10.01.08
Posted in Cognitive Science, Education, Gender Bias, Jacob Canon, Politics, Psychology, Racism, The Oscar Show, UVa College of Arts & Sciences, University of Virginia, elections, ethics, history at 11:04 am by Jacob Canon
In today’s show, we share comments and reflections from the UVa Faculty Roundtable concerning Race and Gender in Politics.
Last Thursday, the Miller Center of Public Affairs hosted the UVa Faculty Round Table on Race and Gender in Politics. Sponsored by the University of Virginia’s Arts & Sciences Magazine, the forum was moderated by Douglas Blackmon, the Atlanta bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal. The panel included UVa faculty members, Paul Freedman, Brian Nosek, Lynn Sanders, Vesla Weaver and Nick Winter.
Moderator, Douglas Blackmon called this point in time “an extraordinary moment in American history and American discourse,” while Associate Politics Professor Paul Freedman referred to this time as “Christmas” for political scientists because of the multicultural base of the presidential candidates.
Reflections on Race and Gender in Politics Forum [7:30m]:
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Freedman said the implicit message in political advertising is the important element of political ads. An example of this was a 2006 Republican ad run in Tennessee, concerning Democrat, Harold Ford, Jr. Freedman said, the ad included “a white woman who claimed to have had met Harold at the Playboy Party and she suggested that he call her, the ad concluded with the text on the screen, Harold Ford…’he’s just not right.’ And many people suggested that the implicit message was, ‘he’s just not white.’” Freedman added this year’s election has seen less of these types of messages.
Associate Politics Professor Lynn Sanders, spoke to the question, “will Obama lose this election due to race.” Referring to a recent Stanford AP poll and the subsequent media spin that Obama will lose the election by six to fifteen percent simply because he is black, Sanders said, “I think that it is really, really interesting how tied we are to that kind of pessimism. There is an alternative framework that we could be focusing on, which is… that we’re living in a time when we have accomplished such a feat that we can have these different kinds of candidates.” Referring to the Bradley/Wilder effect - when voters tell pollsters they are undecided or likely to vote for a black candidate, yet, on Election Day, they vote for the white candidate - Sanders said this effect has lessened over the past forty to fifty years and the reverse was observed in the 2006 Tennessee race between Ford and the Republican candidate.
Assistant Politics Professor Nick Winter spoke about the book he is working on, “The Secret History of Gender.” Winter said, looking at data from the last three decades, the Democratic party is associated with stereotypically feminine traits such as being “… compassionate, generous, egalitarian, and so forth and conversely they like the republican party for relatively stereotypically masculine characteristics, it’s efficient, supports the work ethic…” Yet, when it comes to Presidential candidates, he said the electorate tends to feel “… that our ideas about what it makes a good leader are themselves very associated with ideas about men and masculinity.”
Associate Professor of Psychology Brian Nosek’s data suggests that some political choices we make are influenced by “implicit” feelings toward blacks, women or the aged without us even realizing it. Nosek said of people who participate in his online surveys, “… 80% of white Americans who come on and try this task have a stronger association of black with bad, than white with bad, suggesting that they have associations in their minds that are quite distinct from the egalitarian values that they tend to express. Likewise with gender, it’s harder to associate female with leader or female with career than males, even if they will explicitly say, ‘no, I’m egalitarian minded… we don’t necessarily know that these things are happening.”
Mr. Blackmon observed that the research of the panelist had led to potentially opposed ideas of how much race and gender effect the election process.
Answering this question, Assistant Politics Professor Vesla Weaver satirically noted, that this may be the first time that professor Sanders and she had been considered the “racial optimist in a room.” She went on to say, “I’m certainly not saying that there aren’t negative racial attributions that happen. I do think we need to question how much the Bradley Effect has been overstated, how much the negative aspect of race is the thing that makes headlines, and what effect that has on perceptions, on people, on raising sensitivities, on looking for it.” Professor Sanders added that it was interesting “…the way conservative and optimistic, and liberal and pessimistic, are associated. And this is a real consistent theme in this year’s election.” She said that none of the panelist felt that bigotry and racism were no longer issues, yet much had changed in the short time since the 1960’s.
