Social Exclusion Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” —William Butler Yeats (1889) Welcome to our course, “Race and Ethnicity”! These are not, needless to say, normal circumstances. This is the first time in four decades... more

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” —William Butler Yeats (1889)

Welcome to our course, “Race and Ethnicity”! These are not, needless to say, normal circumstances. This is the first time in four decades of teaching that I am doing so “online.” It may be a new experience for you as well. There are bound to be glitches (not to mention Murphy’s Law) as we adapt to the new conditions and challenges... but I have no doubt that we will overcome them together. Our course, which begins on March 31, 2020, is being held in the context of the historic crisis we are all engulfed in, a once-in-a-century global pandemic that is not only bordering on a public health apocalypse but shaking all aspects of our lives and of our worlds (interpersonal, educational, occupational, financial, economic, political, residential, medical, social, cultural, psychological, familial)—requiring adaptations to rapidly changing and unpredictable circumstances. (Like this online course, for instance!) It is precisely in such moments of crisis—which shake our taken for granted notions and routines to their foundation, revealing the artifices of our social constructions of “reality” (including what we construct as “race” and “ethnicity”)—that a sociological imagination flourishes. A folk saying has it that “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” I look forward to making sociological lemonade with you this quarter. The pandemic will not hit everyone alike, but will be patterned along hard lines of social and economic inequality and disadvantage—including race and ethnicity and immigration status. Not everyone can “stay at home.” Harsh realities are being exposed anew by this public health catastrophe... including the fact that SYSTEMIC RACISM IS A PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUE... along with possibilities to reshape the structure of our societies in the calamitous aftermath. (But as Frederick Douglass famously said long ago: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”)

We will read 1 book during our 11-week course: Race in America, by Matthew Desmond and Mustafa Emirbayer.
This is one of the very best textbooks on the subject that I have seen. The book is made up of 11 chapters, each about 40 pages (including many images, maps and graphics); you’ll be reading a chapter a week on average.
The first 2 chapters spell out key concepts and address the historical invention and institutionalization of “race.” The next 8 core chapters (#3-10) focus on separate (but interconnected) fields of social life: political, economic, residential, legal, educational, aesthetic, associational, and intimate spheres (family, self, identity). The last one, chapter 11, looks to the future: “Toward Racial Democracy.” In addition to the text, you will read a few supplementary readings, listed in the syllabus and course agenda. In tandem with the course readings, over the next ten weeks I will regularly email you selected articles, reports, and analyses seeking to connect what you are studying to the breaking news of the day; while we cannot know now what may come in the coming months, we can be pretty certain that the issues addressed by our course will be at the heart of the historic crisis (or crises) that will engulf us. By the end of the class you will have effectively a “curated” set of such accompanying relevant readings.

Tuesday March 31 is the start of our class. Saturday April 4 marks the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. As I do every year at that time, as well as on the anniversary of his birth on January 15, I send my students an annual message of remembrance. Please take time to read and reflect on it.

The goal of this class is to broaden your intellectual horizons; to study stress, not to cause it; to invite you to a memorable sociological adventure amid a global crisis that you and I will still be talking about many years from now. And remember: Our course will end in June, but not our role and responsibility as members of the polis, as citizens as well as sociologists confronted by historic crises. The critically informed citizen—whose voice is heard, who acts and votes and remains civically engaged—is racism’s worst enemy. Becoming a critically informed citizen, ending racial domination and making a more just world is a lifetime commitment that never ends. Silence is not an option at this (potential) turning point in the history of American democracy and racial justice, even amid a once-in-a-century pandemic. Know that history. Voice that history. Read-think-write... and act.

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere... Justice too long delayed is justice denied." —Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963)