This 13- part series provides listeners with a guided tour of the current controversy about affirmative action. Each installment in this sequential series is structured to explore a widely held belief or assertion about affirmative action.

The series was aired on Michael Eric Dyson’s Dyson Talk radio show and was written and produced in collaboration with Kimberle Crenshaw and the African American Policy Forum.

Myth 1: Affirmative Action is Preferential Treatment

Guests:

Prof. Luke Harris & Janine Jackson

To listen to this episode, please click on the icon below:

[audio:http://www.aapf.org/focus/show1.mp3]

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Myth 2: Affirmative Action Is a Radical Social Policy Out of Step with American Ideals

Guests:

Kevin Gaines & Scot Brown

To listen to this episode, please click on the icon below:

[audio:http://www.aapf.org/focus/show2.mp3]

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Myth 3: Affirmative Action is no longer needed in America; and equal opportunity prevails in the United States.

Guests:

Devon Carbado & Mari Matsuda

To listen to this episode, please click  the icon below:

[audio:http://www.aapf.org/focus/show3.mp3]

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Myth 4: Affirmative Action constitutes the admission of under and unqualified students in undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools.

Guests:

Jory Steele & Valerie Purdie-Vaughns

To listen to this episode, please click on the icon below:

[audio:http://www.aapf.org/focus/show4.mp3]

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Myth 5: Affirmative Action is an African American entitlement program

Guests:

Sumi Cho & Rashida Tlaib

To listen to this episode, please click on the icon below:

[audio:http://www.aapf.org/focus/show5.mp3]

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Myth 6: Affirmative Action should be about class, not race

Guests:

Robin D. G. Kelley & George E. Curry

To listen to this episode, please click on the icon below:

[audio:http://www.aapf.org/focus/show6.mp3]

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Myth 7: Affirmative Action stigmatizes its beneficiaries

Guests:

Priscilla A. Ocen & George A. Turner, Jr.

To listen to this episode, please click on the icon below:

[audio:http://www.aapf.org/focus/show7.mp3]

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Myth 8: Existing anti-discrimination laws are adequate to create equal opportunity.

Guests:

Dennis Parker & Marianne Lado

Audio coming soon, please stay tuned…

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Myth 9: Individual effort and hard work determines who becomes prosperous and wealthy in the United States. Thus, government should stay out of the business of trying to diminish these disparities through the creation of programs such as affirmative action.

Guests:

Betsy Leondar-Wright & Thomas Shapiro

To listen to this episode, please click on the icon below:

Part 1

[audio:http://www.aapf.org/focus/113%20show%20seg%201.mp3]

Part 2

[audio:http://www.aapf.org/focus/113%20show%20seg12.mp3]

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Myth 10: Colorblindness is, and always has been, a basic American ideal. Its advocates oppose affirmative action not because they oppose racial progress, but because it contradicts our societal consensus on colorblindness.

Guests:

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva & Mark Fancher

To listen to this episode, please click on the icon below:

[audio:http://www.aapf.org/focus/116%20show%20first.mp3]

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Myth 11: Absent affirmative action, race is as empty and meaningless as skin color; it is affirmative action that creates racial differences.

Guests:

Cheryl Harris & George Lipsitz

To listen to this episode, please click on the icon below:

Part 1

[audio:http://www.aapf.org/focus/116%20seg%2021.mp3]

Part 2

[audio:http://www.aapf.org/focus/116%20seg%2022.mp3]

Part 3

[audio:http://www.aapf.org/focus/116%20seg%2023.mp3]

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Myth 12: Affirmative action is a domestic policy that reflects an obsession with race that is peculiar to America

Guests:

Eve Ensler & Gay McDougall

To listen to this episode, please click on the icon below:

Part 1

[audio:http://www.aapf.org/focus/117%20seg%2011.mp3]

Part 2

Will be available soon, stay tuned.

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Myth 13: Opposing Affirmative Action is consistent with the vision of equality articulated in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream of a colorblind America

Guests:

Rev. Wendell Anthony & Heaster Wheeler

To listen to this episode, please click on the icon below:

Part 1

[audio:http://www.aapf.org/focus/117%20seg%2021.mp3]

Part 2

[audio:http://www.aapf.org/focus/117%20seg%2022.mp3]

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