Sheila Y. Oliver Center for Politics and Race in America | Faculty Research

In the project Mapping Islamophobia Against Muslims in Politics, Prof. Aziz examines the political and social responses to Muslim Americans’ candidacies and election to office across the United States to measure the extent to which Islamophobia uniquely impedes Muslims communities’ political empowerment.

This research project examines the underpinnings of white replacement fear which date back to the beginnings of the US: settler replacement fear of being annihilated by “merciless Indian savages,” apprehension about “Black menace” and slave revolts, and nativist concerns about being overrun by “foreign swarms” of immigrants. The project traces connections between the past and present with respect to the three historical strands and thereby increases understanding of one of the most contentious and racialized discourses that informs politics and violence in the U.S. 

Made in America, Made in New Jersey: Ethnic Policymakers in New Jersey seek to document the oral histories of high-profile immigrant origin or second-generation Americans who have risen through the ranks to become key stakeholders in New Jersey politics. In this project, Prof Miller will document the oral histories of Caribbean, African, Latina, Indigenous [non-White], and Asian women change agents in New Jersey. A second component of this project will be a compilation of fact sheets about African and Caribbean-centric community-based organizations in New Jersey. 

This research examines whether African American/Black voters are a voting monolith. The project is carried out through RU-N Data Science Consulting, where undergraduate interns will apply data science techniques to a combination of local and federal government databases to - identify and measure determinants of African American voter outcomes across NJ and the US; and test whether African Americans vote as a singular voting bloc.

The goal of this project is to examine the political opportunity cost of racism, by evaluating the hypothesis that African Americans vote as a monolith and deprioritize other important policy options/platforms. Through RU-N Data Science Consulting, Prof Richardson will design, deploy, and analyze a policy and issues-based survey to differentiate between individual African American/Black voters.

This project will demonstrate how contemporary state systems for the surveillance and regulation of families can be explained by regionally specific racist and genocidal historical policy institutions. It will include a comparative historical analysis of the development of US state welfare and social policy systems, showing how developmental trajectories are associated with variation in the scale and racialization of family policing today. In so doing, this work will show how contemporary racism in policy outcomes must be situated in historical contexts with roots in settler colonialism and white supremacy.