Over the last two decades, the term "minority" has expanded from its
erstwhile reference to Black Americans to include -- in a broadened
description -- other people of color, women and homosexuals.  At the
same time, the expansion of the term "minority" has created a host of
new challenges in the American political system.  This course is,
therefore, geared toward helping students to understand, and to an
extent, appreciate the political connotations of the term "minority"
as well as the manner in which different minority groups play the
political game.  It will focus on America's racial and ethnic
minorities.
The class will be taught as a lecture course, often featuring
debates, panel discussions, group projects, videos, role-playing and
brain-storming sessions, all of which are to be based mainly on
weekly readings.  Therefore, the perusal of the assigned readings as
well as class participation are crucial and, indeed, absolutely
necessary for a student to do very well or pass the course
successfully.