© 2025
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Betsy Leondar-Wright asks 'Is it Racist? Is it Sexist?'

Stanford University Press
Book Cover

On this week’s 51%, we speak with activist and sociologist Betsy Leondar-Wright about her new book, Is it Racist? Is it Sexist? examining why white Americans increasingly disagree on their definitions of the two. WAMC’s Samantha Simmons also sheds light on Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month with Rensselaer County District Attorney Mary Pat Donnelly.

Guests: Betsy Leondar-Wright, co-author of Is it Racist? Is it Sexist? Why Red and Blue White People Disagree, and How to Decide in the Gray Areas; Rensselaer County District Attorney Mary Pat Donnelly

This episode discusses domestic violence. If you or someone you love has been impacted by these issues, help is available. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is available 24/6 at 1-800-799-SAFE or by texting "START" to 88788. Love is Respect also has a hotline for teens with questions about dating violence at 1-866-331-9474.

51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio in Albany, New York. Jesse King is our producer and host. Our associate producer is Madeleine Reynolds, and our theme is "Lolita" by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue. 

————

51%
Jesse King is the host of WAMC's national program on women's issues, "51%," and the station's bureau chief in the Hudson Valley. She has also produced episodes of the WAMC podcast "A New York Minute In History."
Related Content
  • On this week’s 51%, we speak with Carol Cleaveland and Michele Waslin, author of Private Violence: Latin American Women and the Struggle for Asylum. As President Trump effectively shuts down processing at the southern border and ramps up deportations, asylum seekers in the U.S. are left in a precarious position, especially women fleeing domestic and gender-based violence. Through interviews and eyewitness accounts of closed court proceedings, Cleaveland and Waslin demonstrate how difficult it is for these women to seek shelter in the U.S., and why “gender-based violence” is still not considered grounds for asylum — even before the second Trump Administration.
  • What makes a good life? According to the world’s longest scientific study of human happiness, our relationships play a key role. On this week’s 51%, we speak with Dr. Robert Waldinger, a psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School and director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development. In his book with researcher Marc Schulz, called The Good Life, Waldinger details the study’s findings and gives advice on how to make connections and nurture your relationships. WAMC’s Sarah LaDuke also chats with her friend, singer-songwriter Al Olender, about finding strength in vulnerability, and writing about love.
  • On this week’s 51%, we speak with author Joelle Kaufman about her new book Crushing the Cancer Curveball. After helping both her mother and sister battle breast cancer, Kaufman voluntarily sought a mastectomy in 2023 — only to be diagnosed with cancer the day before her surgery. Part memoir, part guidebook, Crushing the Cancer Curveball compiles Kaufman’s best advice on how to advocate for yourself as a patient, how to break the news to family and friends, and how to feel like you’re still living your life, even when you're fighting for it.
  • Before leaving office, former President Joe Biden declared that he considered the Equal Rights Amendment to be “the law of the land.” On this week’s 51%, we speak with Georgetown Law Professor Victoria Nourse about why the ERA has been in limbo for so long, what it would do, and whether it currently stands as the 28th amendment to the U.S. Constitution.