Setup
We know DNA is a master key that unlocks medical and forensic secrets, but genetic testing is also impacting urgent social issues around race in America. DNA-based techniques are being used in a variety of ways, including to grapple with the unfinished business of slavery: to foster reconciliation, to establish ties with African ancestral homelands, to rethink and sometimes alter citizenship, and to make legal claims for slavery reparations specifically based on ancestry. Alondra Nelson joins the Aspen Institute’s Michele Norris for a conversation about DNA as a portal to the past, revealing social traumas and historical injustices that resonate today and into the future.
Explore More
Science
The US House of Representatives will vote later this month on whether to admit Washington, DC as the 51st state. The mayor of DC talks about the vote.
Voting rights are under assault in America. More than 250 bills that would restrict access to voting are pending in 43 states.
COVID-19 has hindered progress in gender equity as women have left the workforce to care for children. But 2020 also held record high numbers of women running for office & hol...
In a time of heightened distrust, how can media outlets reclaim the public’s confidence? We hear from a longtime journalist.
The idea of unity is a compassionate, hopeful aspiration for a country ravaged by a global pandemic, racial injustice, economic downturn and mob violence.
Two weeks before the first woman of color became Vice President, an angry mob that included members of the white supremacist group Proud Boys, stormed the US Capitol. As Ibram...
Biden believes deeply that actions like the January 6th violence at the Capitol are not who we want to be as a country, says Evan Osnos, author of a Biden biography.
As the nation reels from the attack on the Capitol, we look for ideas that will move us forward.
Peggy Clark asks Dan Glickman to reflect on this past year and to share what he expects from our country under President-elect Joe Biden’s leadership.
