Race and Politics

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

Race and politics similarly combine lived experience, history, decision-making, and formal structuring to create and recreate the dynamic patchwork impacting our everyday lives. In this course, we will get to the roots of racial formation and the boundaries the political sphere in order to more adequately account for the scope of influence of these concepts. We will discuss the political experiences of several racial groups in the U.S. - Black, white, Latino/a, and Asian American - while also exploring the creation of new racialized frameworks, as in the case of Arab/Muslim populations. We will also be expanding our understanding of politics beyond national electoral and institutional affairs in order to explore representation, bureaucracy, and state and local politics. Students will leave this course with a better understanding of how racial and political identities are developed, be capable of identifying specific challenges to establishing equity, and, more importantly, develop the capacity to provide innovative solutions that account for and move away from ongoing oppressions.