BLACK VOTES MATTER
Black Voices, Votes and Political Representation in the 2020 US Presidential Election
Monday 9 November 2020
On November 3rd, the turn-out of Black voters in the polls will be one of the most important factors to determine the next US President. How will systemic patterns of police brutality and racial injustice, widespread protests in US cities, rising youth activism, a Covid crisis that has disproportionately affected communities of color -- not to mention controversies over mail-in ballots and voter suppression that will test the integrity of the electoral process -- affect how Black voters decide the ballot box? How will they drive transformations in US politics and society after the elections?
Join our live virtual conversation “Black Votes Matter” on the stakes of Black voices, votes and political representation in the next US Presidential Elections. This virtual live debate will bring together four distinguished scholars from both sides of the Atlantic: Audrey Célestine (Université de Lille), Michael Dawson (University of Chicago), Kafi Moragne-Patterson (University of Chicago), and Pap Ndiaye (Sciences Po, Paris).
Audrey Célestine is a political sociologist at the Université de Lille and the Institut Universitaire de France. She has been a visiting professor at New York University. Her research explores political mobilizations by Antilleans in France and Puerto Ricans in the United States. She is the author of Une Famille Française. Des Antilles à Dunkerque en passant par l’Algérie, (Textuel, 2018) and La fabrique politique des identités. L’encadrement politique des minorités caribéennes à Paris et New York (Karthala, 2018).
Michael Dawson is the John D. MacArthur Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. 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. Michael Dawson is currently finishing an edited volume, Fragmented Rainbow, on race and civil society in the United States as well as a solo volume, Black Politics in the Early 21st Century.
Kafi Moragne-Patterson leads the University Community Service Center's programs at the University of Chicago. Her goal is to foster communities of inquiry and impact that facilitate deepening student social responsibility and its implications for their personal, academic, and professional development. Her research explores interdisciplinary issues animating studies of urban education, racial and economic stratification, adolescent identity formation, and educational interventions in marginalized communities.
Pap Ndiaye is a historian of US history at Sciences Po (Paris), specialized in African American history. He also works on the history and sociology of Afro descendants in France. He has been a visiting professor at New York University and Northwestern University. He is currently working on a history of global civil rights in the 20th century. He is the author of Obama dans l’Amérique noire (2012) and La condition noire : essai sur une minorité française (2008).
The webinar will be moderated by Raphael Bourgois (Journalist, Chief editor of the online newspaper AOC).
This event in English is co-organized by the University of Chicago Center in Paris and the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago and in partnership with the online daily newspaper A.O.C. (Analyse - Opinion - Critique).