Building the Troost Wall: Structural Racism in Kansas City, by Michael Wesch, a 13-minute video uploaded to YouTube's Michael Wesch channel, Jun. 29, 2017. (This video is a history of Kansas City's racial divide, but what happened here is part of every American city's history. Only the names change....)

• RELATED: Jim Crow of the North, ©2019 Twin Cities Public Television, uploaded to Twin Cities PBS channel on YouTube, 58 minutes. (Focusing on Minneapolis, this video explores the history and continued impact of race-based restrictive housing covenants, the spread of racial covenants and red-lining throughout the U.S., and their decisive role in the development of urban poverty.)

• The Contract Buyers League's fight for fair housing: A look back at its legacy and effects "Before the Fair Housing Act of 1968, Contract Buyers League pushed for the end of unfair housing practices." A YouTube panel discussion, uploaded Apr. 20, 2018 by AtlanticLIVE.

• Facts on the Chicago Contract Buyers League

• Segregation by Any Other Name | American Education, uploaded May 31, 2021 to YouTube's Knowing Better Channel. (One of my favorite educators discusses the history of American history, the bias in academic tests, failures of home schooling, the grift in charter schools, and other ways conservatism has derailed our education system. The ultimate impact of alternate education options has been to give American conservatives and evangelicals a wide array of ways to circumvent Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.)

• The Disturbing History of the Suburbs, by Adam Ruins Everything, a YouTube video. (This overview also discusses the impact of redlining on education for Black children.)

• Explained: Racial Wealth Gap, a Netflix episode in which Cory Booker and others discuss the wealth gap created by the combination of slavery, housing discrimination and centuries of inequality. Apr. 17, 2020.

• BIPOC Explained - Why was it created?, Attorney Antonio Moore and Political commentator Yvette Carnell explain the reasons why the term "BIPOC" is harmful to the Black community and the BLM cause. (This YouTube includes frequent references to "ADOS," the acronym for "American Descendants of Slavery.")

• 4 Black Lives Matter Myths Debunked, Franchesca Ramsey, MTV Impact (formerly MTV Decoded).

• A Colony in a Nation | Chris Hayes | Talks at Google, Jun. 16, 2017.

• LA 92, uploaded May 4, 2017 to YouTube's National Geographic channel. Keep the closed captions on; the audio is sometimes garbled. (Following 1992's not-guilty verdict in the Rodney King beating trial, riots erupted in Los Angeles. This sometimes brutal documentary consists only of contemporary video footage and is not narrated, which makes the story even more compelling. On the surface, it's a tale of unreasonable violence, which is what the rest of America saw. But if you listen to the voices, from the initial demonstrations through to the aftermath of the riots, you begin to understand why Black frustration boiled over the way it did — and you'll find yourself wondering why it doesn't happen more often.)

• Implicit Bias -- how it effects us and how we push through, Melanie Funchess, TEDxFlourCity, Oct. 16, 2014.

• Are you biased? I am, Kristen Pressner, TEDxBase, Aug. 30, 2016.

• It's About Time We Challenge Our Unconscious Biases, Juliette Powell, TEDxStLouisWomen, Nov. 15, 2016.

• Unpacking and Transforming Your Biases For A Better Community, Denise Hernandez, TEDxSanAntonio], Apr. 15, 2016.

• Ta-Nehisi Coates explains why white people can't say the N-word in rap songs, a YouTube video from The Melanin Project, Nov. 9, 2017.

• Aamer Rahman - Reverse Racism, uploaded Nov. 28, 2013, to YouTube's Fear of a Brown Planet channel. (A brief, thoroughly brilliant explanation of why reverse racism isn't a thing.)

• A Class Divided, Frontline, PBS, Mar. 26, 1985.

• How Racist Are You? - Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes Exercise, conducted with 30 people in the UK.

• Jane Elliott drives the point home when a participant exercises her white privilege during the experiment

• Stolen Eye - Jane Elliott Australian Eye 2001, Blue Eyes-Brown Eyes Exercise in Discrimination..

• The lie that invented racism | John Biewen, a TED talk, uploaded to YouTube on Nov. 1, 2022. (In discussing the lie created by 15th Century Portuguese writer Gomes de Zurara, Biewen says, "[R]ace is not a thing biologically, it's a story some people decided to tell; and ... people told that story to justify the brutal exploitation of other human beings for profit.")

