Race, Identity & Culture

Rock critic Ken Tucker comments on the way rock music may be once again uniting people of different race and class again.

Commentator Jim Northrup looks at computers on Native American Reservations.

Linguist Geoffrey Nunberg on Eurocentric culture.

Linguist Geoffrey Nunberg, who is currently living outside of Paris, describes his experience taking his daughter to EuroDisney.

Rock historian Ed Ward looks at some of the early integrated doo-wop groups. He says unlike today's white acts which appropriate black styles, those early groups truly mixed black and white performers and black and white musical styles.

Rock critic Ken Tucker profiles Maurice Starr, the man behind the hugely popular teen groups "New Kids on the Block" and "New Edition."

Linguist Geoff Nunberg considers how the ways communities describe themselves is changing. The emergence of the term "African American" is of particular interest; Nunberg thinks it suggests a shift away from appearance toward place of origin.

Jazz pianist Sumi Tonooka plays an excerpt from "Out From Silence," a work inspired by her mother's internment in a camp for Japanese-American during World War II. Tonooka is joined by Ronnie Seldin, playing the shakuhachi, a traditional Japanese flute.