Video: Rinku Sen on Locating Justice in America

Author: Colleen Kaman
Posted: 05/13/10 09:05 UTC
Info: Bio
Tags: Society, Human Rights, Racial Justice, labor

This week we are releasing Rinku Sen’s PopTech 2009 talk. Sen, who is the president and executive director of the Applied Research Center and a leading thinker on racial justice, speaks about what a “post-racial America” really means.

The good news, says Sen, is that most people don’t intend to be exclusionary. More often, Sen suggests, racism is structural – embedded in society’s institutions and norms.

Rinku Sen: Locating Justice from PopTech on Vimeo.

Sen draws on an example from her recent book, The Accidental American, Sen tells the moving story of a Moroccan immigrant who started an organization that fights for justice for all New York City restaurant workers. As Sen puts it, such a willingness to address the structural aspects of racism “is at the core of a compassionate, inclusive, effective society.”

The Applied Research Center has created a toolkit for advancing equality for all in the Green Economy.

You can also check out Van Jones, who appeared at PopTech 2007 to talk about the need for an inclusive environmental movement that makes connections between urban poverty and environmental problems.

What does it mean to you to live in an inclusive society?