Ethnic studies involve everybody.
Monday's latest program in the three-years-running Joint Ethnic Studies Colloquium Series, entitled "Race, Class, Gender and the November '96 Elections," was proof of that fact.
"Everyone is ethnic, whether you're minority, majority or anywhere in between," said Locksley Edmondson, professor of Africana studies, who introduced the three speakers at the colloquium, which addressed the elections from three different perspectives.
The hour-long program in the A.D. White House, was sponsored by the Africana Studies and Research Center, American Indian Program, Asian American Studies Program and Latino Studies Program, and had an audience of about 50 students, faculty and staff members.
"It may take a village to raise a child but it takes a union to get a raise," argued Carl Feuer, interim coordinator of the Mid-State Central Labor Council, who spoke first about the labor movement in his talk titled, "The November '96 Elections -- Whither the Working Class?"
Feuer talked about the resurgence of a "new and reinvigorated" labor movement capable of challenging the power of capital and cited the rise in voting of union households and new strategies in grassroots mobilization as evidence.
"Labor is back, and it resonated in the elections," Feuer said.
Mary Katzenstein, associate professor of government, spoke about the use of highly technical market research during the '96 elections, such as infomercials, to target and cater to specific audiences in the electorate.
"Democratic pollsters isolated popular opinion and packaged the presidential candidate accordingly," she said.
Katzenstein used that information to explain the election's gender gap during the "year of the woman voter," caused in part, she said, by the Democratic Party camp's ability to appeal to white, educated middle-class women voters. These methods, Katzenstein explained, enabled President Clinton to be re-elected.
The final speaker was James Turner, professor and director of the Africana Studies and Research Center, who gave a talk titled "The November Election and What's Up with Black Politics."
"When there are severe conditions in this country, the fallout effect disproportionately falls upon racial minorities," Turner said. "And given the tremendous shift towards the right, it has left blacks with a sense of an unsolvable problem of direction."
This problem relates directly to the sweeping cutbacks in programs that benefit African-Americans and ethnic minorities in this country, he said, particularly health care, public housing and rent provisions.
Turner also explained that, as evident in the '96 election, the country has gone through a transformation that has left us with "a massive denial that race is fundamental to elections.
"The key public-policy issues were highly racially coated," he said, referring to welfare reform, which has placed black women into the role of "welfare mothers"; crime, which publicly criminalizes the black image; and affirmative action.
"It was very focused. Each speaker only spoke about what directly related to them," said Latrice George '97 after the event.
"It was enlightening," said Daisy Frederick '97. "[Associate Professor Katzenstein] had an interesting point about the market research involved in the election, and Professor Turner is also a very powerful speaker."