Race, Ethics, and American Politics Midterm 1

Vocabulary flashcards covering core terms, legal doctrines, court cases, and historical milestones for Race, Ethics, and American Politics Midterm 1.

Biological Essentialism

The belief that races have central or defining characteristics common to all members.

Monogenism

The belief that all humans originate from a single source.

Polygenism

The belief that humans originate from different sources, so human "races" are really separate and distinct.

Eugenics

The practice or advocacy of removing unwanted traits via selective reproduction.

Social Construct Theory / Racial Constructivism

The theory that race has no biological or scientific basis, but is instead a culturally constructed paradigm for grouping individuals, ripe for use to justify and rationalize unequal treatment. Reaction occurs in both natural and social sciences.

Where the Modern Understanding of Race and Racism Comes From (Fredrickson)

Racism is more than theorizing about human differences or thinking badly of a group over which one has no control; it either directly sustains or proposes to establish a racial order, a permanent group hierarchy that is believed to reflect the laws of nature or the decrees of God.

1978 Information Storage and Freedom Law (France)

Law that outlawed the collection and storage of data on racial origins without explicit consent from individuals (or the state if it is public data).

Hypodescent / One Drop Rule

The principle that people of racially mixed ancestry are assigned the status of a subordinate minority group. Applied in the extreme to Black Americans: any Black ancestry means you cannot identify as white.

Census Categories for Mexico

People from Mexico were considered white until 1920, placed in a Mexican category in 1930, and the current categories are Hispanic, white, and other.

MENA Countries

Southwest Asia, Middle Eastern, and North African populations, who often consider themselves white.

Why Measuring with Self-Reports is Hard

Challenges include misreporting, mixed-race people, and issues regarding who answers and who does not.

Politics of Administering a Census

Relates to apportionment, where racial and demographic categories respond to political goals.

Causal Effect (Individual, Average, and Difference)

The change in outcome caused by treatment compared to what would have happened without it. An individual effect is one experiment, and the average effect is measured across the group.

Counterfactual

The difference between the actual outcome and the hypothetical outcome.

Fundamental Problem of Causal Inference

The principle that we can never observe both states of the world for the same unit at the same time.

Confounder

A variable that affects both the treatment and the outcome.

Bundle of Sticks Argument

The argument by Sen and Wasow that race is not a single, unchangeable attribute, but rather a composite collection of distinct signals and components.

Why Suggesting Race Causes Anything is Challenging

The difficulty of determining which features of "race" matter. It requires conceptualizing relevant features as treatment rather than race itself. While researchers can randomly assign how people might perceive race in an experimental context, it remains difficult to determine what it is that people are responding to.

Demographic Collapse in the Western Hemisphere After Contact with Europeans

Approximately $90\%$ of Native Americans died (primarily of disease: smallpox, influenza, rat fever, etc.) within 200 years of contact.

Triangle Trade

Trade system established immediately upon settlement of the Americas that lasted approximately 250 years (1550-1800), involving the involuntary relocation of 12 million Africans, mainly by Britain and Portugal.

Zong Massacre

An incident aboard the British slave ship Zong where over 100 sick slaves were thrown overboard so the captain could claim insurance money for their lives, which swayed the opinion of the British public.

Unsteady March Argument

The argument that the path towards racial equality is more like a cycle that involves both improvement and setbacks.

Bacons Rebellion

A revolt in Virginia against the governor because he would not retaliate against Native attacks. Nathaniel Bacon involved Black indentured servants, which prompted officials to create stricter laws to establish a racial divide stronger than the class divide.

Why Virginia Became a Slave Colony and Solidified Race and Slavery

To establish a racial divide so that lower-class white people would hold more resentment towards Black people than towards those in the upper class, and to supply the labor required by the state's agricultural economy.

Enumeration Clause

Article 1, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, which states that an enslaved person counts for $\frac{3}{5}\text{ths}$ of a person for representation and apportionment.

Fugitive Slave Clause

Constitutional clause mandating that escaped slaves must be returned to their owners.

Fugitive Slave Act

Act requiring the federal government to intervene on behalf of slave owners to return escaped slaves, awarding judges more money for siding with slave owners, and denying slaves the right to testify or receive a jury trial.

Seminole Wars

Conflicts involving the Seminoles in Florida and Oklahoma. The Spanish had allowed runaway slaves to gain freedom with the Seminoles before U.S. acquisition. Plantation owners feared slaves would escape there, while Black people in the Seminole region feared enslavement if forced to move west of the Mississippi under the Treaty of Payne's Landing.

Dred Scott v. Sandford

Case involving an enslaved man from Missouri who lived in Illinois and Louisiana (where slavery was illegal) and claimed freedom upon returning to Missouri. SCOTUS ruled against him, declaring that slaves were not citizens and were not entitled to constitutional rights.

The Red Record and the Fight for an Anti-Lynching Bill

Work written by Ida B. Wells documenting over 700 lynchings. A federal anti-lynching bill was not passed until 2022 in honor of Emmett Till.

Reconstruction

Period where President Johnson pardoned Confederate loyalists except for a few leaders and fought Congress over the Civil Rights Act, while Confederate states were compelled to rewrite their constitutions based on equal rights and universal suffrage.

Reconstruction Amendments

The 13th Amendment ended slavery, the 14th guaranteed rights and citizenship to individuals born and naturalized in the U.S., and the 15th prohibited voting discrimination on the basis of race.

