From Katrina to Obama: Racial Politics and Public Opinion Within the United States

By Michael DAWSON, John D. MacArthur Professor of Political Sciences and the College – University of Chicago.

 

PSIA presents Michael C. Dawson, the John D. MacArthur Professor of Political Science and the College at the University of Chicago. In this lecture, Professor Dawson will assert that Black politics within the United States is still extremely weak. He maintains that this weakness undermines the quest for justice in two areas that have been central concerns of black political movements—the quest for racial justice and the quest for economic justice for all. In sum, he argues that the apparent recovery of black politics (signified by Obama’s election and inauguration) from the low point it reached in the aftermath to the Katrina disaster is an illusion.

In collaboration with a number of colleagues, Dawson has directed or co-directed a series of survey studies from 2000-2005, 2008 and 2009 which have probed racial attitudes in the United States. His research interests have included the development of quantitative models of African American political behavior, identity, and public opinion, the political effects of urban poverty, and African-American political ideology. His previous two books, Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African-American Politics (Princeton 1994) and Black Visions: The Roots of Contemporary African-American Political Ideologies (Chicago 2001), won multiple awards including the latter winning the prestigious Ralph Bunche Award from the American Political Science Association. Dawson has also published numerous journal articles, book chapters and opinion pieces. Dawson’s strong interest in the impact of the information technology revolution on society and politics, as well as his research on race are both fueled in part from his time spent as an activist while studying and working in Silicon Valley for several years. Forthcoming are several books including in 2011 Not in Our Lifetimes:The Future of Black Politics from the University of Chicago Press.

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