Sophomore Seminar (TASS) | 2012 Programs
2012 TASS PROGRAM DESCRIPTIONSINDIANA UNIVERSITY PROGRAM
Don’t Believe the Hype: Facing Cultural Misinformation about African Americans with Historical and Legal Truths
Indiana University, Bloomington
June 24 – August 4, 2012
Faculty: A. B. Assensoh, PhD, Indiana University, and Yvette Marie Alex-Assensoh, PhD, JD, Indiana University
Tutors: TBA
Myths about African Americans are everywhere. From seemingly favorable portrayals of “natural sporting ability” to assumptions about “black criminality,” these myths are firmly rooted in various social, historical, political, and racial contexts that date to before America’s founding. In this course we will examine these roots and their present-day manifestations as a way to deconstruct the myths, half-truths, and falsehoods that continue to affect contemporary African American experiences. Resistance through understanding will be our goal, and we will employ methods from legal studies, history, and politics, to get there.
By exploring the past and present of stereotypes, we will investigate the ways such stereotypes gained footing and expanded their reach to attain their current cultural prominence and status as “truth.” We will also understand how contemporary culture reinforces these myths in the legal and political systems as well as in popular media. The course will cover myths surrounding affirmative action, racial profiling, black professional athletes, the Black vote and Black patriotism, segregation and desegregation, diversity within the African-American community, and much more. It will take us through the writing and thinking of important Black activists and scholars as we understand the myths they dealt with and those they affected through their activism and advocacy. We will also examine how these myths have shaped communities, past and present, and how those communities fought or reinforced particular myths at different times and for different reasons.
Among principal reading materials, the seminar will feature Farai Chediya’s Don’t Believe the Hype, Darrell Huff’s How To Lie With Statistics, and Law Professor Kevin D. Brown’s seminal book Race, Law, and Education. Students in the seminar will also get the opportunity to learn through media-based projects, role-playing activities, and close contact with seminar professors.
By exploring the past and present of stereotypes, we will investigate the ways such stereotypes gained footing and expanded their reach to attain their current cultural prominence and status as “truth.” We will also understand how contemporary culture reinforces these myths in the legal and political systems as well as in popular media. The course will cover myths surrounding affirmative action, racial profiling, black professional athletes, the Black vote and Black patriotism, segregation and desegregation, diversity within the African-American community, and much more. It will take us through the writing and thinking of important Black activists and scholars as we understand the myths they dealt with and those they affected through their activism and advocacy. We will also examine how these myths have shaped communities, past and present, and how those communities fought or reinforced particular myths at different times and for different reasons.
Among principal reading materials, the seminar will feature Farai Chediya’s Don’t Believe the Hype, Darrell Huff’s How To Lie With Statistics, and Law Professor Kevin D. Brown’s seminal book Race, Law, and Education. Students in the seminar will also get the opportunity to learn through media-based projects, role-playing activities, and close contact with seminar professors.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN TASS PROGRAM
Mass Incarceration: Race, Punishment, and Contemporary Urban America
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
June 24 – August 4, 2012
Faculty: Ahmad Rahman, PhD, University of Michigan, Dearborn, and Stephen Ward, PhD, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Tutors: TBA
Which country has the highest incarceration rate in the world? Which country has the greatest racial disparity in its incarceration patterns and practices? In which country has the number of people incarcerated over the past three decades steadily increased, many for nonviolent drug offenses, while crime rates have actually decreased? The answer to each of these questions is the same: the United States. More than 2 million people are currently in the nation’s prisons and jails, and millions more are on probation, tether, and parole. A defining element of this explosion in incarceration is its racial dimension, with African Americans (and especially young black men) facing extraordinary levels of policing, arrests, and imprisonment. These troubling facts reflect the social crisis of mass incarceration. This course examines the forces that have created this crisis and the impact it has had on the country and on African American communities in particular.
Among the historical, political, and economic developments that we will examine are: the Attica prison revolt and figures such as Angela Davis and George Jackson; the impact of the war on drugs, crack cocaine, mandatory sentencing, and other policies; the rise of privatized prisons; the concept of the prison-industrial complex; racial profiling and other mechanisms of racial disparity in the criminal justice system; the impact of mass incarceration on black men, black women, and the communities from which they come; felon disfranchisement and other challenges for returning citizens; renewed debates over the death penalty; the relationship between Hip Hop, black popular culture, and the criminal justice system; restorative justice; and finally, contemporary activism responding to and seeking to end mass incarceration.
Among the historical, political, and economic developments that we will examine are: the Attica prison revolt and figures such as Angela Davis and George Jackson; the impact of the war on drugs, crack cocaine, mandatory sentencing, and other policies; the rise of privatized prisons; the concept of the prison-industrial complex; racial profiling and other mechanisms of racial disparity in the criminal justice system; the impact of mass incarceration on black men, black women, and the communities from which they come; felon disfranchisement and other challenges for returning citizens; renewed debates over the death penalty; the relationship between Hip Hop, black popular culture, and the criminal justice system; restorative justice; and finally, contemporary activism responding to and seeking to end mass incarceration.
