Futures Forum

Candis Watts Smith is a professor of political science at Duke University and the author of several books, including Black Evidence: A History and a Warning. We spoke with Candis about her new book, and about the cost of not listening and learning in the United States. From sequestering knowledge behind paywalls to discrediting evidence, we talk about what it means to really listen, the loop of racial reckoning and racial backlash, and how sharing emotional weight could lead us to better problem-solving and more equitable futures. 
 
Links to further learning
You can learn more about Candis Watts Smith on her website. Get her books, listen to her on the Democracy Works podcast, and read her work, such as her research on "contraception deserts" and measuring the social construction theory, both with Rebecca Kreitzer.
As Neil points out, you might be surprised to learn how Americans view inequality in the United States.
On the cost of putting critical research behind paywalls and jargon, see “The truth is paywalled, but the lies are free.”
On the subject of Black evidence and belief, see Rachel Jeantel, who had been on the phone with Trayvon Martin when he was killed, was deemed an unreliable witness in George Zimmerman’s trial; Jill Lepore’s podcast The Last Archive; and a timeline of Nolan Wells’ disappearance and death
For more on racial reckoning and racial backlash, listen to our episodes with Victor Ray and Keisha Blain, and refer also to Trump’s attacks on the Smithsonian.
Two examples of how past historical events shape our understanding of the present include a history of medical exploitation of Black women and an 1871 mass lynching of Chinese men and boys in Los Angeles.

Reflecting on race and the presidency, Barack Obama once stated, “There are…some white folks who really like me and give me the benefit of the doubt precisely because I’m a Black president.” Jennifer Chudy, associate professor of political science at Wellesley College, got curious about these particular white folks in her new book, Some White Folks: The Interracial Politics of Sympathy, Suffering, and Solidarity, which explores the origins and effects of white racial sympathy in modern American politics. We talk with Jennifer about what racial sympathy is, how it can coexist with racial prejudice, and the consequential reasons one might study the racial attitudes of white people while working toward a multiracial democracy.
 
Links to further reading from our discussion:
Jennifer Chudy’s book, Some White Folks: The Interracial Politics of Sympathy, Suffering, and Solidarity, takes its title from statements Barack Obama made about his white supporters reflecting on his first presidential campaign.
Some examples farther back in history of white racial sympathy include the SCOPE project to support voter registration during the civil rights movement in the 1960s and participation in protests following the 1992 police assault of Rodney King in Los Angeles.
We also consider how and why sympathy lasts, like this piece, with Jennifer Chudy and Hakeem Jefferson, on whether support for Black Lives Matter lasted.
We discuss not only the racial sympathy index, but the reality of racial resentment.
In an analogous conversation about belief and action, Neil wrote about how belief in climate change doesn’t necessarily change behaviors or mean that behavior matches the necessary scale of response.
On the “Kamala question,” her multiple identities, and the challenges she faced about them.

Our guest this week is Dorian Warren, an expert on community organizing and the co-president of Community Change, a national organization that builds the power of low-income people, especially people of color, to create a multiracial democracy and a fair economy. He talks us through the difference between mobilizing and organizing, and explains why building relationships are the foundation to collective power. We also discuss how narratives and storytelling can be critical tools for supporting and defending change, and why children may help adults understand the changing foundations of what is “normal.”
 
Links to further reading from our discussion
Our conversation dives deeply into organizing: what it means, how to do it effectively, and examples of successful organizing such as political education on noncooperation tactics, jury nullification and refusal to indict, universal childcare in New Mexico, and permanent guaranteed income in Cook County, IL.
Children are often quite aware of what’s happening in the country, from seeing National Guard on the streets to being worried about the right to vote, and even six-year-olds can begin to show bias. Neil wrote about what happens when children learn about racism, and in Chicago, Matt Nelson studied how children respond to different types of taught history.
Storytelling and narratives are critical to how we make meaning. We discuss how the Works Progress Administration hired artists and cultural workers of all kinds to tell the story of the American people.
Erasure of stories is a common tactic in authoritarian regimes, as is stripping away rights and legal protections.
We consider the benefits of the wide-ranging career Dorian has had, including what we gain from experimenting to best serve our work and others.
This podcast was recorded at Cornell University by Juan Vazquez-Leddon and Bertrand Odom-Reed, and produced by Bertrand Odom-Reed, Multimedia Producer Consultant.

