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based on junk science theories. it was violating that law that led to the arrest of mildred and richard loving, an african-american woman, and a white man, who married in washington, d.c. in 1958 and were arrested upon returning home to virginia. when they were later convicted on felony charges, leon vasal, the judge who presided over the case said to them in the courtroom, "almighty god created the races, white, black, yellow, melee, and red and he placed them on separate continents. the fact that he separates the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix." still with me, adam soro, dorothy, and tanner caolby, and my uncle. so tanner, i want to start with you, because this central reversion, this kind of emotion seems to be you can't just argue about it, you can't just show me a graph or a chart showing that intelligence is equally distributed. you have to actually change it
despise the kind of genetic project of determining just how black or how white one is, but there is a way in which whiteness can mask the idea that we are, in fact, racially -- that blood or our mother's milk is, in fact, all the same genetic material. so there is sort of power in that moment of telling the neo-nazi, telling the racist, actually, your blood is my blood. we are flesh of the same flesh. >> and what people like about that moment is that, obviously, this person has a sort of almost religious, theological belief about the separation of races, that white and black are actually -- rather than a social construction. it's this genetic wall that can't be breached. and having realized that he, himself, is part black, he's sort of being forced to confront the myth around which he's built his life. >> although the notion of being part black is, itself, sort of patently ridiculous, right? because it is socially constructed, and yet there's something about sort of that
but if you don't move to the white neighborhood and normalize it, then we're going to be left with this sort of antagonistic situation. >> that's interesting, because there is a moment after the zimmerman verdict where i did feel like, okay, so where do you go? if in black communities you have often higher crime rates for a wide variety of reasons, but if in white neighborhoods you feel like there's a potential zimmerman. and i want to come to you, adam, on exactly this question, because you have been reporting on a moment that is not just about choice, right, but that, in fact, our fair housing laws, under the context of the case you've been reporting on are potentially threatened here. and the very brake light to create a stable, integrated neighborhood is not just about choice, but about all these different striuctural factors. >> you look at the history of fair housing in the united states, and it's basically this gigantic, decade-long wrestling match between like idealists who are trying to use the law to bring people together, to compel integration, and people who are
reporter, adam sore roe. also here, dorothy roberts with the university of pennsylvania and author of "killing the black body." also, tanner kolbe, author of "some of my best friends are black," and professor wesley harris, associate provost of faculty professor at m.i.t. and as i have always called him, uncle wes. i want to start with you, adam. it was hard, i think, probably for you, for me, as children of interracial parents, of mixed race parents not to take personally that there's a gag reflex in response to our families, but is cohen on to something about the idea that this threat to the conventional is at the core of republican angst at this moment? >> i don't know if it's at the core of republican angst, but certain, people are much less okay with interracial marriages than that graph suggests. no one in america today or very few people think it should be illegal, but when you ask them, i think the more important question, how would you feel if