ch 5 race and racism

race

a flawed system of classification, with not biological basis, the uses certain physical characteristics to divide the human population into supposedly discrete groups

racism

individual’s thoughts and actions and institutional patterns and policies that create or reproduce unequal access to power, privilege, resources, and opportunities based on imagined differences among groups

intersectionality

an analytic framework for assessing how factors such as race, gender, and class interact to shape individual life chances and societal patterns of stratification

cline

describes variation tha changes gradually over geographic space in a continuum (such as skin color)

genotype

the inherited genetic factors that provide a framework for an organism’s physical form and constitute the total genetic endowment that the organism can in turn pass down to descendants

phenotype

how genes are expressed in an organism’s physical form (both visible and invisible) as a result of its genotype’s interaction with the environment

colonialism

the practice by which a nation-sate extends political,economic, and military power beyond its own borders over an extended period of time to secure access to raw materials, cheap labor, and markets in other countries or regions

miscegenation

a demeaning historical term for interracial marriage

“one drop of blood” rule

a historic rule of hyodescent that meant even having one black ancestor could mark an individual as black, no longer legal but cultural

racial democracy

when complex and fluid color classifications and the absence of political and legal mechanisms to establish and enforce a clear color line are present

white supremacy

the belief that white people are biologically different from and superior to people of other races

whiteness

a culturally constructed concept originating in 1691 Virginia designed to establish clear boundaries of who is white and who is not, a process central to the formation of U.S. racial stratification

Jim Crow

laws implemented after the U.S Civil War to enforce segregation legally, particularly in the South, after the end of slavery

hypodescent

the assignment of children of racially ‘mixed’ unions to the subordinate group

nativism

the favoring of certain long-term inhabitants, namely White people, over new immigrants

racialization

the process of categorizing, differentiating, and attributing a particular racial character to a person or a group of people

individual racism

personal prejudiced beliefs and discriminatory actions based on race

may include making negative assumptions about a person’s abilities of intentions based on a perceived race( can be intentional or unintentional)

microaggressions

common, everyday verbal or behavioral indignities and slights that communicate hostile, derogatory, and negative messages about someone’s race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion

institutional/structural racism

patterns by which racial inequality is structured through key cultural institutions, policies, and systems

racial ideology

a set of popular ideas about race that allows the discriminatory behaviors of individuals and institutions to seem reasonable, rational, and normal

Plessy v Ferguson

ruled that state-sponsored segregation, including in public schools, was constitution as long as separate facilities for separate races were equal

Brown vs Board of Education

the over turning of Plessy vs Ferguson

“color blindness”

suggests the best way to end discrimination is to treat individuals as equally as possible without regard to race

problematic because doesn’t address of the playing field isn’t even due to centuries of legal racism