SCA Speaker Series - Myths and Realities: African American and Latino Relations
MARK SAWYER
November 9, 4-6:30 pm
20 Cooper Square, 4th Floor
Mark Sawyer's talk will explore attitudes among African Americans and Latinos in Los Angeles. Sawyer considers prevalent myths about intergroup confict versus the complex patterns of convergence and divergence between and within these communities. The talk also addresses problem areas in relations and politics among African Americans and Latinos while also considering some unexamined possibilities. In general Sawyer calls upon us to move beyond a "race relations" paradigm in favor of an approach that centers upon racial politics. For example, while stereotypes are a problem among the groups, those stereotypes are not "political" in that they do not drive attitudes about key policy areas like affirmative action and immigration policy in the way that that stereotypes determine the policy stances of white Angelenos.
Mark Sawyer is currently an Associate Professor of African American Studies and Political Science at UCLA and the Director of the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Politics. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago in December of 1999. In fall of 2005 he was a Visiting Associate Professor at the Department of African and African-American Studies at Harvard University.
His published work includes a book entitled, "Racial Politics in Post Revolutionary Cuba" that received the DuBois Award for the best book by the National Conference of Black Political Scientists and the Ralph Bunche Award from the American Political Science Association. He has written articles on the intersection between race and gender in modern Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic and additional work on the impact of race relations on democratic transition in Cuba. He also has interest in the area of race, immigration and citizenship around the globe. He has published in the Journal of Political Psychology, Perspectives on Politics, SOULS, as well as the UCLA Journal of International and Foreign Affairs. He is a member of the American Political Science Association, and the National Conference of Black Political Scientists. He has also been a writer and commentator for CNN, La Opinion, NPR's News and Notes, the Washington Post's "the root.com," and EbonyJet.com.
