GenEd 1052; GOVT E-1555 Race in a Polarized America

How can Americans manage issues of race, ethnicity, and immigration in a polarized political era? What role did race play in the elections of Presidents Obama, then Trump, then Biden?  How can we be good citizens of the world when Americans’ views and activities regarding racial and ethnic inequality, identity, and policy choices are so disparate and contested?

            “Race in a Polarized America” begins to address these questions through two core disputes: Is the United States fundamentally a white supremacist society with aspirations to liberal democracy, or an aspirational liberal democracy that remains flawed by race- based hierarchy?  Is the United States a relatively successful immigrant-based society with episodes of xenophobia, or a society structured by initial genocide and shaped by persistent ethnic hierarchy and hostility to outsiders? We then consider the meaning of race and racism, electoral politics, protest and social movements, demographic change, and intersections of class and gender with race or ethnicity. Finally, we examine hot-button policy issues: incarceration and policing, affirmative action, use of DNA in medicine and the criminal justice system, and undocumented migration.