AAS3211W: Race & Racism in the U.S.

We live in a society steeped in racial understandings that are often invisible—some that are hard to see, and others that we work hard not to see. This course will focus on race relations in today's society with a historical overview of the experiences of various racial and ethnic groups in order to help explain their present-day social status. This course is designed to help students begin to develop their own informed perspectives on American racial “problems” by introducing them to the ways that sociologists deal with race, ethnicity, race relations and racism. We will expand our understanding of racial and ethnic dynamics by exploring the experiences of specific groups in the U.S. and how race/ethnicity intersects with sources of stratification such as class, nationality, and gender. The course will conclude by re-considering ideas about assimilation, pluralism, and multiculturalism. Throughout, our goal will be to consider race both as a source of identity and social differentiation as well as a system of privilege, power and inequality affecting everyone in the society albeit in different ways.

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