Photo by Lisa Abitbol

Jennifer Chudy, Knafel Assistant Professor of Social Sciences and assistant professor of political science, studies American politics with an emphasis on race and ethnicity—phenomena currently at the very heart of political debate in the United States. Within this broad field, she focuses on the attitude of racial sympathy, defined as white distress over Black suffering.

“我自己是一个混合种族婚姻的产物，而不是黑白色，而是亚洲白色，”Chudy说。“成长起来，我一直有好奇心，因为群体如何看到对方，因为这是我熟悉的。在我自己的家庭中，我看到展开来自两个不同背景的人们如何思考世界。“

成长，狡猾地对政治感兴趣。她前往研究种族和美国政治的研究生院，赢得了棕色和她的博士学位。在密歇根大学，都在政治学中。“我被告知，你必须开始了解黑人美国人与白人的关系，因为它是美国政治的核心，”她说。

Chudy says the election of Barack Obama and the number of white people who supported him, “not just because he was a Democrat and an attractive candidate but because he was Black,” and then the events of last summer, with many white people protesting the murder of George Floyd, have helped people better understand her field of study. “The real world keeps showing me that [white racial sympathy] is an important political phenomenon,” she says. “I find that sympathy motivates support for policies perceived to benefit, as well as opposition to policies perceived to harm, African Americans.”

As these events have unfolded, white sympathy has led people to want to do something. “The approach of a lot of folks has been, ‘Oh, we just need to learn more.’ They intellectualize it,” says Chudy. “But my research says that’s not the missing piece. I’m actually looking for an emotional response. If a white person has no idea about the history of this country, but learns that African Americans are disproportionately affected by the coronavirus, I argue that’s more politically powerful than a white person who knows all the facts but has no reaction. My research suggests there has to be an emotional attachment to what’s going on, rather than just the cataloguing of facts.”

和学习还不够。“作为一个政治学家，我担心如果这并没有最终涓涓细流地触及政策或政治的东西，那么它就不会延续，”楚楚说。“抗议是一种形式，即许多人使用 - 有证据表明，在某些情况下，政治家都对抗议者进行了关注。”Action could mean signing a petition that gets sent to an elected official, or writing a letter or calling an elected official.“At the most advanced level, it could be joining an organization that’s pushing for policy changes and crafting policies that are being discussed with elected officials,” she says.

Chudy说，竞赛仍然是美国政治中最关键的错线，她看到更加认识到这一点，特别是在奥巴马选举之后，唐纳德特朗普。“很多颜色的学生 - 在Wellesley的数字上越来越多，这使得课堂对话不同 - 将立即在同意中，”她说。“竞争和种族态度的重要性更加了解，不仅在人们的日常生活中，学生可能会遇到自己，而是如何映射到政治上。”

Chudy于2017年加入Wellesley教师。这秋季，她将教授美国政治介绍。“我认为大多数人都会正确地假设我们经历的事情，最高法院会做什么？选举大学如何工作？但以一种创新的方式教授它。“通常情况下，介绍课程从美国的基础文件开始，从那里开始。

Not this one. “I’m a huge fan of musicals, and I loveMerrily We Roll Along由Stephen Sondheim，从现在开始，向后推进。I watched this musical, and I thought, ‘I bet I could make intro to American politics more interesting if I met students at the present day, in September, when interest is high.’ So we talk about the most recent elections, and then ask, what were the forces that shaped that outcome? And every week we go back and back and back, and then the last class is the Declaration of Independence. By the time they read those documents at the end, they’re thinking about politics in a different way,” she says.