Our guest this week is Liz Neeley, founder of Liminal, a science communication collective that focuses on sensemaking. We discuss the ways storytelling can help us make meaningful change from our research, navigating risks of speaking out, and tools for working against the strategic onslaught of information overload. Liz also guides us through planning a security party, so you can take practical steps, in community, to ensure you and your data are protected.
 
Links to further reading from our discussion:
You can see more of Liz Neeley’s work by visiting Liminal, subscribing to Meeting the Moment, and checking out Storymakers and Unbreaking
When Liz mentions several tools for security and resourcing, she’s thinking of resources for whistleblowers, the Researcher Support Consortium, and Expert Voices Together
Try working through these checklists at security parties
The Liminal quadrant visual can help you make choices about when to speak up and take risks
Additional resources not specifically mentioned in the podcast but which Liz refers to include Knight First Amendment Institute, American Association of University Professors (AAUP), lawyers in the public interest, FIRE Legal Network and Legal Defense Fund, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and PEN America

Victor Ray is one of the leading voices on race and racial justice in the United States. Jamila Michener and Neil Lewis, Jr. talk with Victor about the current backlash to DEI initiatives in a conversation that connects research and personal experience to systems and power structures. Tune in to this wide-ranging episode to hear more about the current turn toward resegregation in the US, how organizations uphold structural racism, and the risks (and benefits) of doing scholarship in public.
 
Links to further reading from our discussion:
Throughout the conversation, we reference Victor Ray’s work on critical race theory, mental health services to veterans, anti-DEI initiatives as segregationist, and especially his theory of racialized organizations.
In our brief discussion on “mesearch,” we consider Ray’s essay on the subject and Matthew Desmond’s Evicted, a seminal book on poverty and housing justice.
On resegregation, we look at policies leading to job loss and the undoing of civil rights, what is happening in the U.S. military, and attacks on DEI.
We apply lessons from the theory of racialized organizations to the Department of Justice, Equal Employment Opportunity, university DEI initiatives, and academic leadership and freedom.
On resistance, we mention No Kings protests, coordinated resistance to ICE in Minneapolis, and what James Baldwin wrote in a 1962 essay for the New York Times: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

This Women's History Month, Jamila Michener and Neil Lewis, Jr. spoke with Marcia Easley, a long-time Ithacan and Assistant Dean for Human Resources in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University. Marcia told us about the history of Black women at Cornell and students like Ruth Peyton, who could study, but not sleep, here. Marcia shares the struggles and accomplishments of Black students, the nonlinear path of inclusion and segregation, and how knowing our history can help us do better.
 
Links to further reading from our discussion:
We discussed Black women and human rights in February with Keisha Blain
Letters to and from Livingston Farrand, Cornell’s president from 1921–1937
In 1969, Black students at Cornell took over Willard Straight Hall
Jane Eleanor Datcher was the first known Black woman to earn an undergraduate degree from Cornell
Residency at Sage College wasn’t always offered to all
Portrait of Ruth Peyton, Class of 1931
A historian reflects on Black students as “part and apart” at Cornell
The political construction of systemic racism informs institutional decisions
Neil Lewis, Jr. researches how people make meaning in a fragmented democracy and Jamila Michener wrote a book on those consequences for democracy
Black women have been experiencing massive unemployment rates, and particularly in 2025

Keisha N. Blain, author of Without Fear: Black Women and the Making of Human Rights, is a professor of Africana Studies and History at Brown University, and has been hailed as one the most innovative and influential historians of her generation.
Jamila Michener and Neil Lewis, Jr. speak with Dr. Blain, the Center's 2026 Black History Month keynote speaker, about her new book, the writing process, how past work can help us build the future, and marking pathways for future researchers.