Compromise of 1877

Political resolution after Republicans accused Democrats of harassing Black voters to limit turnout. Congress formed an electoral commission, awarding Hayes (R) the presidency in exchange for withdrawing northern troops, leading to Republicans losing control of state governments in the South.

Jim Crow

System of political, social, educational, and military segregation implemented through discriminatory and unfair laws.

Plessy v. Ferguson

Supreme Court case where Homer Plessy challenged Louisiana's Separate Car Act on constitutional grounds; SCOTUS ruled against him, holding that separate facilities were permissible as long as they were of equal quality.

Booker T. Washington

Leader who lobbied for civil rights and advocated for rights to education.

W.E.B Dubois

The first African American to earn a PhD from Harvard, co-founder of the NAACP, and an advocate for Pan-Africanism.

Marcus Garvey

Leader who advocated for Pan-Africanism and a return to Africa.

Pan-Africanism

The movement advocating for the unity of all Black Africans, regardless of national boundaries.

Major Early Waves of Immigration (1800s-1900s)

First wave: Irish, German, Scandinavian, and Chinese immigrants. Second wave: Southern and Eastern Europe, Italy, Hungary, Russia, Poland, and Jewish people.

Gam Saam

Term referring to the California Gold Rush that attracted large numbers of Chinese immigrants.

Page Act

Legislation that restricted "undesirable" immigrants, effectively banning Chinese women under the suspicion of prostitution.

Chinese Exclusion Act

Legislation that suspended Chinese immigration to the United States.

Yick Wo v. Hopkins

Case in which a business owner was denied a permit, fined, and jailed for nonpayment. SCOTUS ruled in his favor, striking down a San Francisco ordinance requiring permits for wooden laundries that disproportionately targeted Chinese laundry owners.

Gentleman's Agreement

An informal agreement resolving hostility over Japanese immigration: Japan agreed to stop granting passports to emigrants to the U.S., while the U.S. agreed to accept Japanese residents already present and halt school segregation.

Immigration Act of 1924

Law that reduced the number of immigrants entering the United States, excluded Asiatic people from entry, and established border control.

Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952

Statute combining and reorganizing all existing federal immigration laws into a cohesive framework; it repealed racial exclusion laws against Asian immigrants and granted them the right to naturalize, while maintaining low overall quotas.

Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965

Law that maintained numerical limits on overall immigration and per-country source caps, while exempting immediate family members of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents from quota restrictions.

U.S. Refugee Admissions Program

Program establishing the Office of Refugee Resettlement and Assistance, raising the refugee visa cap to $50{,}000$ per year, and broadening the legal definition of a refugee.

Birthright Citizenship

The acquisition of citizenship either by birthplace (Jus Soli) in the U.S. or through parents (Jus Sanguinis), which varies across countries depending on parental lineage and ethnicity.

Naturalization

The legal process through which an eligible individual fulfills specific requirements, secures lawful permanent resident status, and acquires full citizenship.

Civil Rights Act of 1866

Legislation enacted over President Johnson's veto that guaranteed full and equal benefits of the law to all persons born in the United States.

Naturalization Acts

Statutes governing citizenship requirements that maintained an explicit "white person" requirement until 1952.

US v. Wong Kim Ark

Case involving a man born in San Francisco who was denied reentry to the U.S. after traveling to China; SCOTUS ruled in his favor, affirming his citizenship under Jus Soli via the 14th Amendment.

Bracero Program

A wartime bilateral agreement between the United States and Mexico allowing temporary Mexican farm workers into the country to address labor shortages.

Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA)

U.S. legislation prohibiting employment discrimination based on national origin or citizenship status and establishing legal penalties for employers who hire undocumented workers.

Executive Order 9066

Presidential order issued by Franklin D. Roosevelt authorizing the forced relocation and internment of Japanese Americans.

Korematsu v. U.S.

Case involving Fred Korematsu, who was arrested for refusing to report for evacuation; SCOTUS upheld the order, ruling that the forced relocation was justified by military wartime necessity.

Realignment

A shift along a pre-existing political cleavage leading the public to shift coalitions; notably, the civil rights movement led white conservatives toward the Republican Party and Black voters toward FDR and the Democratic Party.

Equalization Strategy

A legal strategy arguing that separate facilities are only permissible if actual equality exists, thereby legally demanding genuine parity or complete integration.

Brown v. Board

Supreme Court case establishing that racial segregation in public schools violates equal protection under the 14th Amendment, utilizing psychological studies on self-worth to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson.

Brown v. Board II

Follow-up ruling directing school districts to implement desegregation in a prompt and reasonable manner with "all deliberate speed."

Dixiecrats

White, racially conservative Southern Democrats who split from the national party and gradually shifted toward the Republican Party following Truman's desegregation of the armed forces.

Hollow Hope Argument

The argument that schools delayed desegregation indefinitely because the court provided no specific enforcement timeline or deadlines.

Formalistic Representation

A conception of representation focusing on the formal institutional rules by which representatives obtain authorization and are held accountable.

Descriptive Representation

The idea that a legislative or governing body should demographically mirror the racial, gender, or ethnic composition of the population it represents.

Symbolic Representation

Representation based on feelings, beliefs, and attitudes where an official or symbol represents constituents without sharing intrinsic descriptive qualities, yet is accepted by those represented.

Substantive Representation

Form of representation occurring when an elected official actively advances and champions constituents' policy preferences, concerns, and interests.

Proportional Representation

An electoral system where political parties gain seats in the legislature in direct proportion to the share of votes cast for them.

Empowerment Theory

A framework examining how individuals and marginalized communities develop agency, power, and political influence to transform the structural and political systems shaping their lives.