HSESI Media Library

HSESI Media Clips Library

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Videos - Clips and Films topic page

The Media Clips Library contains media-based resources from licensed and publically available sources that UC Berkeley faculty and graduate students use in courses to create a critical and collaborative ‘clip’ collection from feature films, educational documentaries, and audio-based media to exemplify how to introduce multi-media learning into high school ethnic studies curricula.

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Trailer for "Race—The Power of An Illusion"

Race: The Power of An Illusion - Trailer

RACE—The Power of an Illusion was first broadcast and released in 2003. The three-part documentary series asks a question so basic it’s rarely raised: What is this thing called ‘race’? What was discovered was that many conventional assumptions about race—for instance, that the world's peoples can be divided biologically along racial lines—are wrong. Yet the costs of racism are very real and can even have biological consequences.

Since its release, RACE—The Power of an Illusion has become one of the country’s most widely used documentaries ever. Millions of people have used the series to scrutinize their own deep-seated beliefs about the idea of race and explore how our social divisions are not inevitable but made.

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"Measuring Genetic Variation Between Groups"

"The Difference Between Us" a clip from episode one of "Race—The Power of An Illusion"

"There's as much or more diversity and genetic difference within any racial group as there is between people of different racial groups." -Pilar Ossorio

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"Perceived Racial Differences in Athletic Ability"

"Perceived Racial Differences in Athletic Ability" from episode one of "Race—The Power of An Illusion"

"Perceived Racial Differences in Athletic Ability" is a clip from episode one of "Race—The Power of An Illusion," discussing how the idea of race as biology is persistent on America's playing fields and how it is an idea that is not true.

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"Redlining"

"Redlining" clip from episode three of "Race -- The Power of an Illusion"

"Redling" is a clip from episode three of the "Race—The Power of An Illusion" film, capturing when the white residents of Eight Mile Road in Detroit were told they were too close to a Black neighborhood to qualify for a positive FHA rating, they built this six-foot wall... Once the wall went up, mortgages on the white properties were approved.

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"Differences in Skin Color"

"Differences in Skin Color" a clip from episode one of "Race—The Power of An Illusion"

"Differences in Skin Color," a clip from episode one of "Race—The Power of An Illusion," explores how if one were to walk from the tropics to Norway, how one would see a continuous change in skin tone. And at no point along that trip would one be able to say, "Oh, this is the place in which one goes from a dark race to the light race."

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"The Difference Between Us: Racial Classification as Cultural"

"The Difference Between Us : Racial Classification as Cultural" from episode one of "Race—The Power of An Illusion"

"The Difference Between Us: Racial Classification as Cultural" is a clip from episode one of "Race—The Power of An Illusion" that invites viewers to think about race in its universality. Where is one's measurement device for race? Some may measure race by skin color and others by hair texture, but there is no way to measure race.