2015 Fall Questions of Race
Opium Dreamland: Reporter Sam Quinones on Heroin, Pills and his Punk-Rock Roots
Punk rock, which was big during the years writer Sam Quinones spent at UC Berkeley, turned out to be more than just the background noise of an undergraduate life. For Quinones, who double-majored in economics and American history, it provided an opportunity. He produced several punk shows while he was a student living at the […]
Innate or Learned Prejudice? Turns Out Even the Blind Aren’t Color Blind on Race
Stephen Colbert’s assertion notwithstanding, none of us is color blind. Not even the blind, it turns out. That’s according to the work of Osagie Obasogie, law professor at UC Hastings who earned his doctorate in sociology from UC Berkeley. In 2005, he began interviewing more than a hundred people who had been blind since birth, […]
Totally Radical: A New Initiative from Cal Performances Aims to Gather New Audiences.
Venezuela’s Gustavo Dudamel, conductor of two international orchestras at just 34 years old, is often called the poster child for how early exposure to music and the arts can nourish and lift one toward a better life. Growing up with musician parents likely helped shape his career path, but Dudamel credits much of his success […]
‘Bout That Action: How Marshawn Lynch Threw the Sports Media for a Loop
By Coby McDonaldSportswriters and Cal alum Marshawn Lynch have a relationship that varies from love-hate to hate-hate, but his teammates feel much differently.
Can’t We All Get Along? Case Studies of Racial Tensions In and Around Progressive Berkeley
Science tells us that race is in our heads, not in our genes; it’s all a social construct. It’s an observation that seems to illuminate everything and nothing at once. It makes it sound so arbitrary and trivial—a trick of the mind. And yet history tells us that race has mattered enormously. And the news […]
Out of the Gate: Laughing Through Tears
In 1966, the same year that I finished my studies at UC Berkeley, the psychology department made a scientific breakthrough. A graduate student discovered that watching an extremely graphic film documenting the subincision rites (the ritual cutting of the undersides of the penises) of Australian aboriginal boys could raise stress levels, particularly in men. The […]
Who Is Kennewick Man? Study Determines Racial ID of 8,500-Year-Old Skeleton
An archaeological mystery that called into question the racial history of the Americas has finally been solved. After consecutively assigning him Caucasian, Japanese, and Native American ancestry, a team of scientists including some at UC Berkeley say they have finally determined the geographic origins of the Kennewick Man. “Kennewick Man” is the skeletal remains of […]
A Smoking Gun: The Asteroid that Killed the Dinosaurs May Have Had Help
Any third grader can tell you what killed the dinosaurs: an asteroid that smashed into Earth 66 million years ago, obliterating T. Rex, Triceratops, and Velociraptor, and paving the way for mammals to thrive. But that theory was wildly controversial when first introduced in 1980 by Berkeley Nobel laureate Luis Alvarez and his son, Walter, […]
Brewing Trouble: A New Process Could Make it Too Easy to Manufacture Opiates
UC Berkeley bioengineer John Dueber knows too well that sometimes the most important scientific discoveries have harmful consequences. Just recently, Dueber and a team of scientists discovered the final step in modifying common yeast cells to manufacture opiates. Their finding was published in the July issue of Nature Chemical Biology, alongside a warning urging scientists […]
Black Cop, White Cop: What can two Berkeley police from the century before tell us about race relations in America today?
It was Berkeley in the 1920s. “The Fighting Swede” was driving through town, feeling even more pugnacious than usual. That’s because he was drunk. The Swede had carved out a reputation as a barroom brawler in the waterfront dives on both sides of the Bay, and he was always more than willing to defend his title—especially when he had a snootful of booze.
Coloring in the Lines: How Racially Diverse Should Elite Universities Be?
Over the past four decades, the issue has simmered under the surface, occasionally boiling over into lawsuits and federal complaints. That issue is Asian-American enrollment at elite universities. Percentagewise, Asian Americans are well represented, if not “overrepresented,” at UC Berkeley and other highly selective universities across the country when compared with the general population: Asians/Pacific […]
Explore the
Archives
View All Issues
