NCOR is a 501(c)(3) non-profit dedicated to advancing conversations on "race" and ethnicity in society.

Welcome to the National Conversation on Race


We live in a moment in America where our politics is increasingly defined by race and ideas about race relations. However, what is race? What is ethnicity? How do social constructs reflect biological differences, and to what extent can any race actually be identified as a stable classification? These are issue we hope to explore, while opening the discussion to a wider and wider audience. Join us in this national conversation.

We are building!


We are building a community, a discussion space, and a set of ideas that we hope can forward the discussion of race in America in a respectful, productive and enlightening manner. Stay tuned as we continue to add not only to this site, but to the conversation.

What’s Going On? Reflections on Charlottesville

CNN’s Fareed Zakaria recently made the case that Trump won the election because of four C’s: capitalism, culture, class, and communication. More specifically, the current president took advantage of the ways that white working-class Americans (especially those with less formal education) were structurally connected with these four C’s. Trump maximized his political power by accentuating […]

Of Legal Interest: Education & Psychology Can Address Racial Discrimination

Racial discrimination can cause trauma and injury, which more people are addressing in court. Thanks to expert testimony provided by education and psychology researchers like Professor Robert Carter, more individuals who have experienced discrimination are initiating civil lawsuits and winning in court. In the United States, a number of groups have experienced racial discrimination, including […]

Our Black Teachers Matter

“Black Teachers Matter,” a Mother Jones article, chronicles a dire situation in Philadelphia that is being repeated throughout the country, whereby forces that remain difficult to identify conspire to diminish the academic horizons of our young people. Using the rubric of improving academic options for families that have few other choices, the Charter School movement […]

Candidate Trump’s Appeal

President Trump’s win was predictable. It was not only due to an abstract “populism” as has been suggested by some, or the democrats not doing their job, as others have said. A large part of his victory was due to “race” –short-hand for the matrix that describes the inequality, insults and assaults based on differential […]

Martin Luther King Week, 2017

On this week of Martin Luther King’s birthday, I celebrate the contributions made by civil rights workers, including the brave, heroic and long-lasting actions taken by Representative John Lewis. Through its grassroots actions, court cases, and advocacy for fair laws, I celebrate the civil rights movement that helped create the foundation for fair housing and […]

White on White Crime: An Epidemic?

(These are actual recent news events.) What would the news look like if the news media reported crimes committed by white people in the same way they currently report crimes committed by black people? Two white parents, Kevin Fowler and Aisling Miller, have been arrested for what doctors and police in Oklahoma say was “the […]

Double Standards and The U.S. Presidency

The minute I read Nicholas Kristof’s editorial “If Hillary Clinton Groped Men,” I shouted out and taped the article on my refrigerator (NYT, Sunday, Oct. 16, 2016). Of course, Hillary Clinton wasn’t groping men. That was the article’s point. It wouldn’t be a political possibility for a woman presidential candidate to do that. Nicholas Kristof […]

A National Conversation on Race: Labor Day, 2016

Labor Day weekend in the United States is a time of recognition and appreciation that crosses all social lines in the working population. It’s a holiday for people to value each other and all the work we do, both paid and/or unpaid work, whether we work for employers, by ourselves, and/or for our families and […]

Welcome to the National Conversation on Race

We live in a moment in America where our politics is increasingly defined by race and ideas about race relations. However, what is race? What is ethnicity? How do social constructs reflect biological differences, and to what extent can any race actually be identified as a stable classification? These are issue we hope to explore, […]