Colombia College Race and Ethnic Relations

Race and Ethnic Relations

COLUMBIA COLLEGE CHICAGO
FAL 2008
RACE AND ETHNIC RELATIONS
INSTRUCTOR: DR. JUNE TERPSTRA

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Course provides critical examination of issues of race and ethnicity in the world, with special emphasis on the U.S. Students explore concepts, theoretical perspectives, and research on patterns of cooperation and conflict between different racial and ethnic groups. Sources of prejudice, discrimination, power relations and stratification are discussed. Instruction covers history and present status of various major racial and ethnic groups, including some white ethnics, African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans. Students examine contemporary problems and issues in the area of racial and ethnic relations.

Liberal Arts and Sciences Core Curriculum/General Education Credits:
This course bears Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) and General Education
credit for Social Science.  By taking this course you will complete three
(3) of the required Culture, Values, Ethics credits needed to graduate from
Columbia College.  In addition, the course will assist you in achieving the
following LAS core objectives:

Students should be able to:

• conduct and present research and as part of that process learn to measure, evaluate, and assess the sociological constructs posed
• reflect on and appreciate human endeavor across cultures and eras for social justice
• consider and examine, historically and comparatively, human behavior,
  ethical issues, and social institutions which hinder or foster social justice
• utilize various tools of analysis to enable critical thinking;
• express themselves orally in a clear and effective manner.

-          

COURSE OBJECTIVES

1.  Identify your present thinking about your race, ethnicity and ancestry and how you developed these ways of understanding and relating with those from races, cultures, countries, classes, and ethnicities different than yours.
2. Develop an understanding of cross cultural historical accounts about patterns of conflict, collaboration and cooperation globally and the role of the USA historically.
3. Understand present geo-political power-struggles that foster race and ethnic conflicts and collaboration.
4. Develop and practice cross-cultural communication skills.
5. Identify future possibilities for respectful human relations honoring people's rights to self-determination across the globe.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

1. Class Participation--25% OF GRADE= 250 pts

2. An in-class mid-term presentation of your research on a specific country which has experienced war or a humanitarian crisis since WWII.  This presentation requires you to examine the causes of the war, conflict or crisis from multiple points of view. You are encouraged to use graphics, film, music, and art.  A bibliography of at least five sources is required.  25% OF GRADE= 250 pts

3. A final in-class research report will examine solutions proposed by individuals and groups to the conflict you studied for the mid-term with an emphasis on who benefits from the solutions proposed.   25% of Grade =250 pts. 

4. Weekly reaction paper reflexively analyzing the assigned class readings.--25% of Grade= 250 pts

COURSE TEXTS

All readings on web at:  juneterpstra.com or URL's and links provided

 Week #1 September 3, 2008

Race and Ethnicity: Self-knowledge

Read and Respond:

1. Christopher Columbus And The Indians
by Howard Zinn at http://www.newhumanist.com/md2.html

2. Bartoleme de Las Casas, Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies(1542) at http://personal.pitnet.net/primarysources/casas.html

3.  The Divine Right to Occupy the Land John Cotton, (London, 1630) at http://www.healingtheland.com/resources/discovery/cotton.html

Week#2

Imperialism and Colonialism 

Read and Respond:

1. Five Hundred Years of Injustice at http://ili.nativeweb.org/sdrm_art.html

2.  Reciprocal Bases of National Culture and the Fight for Freedom by Frantz Fanon at http://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/fanon/national-culture.htm

3.   Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks New York: Grove Press, 1967.http://www.umass.edu/complit/aclanet/FanonBW.html

Week #3

History Lessons on Slavery

Read and Respond:

1.  Moving Onward From Racial Division to Class Unity by Brooke Heagerty and Nelson Peery

http://www.speakersforanewamerica.com/Moving%20Onward.php

2.  Read and Respond: USA HISTORY: A QUICK STUDY FOR STUDENTS
A summary by Dr. June Scorza Terpstra

http://juneterpstra.com/whats_new.html

Film: Sankofa

Week 4

US globalization, and imperialism since WWII

Read, View and Respond:

1.  Roots of Oppression  http://www.american-pictures.com/roots/index.htm

2.  FROM WOUNDED KNEE TO IRAQ: A CENTURY OF U.S. MILITARY INTERVENTIONS by Zoltan Grossman

 http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html#anchor1469361

Film: Covert Wars of the CIA

  Week#5  Immigration

Read and respond

Another Side to Race and Immigration by Bill Fletcher Jr.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=13400

IMMIGRATION & UNIFICATION Part 1 and 2 by Stan Goff

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/041306_immigration_unification.shtml

http://www.copvcia.com/free/ww3/041906_immigration_unification_part2.shtml

Film-Salt of the Earth or HOP

Week#6 -8
Mid-term Presentations 

Week# 9 Foreign Affairs

Read and Respond:

The Corporate Control Of Society and Human Life By Stephen Lendman http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12842.htm

The US, Race and War by  Gary Younge

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0811-10.htm

3. Managing Consent --The Art of War, Democracy and Public Relations
By Ramzy Baroud http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18221.htm

Film-Occupation 101

WEEK 10

Media images IMAGES OF LATINO IMMIGRANTS IN THE MEDIA by Sheila L. Seshans

http://aabss.org/journal2001/Seshan2001.jmm.html

http://www.hispaniconline.com/magazine/PDF/July%201996%20Ban%20the%20Bandito.pdf

Hip Hop Profanity, Misogyny and Violence: Blame the Manufacturer

http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=200&Itemid=33

Film-Orientalism

Week #11

War and genocide 

Read and Respond:

1.  Terrorism, Theirs and Ours by Eqbal Ahmad

http://www.quaker.org/chestnuthill/eahmed.htm

2.  American State Terrorism

A Critical Review of The Objectives of U.S. Foreign Policy in The Post-World War II Period

by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed

http://www.mediamonitors.net/mosaddeq13.html#3

Weeks # 12-15

 Final Presentations