Final Exam Review Blog

Ahhh... the last blog of the quarter. This is simply an opportunity for you to ask and answer each other's questions and discuss anything that you think will be helpful in preparation for the final. I would suggest looking at your class notes, handouts from class, and your reading assignments, along with your review sheet. This is primarily an open forum for you so check back often during the week and comment/question/ponder/review as much as you would like. You should ask and answer each others questions and you can earn one blog credit for a substantive contribution to the review (Maximum of one blog credit but you can comment as much as you would like, no length requirement to get credit).

One request: please take just a couple of minutes to complete your course evaluation if you have not done so already. I would really appreciate it. Just follow this link to go to Campus Connect.

Good luck with all of your studying!

For Class on 3/9 (Due 3/8 at 8pm): Looking Forward...

We have addressed racial and ethnic politics from many perspectives this quarter. Though we have highlighted many areas of concern we have also discussed many methods used to improve the position, status, and political and economic power of marginalized groups. Although we often find it challenging to view things outside of the modern day perspective, much has changed over time. Consider the following:

In past 4 months: Donald Trump Elected, Inauguration, Immigration/Refugee travel ban, increased efforts to identify and deport undocumented immigrants
3 years ago: Unemployment 6.6% overall, 12.1% for African Americans, 9.1% for Hispanics, 4.8% for Asian Americans, DOW 16,450 (Today Unemployment 4.5% overall, 7.9% for African Americans, 5.6% for Hispanics, 3.0% for Asian Americans, DOW 21,000), Ferguson protests, emergence of Black Lives Matter
4 year ago: The Supreme Court said that schools must apply strict scrutiny when using race or ethnicity based factors in admissions decisions. George Zimmerman Verdict (Trayvon martin Case)
9 year ago: the first nonwhite president was elected
11 years ago: very few of us had ever heard of Barack Obama
16 years ago: 9/11
26 years ago: the Rodney King Case and racially charged rioting
28 years ago: prison population starts to skyrocket
39 years ago: Regents of University of CA vs. Bakke
44 years ago: Roe vs. Wade
49 years ago: modern civil rights movement ends (according to most historians), Martin Luther King killed, major riots, peak of troops in Vietnam
50 years ago: third year in a row of major racially charged riots throughout American cities
52 years ago: Voting Rights Act of 1965, new immigration laws dramatically increase immigration (especially from Asia and Latin America), Black Power movement, Malcolm X killed
53 years ago: Civil Rights Act of 1964
54 years ago: March on Washington, Birmingham protests
62 years ago: Montgomery Bus Boycott
63 years ago: Brown vs. Board of Education
72 years ago: end of WWII
73 years ago: Interment of 110,000 Japanese Americans
97 years ago: Women gain the right to vote
110 years ago: peak of immigration at turn of century
121 years ago: Plessy vs. Ferguson - separate but equal is constitutional
123 years ago: widespread lynching and intimidation
129 years ago: Chinese Exclusion Act
140 years ago: end of reconstruction, early Jim Crow Era (which lasts nearly 100 years)
147 years ago: 15th amendment - black men given right to vote
149 years ago: 14th amendment
151 years ago: 13th amendment - end of slavery
152 years ago: end of Civil War, Start of reconstruction, black codes
156 years ago: start of Civil War
208 years ago: end of slave trade
230 years ago: Constitution written including 3/5 compromise and slavery
241 years ago: Declaration of Independence
398 years ago: first slaves from Africa brought to colonies
410 years ago: first British Colony established
several thousand years earlier: Native Americans living here.

The point: much has changed, and often in a short period of time. Looking forward what do you predict will be the state of racial and ethnic politics in America 5, 10, 20, or even 50 years from now? What can and should be done politically and socially to help?

For Class on 3/2 (due 3/1 at 8pm): Race, Criminal Justice, and Black Lives Matter

We have explored the role of institutions in the construction of race in many ways over the first several weeks of this course. One constant force has been the criminal justice system which has contributed to unequal treatment from the law and those in place to enforce it. Just a few examples (beyond slavery as an institution in and of itself) include the passage and enforcement of fugitive slaves laws, forcing runaway slaves that were caught to be returned to servitude, numerous treaties between the U.S. government and American Indians ignored or broken, countless court cases supporting the inferior rights of those considered non-white (Hall, Korematsu, Dred Scott, Plessy, etc), the vicious link between the white citizens councils and the KKK after the civil war, the growth of the prison industry in the late 20th century, the wildly unequal punishments for drug offenses that disproportionally affected Black and Latino Americans, racial profiling by local law enforcement to fight crime and by national law enforcement agents in the "war on terror," and finally the number of people who have been killed in interactions with police officers, a few of which have been shown widely and has led in large part to the Black Lives Matter movement.

The Black Lives Matter Movement has emerged over the past few years as one of the most powerful and polarizing social movements in many years. You can see two useful timelines of the movement and the context surrounding it here and here. The movement has been motivated by social media organizing and viral videos. One outgrowth of the movement has been campaign zero which has outlined a clear set of goals to reduce police violence. I would be interested in an open discussion about the movement and responses to it. How do you view the BLM movement today and responses to it including All lives matter and Blue lives matter? Is BLM necessary or not? How is it affecting discussions and political debates about race in America? How would you evaluate the strategies of the movement (or campaign zero in particular)? What other strategies would be helpful? How do you view BLM moving forward, especially in the midst of much more outrage and activism primarily from the progressive left? Does history offer any helpful suggestions? Feel free to add links to help our discussion.

For class on 2/23 (due 2/22 @ 8pm): What is the best form of representation?