• Common sense reminder about biracial kids, uploaded Jul. 26, 2022 to YouTube's 4thfreshestmccurry channel.

• Stone Ghosts In The South: Confederate Monuments And America's Battle With Itself | NBC News.

• 7 Myths about Cultural Appropriation DEBUNKED! , Franchesca Ramsey, MTV Impact (formerly MTV Decoded).

• Amandla Stenberg: Don't Cash Crop On My Cornrows, uploaded to YouTube by Hype Hair Magazine, Apr. 15, 2015.

• Juneteenth 1865-2022: The Pursuit of Economic Equality, a 55-minute video uploaded to YouTube's KHOU 11 channel, Jun. 16, 2022. (This video covers Texas' history of enslavement, the Juneteenth proclamation, and the hurdles faced by Black Texans, continuing to this day. Among the topics covered: "40 acres and a mule," the impact of systemic racism on housing, Black business owners, generational wealth, segregation, and more.)

• In Search of History: Curse On The Gypsies, The History Channel, 1998.

• The The Forgotten Victims Of World War II - Europe's Gypsies in World War II, uploaded Nov. 11, 2021, to the I Love Docs channel on YouTube. (Includes a computer-generated transcript.)

• Chicano! History of the Mexican-American Civil Rights Movement, a 4-part PBS series, 1996.

• The myth of race, debunked in 3 minutes, uploaded Jan. 13, 2015 to YouTube's Vox channel. (If race is an artificial concept, why does the medical community link health outcomes to race? At 2:20, you'll find the answer.)

• MTV Impact (formerly MTV Decoded), with Franchesca Ramsey, a YouTube channel. From the channel description: "stories involving social justice, activism, identity and insights in to how cultural trends affect the world today – specifically young people."

• Black History: Lost, Stolen, Strayed - "Black American heritage, a psychiatrist analyzes African-American and white children's drawings, characterizations of [Black people] in film, preparing Black children for public school."

• The Black Soldier - "History of the military role of African-Americans, from the American Revolutionary War to the Vietnam War...."

• Black World - "Kinship and degree of cultural interchange between Black America and Black Africa."

• Body and Soul, parts 1 & 2 - Black athletes and Black musicians.

• The Heritage of Slavery - "Current attitudes of White and Black Americans toward African-American history are discussed. Explanation of the slave trade, footage shot in Charleston, South Carolina including the Old Slave Mart Museum, interviews with activist Bill Saunders and editor Lerone Bennett Jr."

• Portrait in Black and White - Results of a CBS News poll measuring racial attitudes, plus explorations of White racism and changes in White attitudes, as well as Black extremism and Black pride.

• Martin Luther King, Jr. On NBC's Meet the Press (1965) | Archives | NBC News, uploaded Jan. 13, 2012 to the NBC News channel on You (This interview took place three days after MLK led thousands of nonviolent demonstrators on a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, from Mar. 21 - Mar. 25, 1965.)

• American Experience: Roots of Resistance: The Story of the Underground Railroad (1989), uploaded Dec. 16, 2021 to the Rashid Sundiata channel on YouTube.

• Joe Saltzman's ground-breaking 1968 documentary, Black on Black, uploaded Oct. 28, 2008 to the USC Annenberg channel on YouTube. ("'Black on Black' has been hailed for its pioneering effort to capture the voices and experiences of black America during one of the most volatile times in the nation's history.")

• The History of Black History Month. This four-minute overview is a YouTube video.

• Blackface: A cultural history of a racist art form, an eight-minute YouTube video produced by CBS Sunday.

• TCM Original Production: Blackface and Hollywood - African American Film History - Documentary, uploaded Jan. 27, 2020 to the Turner Classic Movies channel on YouTube.

• Jim Crow and America's Racism Explained begins with an explanation of how the original Jim Crow got his name. Subsequent topics include the history of Black codes, a short discussion about loitering, an overview of Reconstruction and the elimination of Black Codes, and Plessy v. Ferguson.

• DJ Spooky’s Rebirth of a Nation at Millennium Park (6/20/16), is a unique, artistic performance of "Birth of a Nation." (Score by DJ Spooky, performed by Kronos Quartet. 91 minutes. To understand why I'm including this video, please refer to “The enduring, malign legacy of D.W. Griffith's 'Birth of a Nation'.”)

