NEW YORK, May 22, 2015 – This Sunday, May 24th at 6pm ET/3pm PT, Al Jazeera America’s new debate program “Third Rail” with host Imran Garda will tackle the controversial topics of race relations in America and whether Americans support sending ground troops to Iraq and Syria.
Asking the provocative question, “Is America a Racist Country?,” the first half of the hour-long show features Brown University’s Race & Ethnicity Center Director Tricia Rose; Larry Elder, host of “The Larry Elder Show” and author of “What’s Race Got to Do with it?,” and Brittney Cooper, Assistant Professor, Africana Studies at Rutgers University.
The panel will ask whether political correctness has made it impossible to have an honest conversation about race in America. This follows two recent cases where college professors expressed their views on race: Duke Professor Jerry Hough, who made public comments on the New York Times Web site about “the lack of desire for integration” among African-Americans, and Boston University’s Saida Grundy, who wrote on Twitter that "white masculinity is THE problem for America's colleges,” among other comments. Each professor was heavily criticized for speaking and were forced to apologize for expressing their views.
Next, “Third Rail” will turn to the question of whether Americans want the U.S. military to fight another war in Iraq. Seven years after no Presidential candidate could express a pro-Iraq war view without losing support from voters, a Quinnipiac poll in March found 62% of respondents support sending ground troops to Iraq and Syria – a nearly identical number as a poll in October 2002 before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Do Americans really want to go back into Iraq?
This provocative panel discussion features New York Times investigative reporter Judith Miller; Pete Dominick, Sirius/XM Radio host and host of “Stand Up! with Pete Dominick,” and Steve James, director of the award-winning documentaries “Hoop Dreams” and “Hard Earned” on Al Jazeera America.
“Third Rail” host Imran Garda is a journalist, novelist and documentarian who joined Al Jazeera English in 2006 as a news anchor and co-host of “Inside Story” at Al Jazeera Media Network headquarters in Doha, Qatar. He also served as the host of “The Stream” in Washington, D.C. Born and raised in South Africa, Garda has reported from more than a dozen countries and most recently served as a senior anchor and producer for AJ+, Al Jazeera’s all-digital news channel based in San Francisco. He is the author of the 2014 novel, “The Thunder That Roars.”
Learn more about “Third Rail” here: http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/third-rail.html
Watch promo here: https://youtu.be/w412ThUtOVw
About Al Jazeera America
Al Jazeera America is the U.S. news channel that provides both domestic and international news for American audiences. Headquartered in New York City with bureaus in 12 cities across the United States, Al Jazeera America is available in more than 64 million homes in the U.S. on Comcast, Time Warner Cable, DirecTV Channel 347, Dish Network Channel 216, Verizon FiOS Channel 614 and AT&T U-Verse Channel 1219. The name “Al Jazeera” means “peninsula.” Al Jazeera America’s distinctive logo is a calligraphic design spelling “Al Jazeera” in Arabic. To find Al Jazeera America in your area, visit www.aljazeera.com/getajam.
Visit Al Jazeera America online at http://www.aljazeera.com/america for the latest updates. You can also like us on Facebook www.facebook.com/aljazeeraamerica, follow us on Twitter @AJAM (www.twitter.com/ajam) and join the conversation using #AlJazeeraAmerica.
For more information, contact:
Al Jazeera America
Jocelyn Austin
212-273-4912
