Race: The power of an illusion (Episode Two)
The Story we Tell
2003

• The second episode, The Story We Tell, questions the belief that race has always been with us. Ancient peoples stigmatized "others" based on language, custom and especially religion, but they did not sort people into "races."

• Instead, the program traces the race concept to the European conquest of the Americans, including the development of the first slave system where all slaves shared a physical trait - dark skin. Ironically, it wasn't until slavery was challenged on moral grounds that early prejudices - emboldened by the need to define slavery in a nation that professed a deep belief in freedom - crystallized into a full-blown ideology of white supremacy. By the mid-19th century, race had become the "commonsense" wisdom of white America, explaining everything from individual behavior to the fate of whole societies. The story we tell reveals the starting story of how social inequalities came to be disguised as "natural."

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