This weeks readings include articles by Suzanne Dovi and Katherine Tate (recommended), both of which focus on representation in congress. While there are many theoretical arguments presented, the debate boils down to which type of representation is best for marginalized groups: descriptive or substantive? Descriptive representatives are those who share demographic characteristics with those their constituents (i.e. a Latino congressperson is best suited to represent a Latino/a). Substantive representatives are those who focus on the interests and needs of various groups (i.e. a congressperson of any race who work substantively for what they perceive to be Black issues). I would like to hear your views on this debate and more generally how our representative democracy should best represent an increasingly diverse nation.

Other food for thought that you might want to comment on include:

• the breakdown of the current 115th Congress (especially focus on pages 7-8)
• exit polls for presidential elections from 1972 - 2016 broken down by demographic characteristics (once you scroll down you will see different years emerge at the top of the screen, use those to shift between elections and also pay attention to the change between each election and the one just before it along the right side of each row)

For Class on 2/16 (due 2/15 at 8pm): The (Relative) Power of the Media

This week I would like you to take a look at a few examples of how the media has covered different events. Historically the media has played a crucial role in political successes such as the civil rights movement. The media has the power to influence the political agenda and frame issues and individuals in influential ways. Often the media is referred to as the "4th branch of government," in charge of oversight and responsible to hold political leaders accountable. However others see the media as perpetuating bias and power structures by highlighting shocking and violent news, often disproportionally focusing on racial and ethnic minorities, as well as supporting a clearly partisan bias. Others see racial and ethnic minorities simply lacking in representation on TV.

Explore some of the following clips and then comment generally on how media coverage affects racial or ethnic groups in America. What is the role of media in the process today? Has it changed from prior media coverage of racially charged issues? What types of bias do you notice? Is it fair coverage? What role should the media take? What is the role of the public in a time when creating and sharing information is so easy especially via social media?
Feel free to add other clips that you find interesting and relevant, including recent clips of discussions of race during the lead up to the 2020 election.


Video 1: ABC coverage of the Rodney King verdict in 1991
Video 2: Malcolm X appears on a television show in Chicago called "City Desk" on March 17, 1963.
Video 3: Coverage of 2008 Election on CNN
Video 4: Reaction to the George Zimmerman (Trayvon Martin) Case and verdict
Video 5: The Good and the Bad of Media Coverage of Ferguson
Video 6: The "Unite the Right" Protest at Charlottesville, VA

For Class on 2/9 (Due 2/8 at 8pm): The Latino Vote

Political parties are in the business of winning elections. They do this by creating their party platforms, selecting candidates, and raising money to support campaigns in order to win come election day. But the voters that each party desperately covets are generally thought of as coalitions: groups of groups, that each party wants to assemble and hold in order to maintain a majority of voters voting for their candidates. A great example of this was the "new deal coalition" which were made up of union workers, African Americans, Jews, northern intellectuals, farmers, and a few others who voted in huge numbers for Democrats from the New Deal (1930s) until the 1980s or longer. 

While campaigns are becoming more sophisticated and more individualized, parties still target groups that they would like to hold. This is true for the "Black Vote," the "Women Vote," and the "Latino Vote." The parties target these groups by trying to support issues important to many in the group. Obviously there is no single issue that everyone in a particular group agrees with. It is no more realistic to talk about women's reproductive health issues as THE issue for woman as it would be to talk about support of Israel wrapping up 100% of the Jewish vote. 

That being said the Latino Vote in America is among the fastest growing groups of voters and has been shifting more and more into the Democratic column. Take a look at this great report from Pew about the Latino Vote in 2016, or this one about 2012. You will notice the trends over time about which party Latinos are voting for and some information about the issues that Latino's felt were most important in to Latino voters over the past two presidential elections. There are many issues that were important, only one of which is immigration, though it grabs most of the attention. Immigration and our relationship with Mexico has been particularly contentious during the 2016 election and in the early days of the Trump administration. How might this affect voting in the future?

This week I would like you to analyze the role of the Latino vote today and as we look into the future. You might want to take into account where Latinos live, recent public opinion data about their views on immigration, and what other issues might be particularly important to Latinos. 

How should this voting block be viewed? Is it a voting block at all? What policies or actions by the government might be best for the largest number of Latinos? And most importantly how would you advise both parties (but especially the Republicans) in regards to gaining more Latino voters? Please respond to one another and simply use these questions as a discussion starter.

For Class on 2/2 (due 2/1 at 8pm): Race, Ethnicity, and Religion

This week we are primarily looking at the role of religion within the landscape of racial and ethnic politics in the United States. There are many who argue that religious minorities face the same challenges and have the same political opportunities as racial and ethnic minorities. While religious discrimination has existed in America at least as long as racial discrimination, it does not fit neatly into the discussion of racial or ethnic politics. Religion has clearly guided political decisions in this country at least as much, if not more, than race or ethnicity. However it remains heavily debated as to whether religious identification is merely as aspect of culture or one connected to and influenced by race and ethnicity.

Take a look at some interesting statistics regarding the breakdown of different religious groups in the United States from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (explore the site a bit), an interesting look at the role of religion in the 2016 election, and a 2015 snapshot detailing how Americans broadly feel about Islam and Muslims.

I would like to leave this blog post fairly open ended. To that end please respond to the questions below or more generally to the theme at hand and to the comments of your classmates.

1. Do religious minorities face the same political challenges that racial and ethnic minorities face?
2. What does your answer suggest about potential strategies that might be used by religious, ethnic, or racial minority groups in order to improve their political or social standing?

UPDATE: In light of the recent Executive Order passed by the Trump Administration severely restricting immigrants and refugees from a number of majority-Muslim nations feel free to include this into your discussion. Be sure to do some research on what the E. O. actually says, how the Trump administration is defending it, and the many critiques of the E.O. from massive protests, to members of congress, to leaders around the world. What do you think? Is this a religious test to enter the nation? Is this reasonable? What does this suggest about religion and America today?