The Politics of Race Ethnicity program (PRE) was an initiative at its inception last semester, and it was one that revolved around the speakers and discussions that defined our weekly meetings. The first line of our mission explains the program as existing to create a space for a sustained, nuanced, welcoming, and informed discussion about the intersection of race, ethnicity, identity, and politics. We were able to do just that with the help of Former United States Senator William “Mo” Cowan, Fall 2014 IOP Fellow Anton Gunn, and Harvard Professors Bruce Western and Kay Merseth. These thoughtful and engaging experts in their fields led us in sessions devised by the initiative’s co-chairs, Osaremen Okolo and Valentina Perez—sessions that ranged from “The Impact of the Midterm Elections of People of Color,” “Mobilizing Minorities in Elections,” “Mass Incarceration,” and “Race and Education.” But though our guests were a defining aspect of the past semester, it was student input and the conversation that flowed around the table in room L166 that built passion within and for PRE.
In their own words, here are what some PRE members had to say about these very conversations and their semester within the initiative as a whole:
“The small setting [of PRE] was great, especially for speakers…[I] valued the back and forth had with speakers.”
“I liked that we did something different every week.”
“I was looking for other people who also talk about these issues intelligently and sensitively--PRE as a safe space, and liked that.”
“It’s really necessary to…bring [PRE] in bigger way to the [whole] IOP [community]…there must be place to have discussion for its own sake, which can only happen in a place that feels safe like this did.”
A few PRE members were also able to participate in a very meaningful, intimate, and exclusive conversation with Senior Vice President of the NAACP, Shavonne Bradley. The excitement in the room, resulting from the opportunity to pry the mind of a real-world advocate for the issues discussed each week in PRE, was palpable. And the experience wouldn’t have occurred without collaboration from the Fellows and Study Groups Program—Ms. Bradley was a guest in Mr. Gunn’s study group that week, and we were able to coordinate PRE’s special session prior to the study group commencing. The experience above highlights how crucial collaborations have been and are to PRE’s mission. Another successful collaboration during our past semester was a debate co-hosted with the Harvard Political Union (HPU). At the debate, which featured two representatives from the Black Students’ Association, a representative from Latinos Unidos, and a representative from the HPU, Obama’s legacy on race was discussed. The four debaters argued whether or not Obama has helped ease racial tensions or worsened them. To make this a successful debate, members of PRE and HPU worked together to create questions covering a range of topics, such as the events in Ferguson and immigration reform, to best understand Obama’s racial legacy and keep audience members engaged. The preparation done through this collaboration and by the four debaters helped create a very successful, well-attended debate.
Over the next two semesters, PRE plans to collaborate with each and every IOP program. After discussions within PRE and with members of other IOP programs, it is very clear that race and ethnicity still plays a very potent role in politics. Through future collaborations, PRE hopes to create and drive critical conversations about race within the Institute of Politics. Future collaborative ideas include: working with the Harvard Political Opinion Project (HPOP) to create race-related question for next semester’s poll, hosting an event with Women’s Initiative in Leadership (WIL) on women of color in politics to discuss the intersectionality of race and gender, and collaborating with Policy on policy paper topics that cover that encompass racial and ethnic issues. Since PRE is a one-semester program, we hope that our members help further these collaborations when they are in PRE but also when they leave PRE and explore other IOP groups.
We can’t wait to see what how PRE continues to evolve and form over the next year.
