Distinguished Professor James R. May in conversation with philosopher and journalist Barrett Holmes Pitner. Hosted by the Dignity Rights Institute of Widener University Delaware Law School and the American Bar Association Center for Human Rights.
How can a crime be defined without the language to do so? Philosopher and Journalist Barrett Holmes Pitner asks this question in his new book, The Crime Without a Name: Ethnocide and the Erasure of Culture in America
In the book, Pitner describes America’s unnamed crime as “ethnocide,” which is the destruction of a people’s culture while keeping the people, and he articulates how the transatlantic slave trade equated to a centuries-long ethnocidal atrocity that was foundational to building American society.
Ethnocide contributed not only to creating American society, but also to the systemic inequalities and divisions that still shape America today. The revelations expressed in the book could leave you speechless but, thankfully, Pitner provides the new and necessary words for better understanding and describing our societal legacy and the unnamed crimes that continue to influence it.