Secret Leaders

Superior: Delving Into The Murky Science Of Racism


Listen Later

With the world now confronting issues of race, and more specifically, Black Lives Matter, we felt it right to bring on an award winning science journalist, author and broadcaster and the first ever guest we've had that is not an entrepreneur of a wildly successful company. 

Angela Saini may not have the battle scars, nor learned the painful lessons that you, our audience, have become accustomed to hearing on Secret Leaders, but what she has to say might be even more pertinent for you.

We felt it was time to bring in an expert speaker on the topic of racism, so that we and other leaders can think about racism more deeply. 

“When we're arguing with racists, these aren't just intellectual arguments we're having, these are about belief. White supremacy is not just a kind of scientific belief, as it is for some scientific racists out there. It's like a religion. It's a fundamental faith in the idea that some groups of people are naturally better than other groups of people.”

Angela was destined to be an engineer until a chance encounter as an intern on the London Underground set her on her current path - as a journalist who covers science. 

“We might think of it [race] as a biological quantity. But the race categories we use are social categories, not genetic categories. They're not born out in genetics. They were defined very arbitrarily, around the Enlightenment period and onwards by Western philosophers and naturalists in very vague ways.”

Which is why science around racism can get confusing, resulting in scientific misinformation.

So if you’re wondering what you can do to bring about change in your company, real change, not just an expression of solidarity, this is one insightful episode you don’t want to miss. 

“When you're thinking about bias and prejudice, before you start pointing the finger at others, and we know that there are plenty of fingers that could be pointed, just start with yourself, try and recognise the bias within yourself.”

We chat about:

  • Why science is a murky world
  • The grandmother hypothesis
  • Debunking COVID related racial myths 
  • Why you shouldn’t argue with racists on Twitter
  • Recognising the bias within yourself
  • Links:

    • Superior: The Return of Race Science
    • Inferior: The true power of women and the science that shows it
    • --

      Sponsors

      Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders

      Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders

      Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders

      --

      Newsletter

      Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/

      You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

      ...more
      View all episodesView all episodes
      Download on the App Store

      Secret LeadersBy Leaders Media

      • 4.5
      • 4.5
      • 4.5
      • 4.5
      • 4.5

      4.5

      20 ratings


      More shows like Secret Leaders

      View all
      Disruptors by Rob Moore

      Disruptors

      114 Listeners

      The Property Podcast by Rob Bence and Rob Dix from The Property Hub

      The Property Podcast

      64 Listeners

      The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett by DOAC

      The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett

      8,505 Listeners

      The Money Podcast by Rob Moore

      The Money Podcast

      21 Listeners

      The Entrepreneur Experiment by Gary Fox

      The Entrepreneur Experiment

      13 Listeners

      James Sinclair's Business Broadcast by James Sinclair

      James Sinclair's Business Broadcast

      4 Listeners

      The High Performance Podcast by High Performance

      The High Performance Podcast

      614 Listeners

      Dodge Woodall by Eventful Studios

      Dodge Woodall

      57 Listeners

      HUNGRY. by Dan Pope

      HUNGRY.

      5 Listeners

      Simon Says by Simon Squibb

      Simon Says

      15 Listeners

      Bad Money by Kindling Media & Vespucci

      Bad Money

      22 Listeners

      Big Fish with Spencer Matthews by Global

      Big Fish with Spencer Matthews

      51 Listeners

      Great Company with Jamie Laing by Jampot Productions

      Great Company with Jamie Laing

      281 Listeners

      Business of Sport by Charlie and Harry Stebbings

      Business of Sport

      13 Listeners

      UNTAPPED by High Performance

      UNTAPPED

      30 Listeners

      The Room Where It Happened by High Performance

      The Room Where It Happened

      4 Listeners