By: Politico

With a black man running for president and a woman running for vice president, a panel discussion yesterday, titled "Framing Social Justice for the Election Year: Race, Gender, Ethnicity, and Politics," attempted to analyze the effects of gender and race identities in politics.

Panelists Mark Lopez, associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center; Melvin Foote, founder and president of the Constituency for Africa, an organization dedicated to American policy in Africa and Wendy Smooth, a women’s studies assistant professor at Ohio State University, discussed the extent to which an individual’s gender or race affects his or her political views. About 40 students and faculty attended the discussion, which was moderated by government and politics professor Ronald Walters, and most said they found it enlightening.

During the discussion, Lopez focused primarily on Latinos and argued that an individual’s race does not determine beliefs, which are often more dependent on the individual’s status in society.

For example, the Latino population can be divided into subcategories of native and naturalized citizens, and various issues, such as the recent economic crisis, affect the two groups differently, he said.

"The economic downturn greatly affected the foreign-born population," Lopez said, as foreign-born Latinos saw a 7-percent decrease in income this year because they typically hold working-class jobs like construction positions, he said.

Lopez also found that most Latinos do not consider immigration to be their No. 1 priority, he said.

In regard to gender, Smooth argued that being a woman doesn’t necessarily mean a voter will elect for a woman.

For example, a black lesbian who has a low-income job wouldn’t necessarily share the same political views as someone who just identifies herself as a black woman, she said.

However, Foote argued that personal identification in regards to gender and race influences voting habits.

"Ninety nine point five percent [of people] associated with Africa love [Sen. Barack] Obama," he said.

Candidates also work under the assumption that personal identification impacts political outlooks, as displayed by the fact that Obama (D-Ill.) and his wife, Michelle, usually refrain from emotional outbursts in order not to be labeled as "the angry black man" or "the angry black woman," Smooth said.

While the colloquium lasted about two hours, Michelle Corbin, a sociology graduate student, said she was disappointed the presentation didn’t contain more meaningful content.

"I would have liked to have seen more discussions on policies between power relations of race," she said. "This was more theoretical and media-based. I needed to see a macro analysis."

Senior sociology major Steven Swann thought otherwise.

"[I liked that] they discussed things not typically covered in public discourse, like the racial softening … and necessary de-racialization pre-election, and now attending to race post-[primary] election," he said.

Leyla Korkut reports for the University of Maryland’s The Diamondback. The Diamondback is partnering with Campus Politico for the 2008 elections.

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