SOCY 76 Race, Power, and Politics
This course sets out to understand race and ethnicity as the product of, as well as a basis for, political struggles. The conventional sociological understanding of race and ethnicity focuses on difference. That is, although sociologists take pains to argue that racial and ethnic differences are socially constructed, the vast, long-standing inequality among racial and ethnic groups make it very tempting to perceive the status quo as inevitable, if not natural. In order to counter this trend, we have to center the concept of power and trace how racial and ethnic divisions came to emerge from the political struggles of the past. And in doing so, it is crucial to understand not only successes but also failures of white supremacy—namely that non-whites have always disrupted workings of the dominant system, sometimes through electoral politics and other times through direct action.
Instructor
Kim