• William Monroe Trotter Battles "Birth of a Nation", uploaded Aug. 30, 2024, to the Thomas Jefferson's Monticello channel on YouTube. (William Monroe Trotter, a descendant of Sally Hemmings' mother, mounted a determined effort to prevent the release of 1915's “Birth of a Nation.” In this podcast, Gail Jessup discusses his life and legacy.)

• How America's Legacy Of Racial Terror Still Affects Black Wealth | Forbes, uploaded Feb. 16, 2022 to the Forbes channel on YouTube.

• The racist history of toilets in America, uploaded Aug. 15, 2022 to The Guardian channel on YouTube. "(America invested in sanitation systems throughout the 20th century – but it often left out communities of color, and they're still trying to catch up.")

• How I Learned about the One-Drop Rule: Tish, uploaded May 12, 2016 to the Fanshen Cox channel on YouTube.

• (1)ne Drop: Mistaken for White, uploaded Jul. 31, 2012 to the Yaba Blay channel on YouTube. ("Part 3 of CNN's 3-part feature on the (1)ne Drop Project.")

• Who Is Black In America, uploaded Mar. 7, 2013 to the American Refugee channel on YouTube.

• The History Of "Sundown Towns" | This Day Forward, uploaded Aug. 27, 2014 to the MSNBC channel on YouTube.

• When white supremacists overthrew a government, uploaded Jun. 20, 2019, to the Vox channel on YouTube..

• How Southern socialites rewrote Civil War history, uploaded Oct. 25, 2017, to the Vox channel on YouTube.

• Confederacy: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) , uploaded Oct. 9, 2017, to the LastWeekTonight channel on YouTube.

• Violence Against Black Trans Women Is One of the US' Deadliest Epidemics, uploaded Feb. 21, 2021, to the Vice News channel on YouTube.

• A look at CROWN Act, which bans discrimination because of hair, uploaded Oct. 7, 2021, to the Good Morning America channel on YouTube.

• This is the story of Black hair, uploaded Feb. 10, 2021, to the Good Morning America channel on YouTube. ("Author Emma Dabiri says the stigma around Afro-textured hair is a construct. Here's where the myth comes from.")

• Why the US government murdered Fred Hampton, uploaded Jun. 2, 2021, to the Vox channel on YouTube. ("On December 4th, 1969, the Black Panther Party’s Illinois Chairman Fred Hampton was murdered by police. But his story is about much more than the raid that took his life. The [Black Panther Party] movement Hampton helped create was unique, and revolutionary.")

• This is how Fred Hampton's assassination got solved, uploaded Oct. 8, 2019, to the Unstripped Voice channel on YouTube.

• From the ACLU: How do you protect your privacy at a protest?

• Bail: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), uploaded Jun. 8, 2015, to the LastWeekTonight channel on YouTube.

• Bail Reform: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), uploaded Oct. 31, 2022 to the LastWeekTonight channel on YouTube.

• U.S. History: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) , uploaded Aug. 3, 2020 to the LastWeekTonight channel on YouTube.

Available on Archive.org:

American Experience's "Eyes on the Prize" aired first in 1988, and again in 2006. Archive.org has made it permanently available to anyone who wants to watch it . The site offers download options, as well.

• American Experience's "Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years 1954–1965" begins here, on archive.org. (This is the first half of PBS's award-winning series. It covers the Civil Rights Movement, beginning with the murder of Emmett Till and the Montgomery bus boycotts, continuing through to the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches.)

• Eyes on the Prize Part 2: "America at the Racial Crossroads 1965–1985": continues here.

• American Experience: Riveted: The History of Jeans, uploaded to archive.org. (Begins with the connection between enslavement, indigo plantations, and denim. PBS.org offers a transcript here.)

• I am Not Your Negro (2016), uploaded to Archive.org. It’s also available on DVD. Audio excerpts are available on YouTube.. (This must-see documentary "explores the history of racism in the United States through Baldwin's recollections of civil rights leaders Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as his personal observations of American history.")

Podcasts

• Code Switch, from NPR. ("Hosted by journalists of color, "Code Switch" tackles the subject of race with empathy and humor. We explore how race affects every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, food and everything in between.")

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