The goals of the panel to open public discussion on these issues were summarized by Professor Weaver’s salient comments concerning what would occur if the topic of race and gender were not brought to the public’s attention. Weaver said, the danger is not only, not having this type of public discourse, but that “it opens up space for a powerful counter narrative to develop on November 5th. And that is the counter narrative that, for blacks, for young voters, for anyone that was mobilized… and saw this as the first time their constituency was being spoken to, the counter narrative would be, if not now, then when.” She added, “it opens up a rift in that powerful American dream logic. It opens a rift in the notion that this is an egalitarian society. That we can move forward together… And so if we don’t have that very public conversation now about race, the public conversation that going to get had when we look in the mirror on November 5th is going to be a conversation that is going to be uglier.”
You’ve been listening to the Oscar Show, I’m Jacob Canon. Join us next week when we will discuss the work of Brad Cox, professor of physics and a principal investigator with the University of Virginia’s High Energy Physics Group and his involvement with the new Large Hadron Collider in Geneva Switzerland.
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09.24.08
Posted in Cognitive Science, Education, Jacob Canon, Politics, Social Psychology, The Oscar Show, UVa College of Arts & Sciences, University of Virginia, elections, ethics, history, sociology at 11:04 am by Jacob Canon
In today’s show, we introduce the Moderator and UVa Faculty panel participating in the Race and Gender in Politics Forum being held tomorrow evening at 7:00 PM at the Miller Center of Public Affairs, located at 2201 Old Ivy Road, in Charlottesville, VA. This event is free to the public.
With the election season upon us, and the diverse nature of the major candidates, Americans are faced with unique challenges when they go to the polls this November 4th. With the notable exception of Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, the major candidates for the office of President of the United States have been white males. But this election season, both major political parties have offered candidates that begin to explore the multicultural basis of our nation.
Race and Gender in Politics [5:48m]:
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Tomorrow evening, September 25th at 7:00PM, the Miller Center of Public Affairs will be hosting the UVa Faculty Round Table on Race and Gender in Politics. This event is sponsored by the University of Virginia’s Arts & Sciences Magazine will be Moderated by Douglas A Blackmon, the Atlanta bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal. This forum will discuss many of the issues that face the electorate this season. The panel will include UVa faculty members, Paul Freedman, Brian Nosek, Lynn Sanders, Vesla Weaver and Nick Winter.
The moderator, Douglas A. Blackmon, has written extensively about the American quandary of race. Many of his stories in The Wall Street Journal have explored the interplay of wealth, corporate conduct and racial segregation.
Associate Politics Professor Paul Freedman, has written about the negative advertising that is present in American politics, and has come to the conclusion that this type of discourse has positive effects in educating the public concerning issues. Freedman found that voters who saw more campaign advertising were more energized and knowledgeable.
Associate Professor of Psychology Brian Nosek’s interest in politics emerged while he was doing research in implicit cognition, which examines thought and feeling outside of awareness and control. His data suggests that some political choices we make may be influenced by “implicit” feelings toward blacks, women or the aged without us even realizing it.
Associate Politics Professor Lynn Sanders, has found another dynamic at work in the American political system. Sanders research has found there are differences in survey data received depending on the race of the interviewer and interviewee. If they are the same race, prejudices are more likely to be revealed. She found this evidenced by the differing results in the public vote of caucus states versus the private vote found in primaries states during the recent Democratic campaign.
Assistant Politics Professor Vesla Weaver’s research has detailed the disparities between the outcomes of whites to darker- and lighter-skinned blacks and Hispanics, including lower incomes, high incarceration rates and higher execution rates for the dark-skinned. Her data appears to show that the gradient of skin tone also appears to have an effect, and that this disparity carries over to politics as well.
Assistant Politics Professor Nick Winter’s book, Dangerous Frames explores the ways that political leaders can mobilize our ideas about race and gender in ways we don’t realize; his current project is exploring the ways that ideas about masculinity and femininity shape political discourse and public opinion.
So, as this multicultural dynamic changes the Presidential debate continues across America, you are invited to the Miller Center tomorrow evening, September 25th at 7:00 PM to hear this panel discuss gender and race and how they effect the political landscape.
The Miller Center address is 2201 Old Ivy Road, Charlottesville, VA. For more information or direction to the event please call 434-243-8974 or email Cristina Martinez de Andino at clm6q@virginia.edu.
For those who can’t attend, you can watch the forum online by going to www.millercenter.org and the link will appear on the home page shortly before the panel starts.
You’ve been listening to the Oscar Show, I’m Jacob Canon. Join us next week when we will follow up this show with comments and reflections from the UVa Faculty Roundtable concerning Race and Gender in Politics.
