Race in Politics

“Race in politics” can mean many things depending upon which definition of politics is used. Defining politics as “the use of power” encompasses the broadest range of topics. Many of these, such as persuasion techniques in intercultural communication and dominant and subservient stereotypes in entertainment, are of interest to scholars of communication, yet they tend not to be the focus of a political communications curriculum. Political communication tends to define the parameters of studying race using a more restricted definition of politics that relates more directly to the power of the government. Attention is paid to communication on explicitly racial issues (such as slavery, Japanese internment, desegregation, affirmative action in education) or to issues that impact racial minorities disproportionately (such as welfare spending, Englishonly referendums, ...