The Playboy Symposium On Race
At the start of Black History Month, Playboy convenes some of our greatest minds to discuss the ever-shifting meaning of race in the United States.
Don’t make it about race.” It’s a common gaslighting refrain when any person of color dares to point out the myriad ways in which this world was designed to perpetuate harm against them. The truth is, everything is about race. If you don’t think so, it’s because you haven’t been looking. And if you haven’t been looking, it’s because you’ve had the privilege of turning away.
After the massive Black Lives Matter demonstrations of the past summer, after the flood of black squares on social media feeds and after the rush of organizations to diversify executive boards and candidate pools, the din began to quiet. Many eager tourists to Wokelandia remembered they had left the faucet running or didn’t unplug the space heater and then departed as quickly as they had arrived. They returned to their regular lives, where it was safe and they didn’t have to think about the problem we all live with.
But we cannot afford to lose the momentum from June. How do allies turn advocacy into lasting action? How do we turn moments into movements? We’re in the afterglow of a new president and a new Congress, but hope shouldn’t make our memories hazy. This is just the teetering edge of a reckoning on race in the United States. The history of our “democratic experiment” is one in which certain groups were crushed so other groups could advance. Dragging this into the light requires that white Americans stare unflinchingly into the moral abyss that forms the foundation of how America operates now.
Since 1953, Playboy has been a rich forum for ideas and a platform for thought leadership. In this Winter 2021 Playboy Symposium, titled On Race, four public thinkers share their lived realities on race. These contributors straddle a spectrum of industries and worldviews. But no matter where each of them come from, they approach the idea of race with a unique point of view. Patricia Escárcega, restaurant critic at the Los Angeles Times, examines the white gaze of American culinary culture. Leah Thomas, a sustainability activist and founder of the Intersectional Environmentalist platform, believes saving BIPOC lives and saving the planet are inextricably linked. Theologian Tricia Hersey, founder of the Nap Ministry, seeks the end of white capitalism through rest. Finally, Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency room physician and former health commissioner for Baltimore, asks us to see racism itself, in addition to Covid-19, as a public health crisis.
From the food we eat to the air we breathe to how we rest and heal, these essays explore how race permeates everything we do. This symposium isn’t meant to be a blueprint for anti-racism, but rather a beginning. These sharp minds issue a call to action for anyone who claims to be against the status quo, where racism and inequality flourish. Progress will depend on our willingness to abandon it.
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