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07.09.08
Posted in Jacob Canon, Politics, The Oscar Show, UVa College of Arts & Sciences, University of Virginia, history at 11:04 am by Jacob Canon
In today’s show, written by Brevy Cannon, General Assignments writer for University of Virginia Media Relations, we look at a recent Center for Politics event, “Reconsidering the Presidency” held at the University of Virginia in April 2008.
“The vast and ever-increasing amounts of money spent on U.S. political campaigns are a detriment to our democracy. And, contrary to public opinion, the Electoral College is a quirk of American politics that should not be tampered with…”
Reconsidering the Presidency [6:45m]:
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Those two opinions were shared by three former governors, John Sununu of New Hampshire, Lowell Weicker of Connecticut and Virginia’s Doug Wilder, during the Center for Politics event, “Reconsidering the Presidency” in April 2008.
Center director and event host Larry Sabato noted in his introduction that he expected a lively debate from these three political veterans from across the political spectrum, and the trio did not disappoint, offering many diverging suggestions on how to reform U.S. politics and the presidential nomination process.
Sununu, a former three-term governor of New Hampshire, White House chief of staff and co-host of CNN’s “Crossfire” political news show, defended the widely criticized tradition of his home state being the first to hold presidential primaries.
Critics contend that being first gives New Hampshire an outsized influence; that the predominately white population isn’t reflective of the nation; and that voters there get the opportunity to personally meet with each candidate several times, while voters in other states may not even be visited.
Doug Wilder, former governor of Virginia, recalled his own run for president in 1992 and complained that recent presidential candidates haven’t campaigned enough in Virginia. He said, “It’s not right for certain areas of the country to be constantly courted to the degree that the residents there expect it … and others are surprised just to get a handshake or a chance even to be in the room with a presidential candidate.”
Sununu went on to say, “I think people don’t understand that the nominating process should demand from our citizens an equal commitment to the election process as the general election.” If another state goes first instead of New Hampshire, contended Sununu, that state should have some of the same merits as his state: a voter turnout rate near 75 percent, engaged citizens who ask serious questions and a place that doesn’t require lots of money to start being noticed by the public.
Wilder, who became the first African-American governor in U.S. history when elected in 1989, suggested that primary election rules could be “modernized” by having a longer timeframe, such as two weeks, in which to cast ballots, rather than just one day.
Weicker was elected governor of Connecticut in 1990 as an independent after serving three terms in the U.S. Senate as a Republican. He drew attention to the “extra hoops” that those outside the “two-party duopoly” must contend with in order to run for office. He proposed a constitutional amendment that would standardize the requirements for a presidential candidate to qualify to be on the ballot in any given state, replacing the widely varying requirements that inhibit independent candidates.
According to opinion polls cited by Sabato, contrary to the view of 70 percent of Americans who would like to do away with the Electoral College, all three governors felt it should stay. Weicker and Sununu both said that the current system (wherein a candidate wins all or none of the electors representing each state) makes candidates campaign in all 50 states.
All three panelists condemned what they all termed the “obscene” amounts of money involved in today’s politics, with Weicker going so far as to declare, “I think money is destroying politics in the United States.”
Only Wilder offered a substantive suggestion of how to address that issue. He said, “Copy a little bit from the British system, shortening it and saying the campaign will start on such and such a date and end on such and such a date… rather than as soon as George Bush took his hand down from swearing… taking his oath as president, this campaign started. That doesn’t make any sense at all, we got to shorten that.”
Sununu also decried how today’s media have “poisoned the minds of the public” with flawed coverage of political issues like the Florida recounts in the 2000 presidential election. While one questioner defended the role of the media as “the fourth branch of government,” no participants even entertained the idea that political advertising might benefit the political process, such as by increasing voter knowledge and participation, as recent research from U.Va. politics professor Paul Freedman has found.
You’ve been listening to the Oscar Show, I’m Jacob Canon. Join us next week when we look at the annual Walter A. Ridley Distinguished Lecture at the University of Virginia, held recently in the Rotunda’s Dome Room.
For more information about scholarship, creativity and research, please visit www.oscar.virginia.edu. Did you miss a show? Then go to www.wtju.net and click on “blogs & pods” or visit www.cvillepodcast.com. Question about this program; please call WTJU at 434-924-0885 or email at wtju@virginia.edu.
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