Peter Gabel presents his talk, "Fear of Humiliation as the Root of Racism" No one is born a racist. Instead, people develop racist ideas and feelings through a conditioning process in which their true selves are not fully recognized and in which they develop an inner sense of humiliation masked by an outer self-providing a false sense of worth and value. To hide the inner sense of worthlessness and pain, this outer self must be constantly propped up and idealized, which in turn requires the demonization of others to "leverage up" one's own sense of false pride. Expanding upon ideas in his recent award-nominated book The Desire for Mutual Recognition: Social Movements and the Dissolution of the False Self, Peter Gabel will show how racism ("White Pride") is linked to pathological nationalism ("Make American Great Again") and how progressive social movements can help to dissolve the fear of the other that underlies both. Peter Gabel is the former president of New College of California and was a professor at New College's public-interest law school for more than 30 years. He is also editor-at-large of Tikkun magazine, co-chair of the Project for Integrating Spirituality, Law, and Politics, and a founder of the Critical Legal Studies Movement in legal scholarship. His most recent book, The Desire for Mutual Recognition: Social Movements and the Dissolution of the False Self, was nominated by Routledge Press for the Kirkus Prize as Best Non-Fiction Book of 2018, and he was described by Cornel West as "one of the grand prophetic voices of our time and a long-distance runner in the struggle for social justice". ------------------------------------------------------- From the chat: Here is a link to the book addressing the issues in this talk: www.petergabelauthor.com Here is the link to the article "Fear of Humiliation as the Root of Racism" www.tikkun.org/945070-2 and here is the link to the legal group the Project for Integrating Spirituality, Law and Politics, www.spiritlawpolitics.org ------------------------------------------------------- The center seeks to drive critical legal scholarship focusing primarily on the intersection of race and law, and draws together faculty and students throughout the law school and the larger UC Davis community as well as scholars across the US to advance fields of civil rights, critical race theory, immigration, as well as a number of other social justice issues.