SOC Chapter 11 Vocab

Johann Friedrich Blumenbach

Famously tried to categorize humans into 5 different races by studying human skulls

Social construction of race

Race is not biologically identifiable, but rather divided based on society’s views

Ethnicity

A group of people with a shared culture, such as shared history, language, religion, and traditions or norms

Charles Wagley and Marvin Harris

Created 5 categories that distinguished minority groups:

1. Unequal treatment and less power

2. Distinguishing physical or cultural traits

3. Involuntary membership in the group

4. Awareness of subordination

5. High rate of in-group marriage

Scapegoat theory

Developed from Dollard’s Frustration-Aggression theory; suggests that often minority groups are blamed and are the target of the dominant group’s unfocused aggression

Intersection theory

Created by Crenshaw but further developed by Collins; suggests that factors like sexuality, gender, race, religion, socioeconomic status, etc. all have an impact on a person’s experiences and perspectives, and these effects cannot be separated

Culture of prejudice

Prejudice is embedded in our culture through racist imagery or stereotypes that are in society

Stereotype

Oversimplified generalizations about people that deny individuality; often recycled from previously subordinate groups that have assimilated into society

Prejudice

Biased thinking/attitudes that is prejudgement (does not originate from own experiences but rather fiction or stories) about a certain group of people; strengthened by confirmation bias

Discrimination

Actions against a group of people in which they are not treated the same as other groups due to their membership in the group; can be individual or institutional

Peggy McIntosh

Studied white privilege, which she described as an "invisible weightless knapsack full of special provisions"

Types of racism

1. Individual/interpersonal racism

2. Systemic racism

3. Racial profiling

4. Historical racism

5. Cultural racism

6. Colorism

7. Color-avoidance racism

Racial profiling

Subjecting a certain race to different, usually harsher, treatments (type of systemic racism)

Historical racism

Gaps in socioeconomic status, education, etc. because of past racism

Cultural racism

When the inferiority of a certain race is part of a society’s culture

Colorism

When a certain skin color within a race is deemed to be superior to another skin color

Color-avoidance racism

When people deny racial differences in an attempt to stop or ignore racism

Racial steering

When real estate agents drive future homeowners to one neighborhood over another based on their race

Implicit/unconscious bias

Bias towards or against a race or stereotyping without conscious realization

Anti-racism

Actively acknowledging and understanding the racism, stereotyping, and prejudice which has been embedded in our society and our own beliefs and fighting against them by replacing them with antiracist beliefs or laws

Sedimentation of racial inequality

Intergenerational impact of both de facto and de jure racism that limits minorities (especially Black people)’s abilities to accumulate wealth

Redlining

Practice of routinely rejecting business and household mortgages in minority communities

Pluralism

Most tolerant intergroup relation; each culture retains its identity but cooperate together to form something better. All cultures are accepted and respected.

Assimilation

Intergroup relation where minority groups gives up its identity to adopt the practices and cultures of the dominant group

4 benchmarks of assimilation

1. Socioeconomic status

2. Spatial concentration

3. Language assimilation

4. Intermarriage

Amalgamation

When the majority and minority groups combine to form a new group with a distinct culture, such as through interracial marriage

Genocide

The deliberate annihilation of a targeted (usually minority) group; least tolerant intergroup relationship

Expulsion

The forced removal of a subordinate group from a territory by the majority group

Segregation

Physical separation of two groups, especially in residence, but also in workplaces, public areas, and social functions

Segregation index

Runs on a scale from 0 to 100; indicates the degree for which people have to move for a healthy racial balance; 0 = integrated, 100 = segregated

Indian Removal Act of 1830

Forced the relocation of Native tribes to lands west of the Mississippi River

Indian Appropriations Act

Furthered removal and added that no Indian tribe could be seen as a formal, independent nation/party in which the U.S. could enter in treaties with

Dawes Act of 1887

Forced Native Americans to live in settlements intermingled with White Americans, reducing their power and unity as a group

Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968

Guaranteed Native Americans most of the same rights on the Bill of Rights

Refugee Act

Helped Vietnamese immigrants find a place to settle in the U.S. after Vietnam gained a communist government

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

Barred Chinese immigrants from coming to the U.S. because people blamed them for taking jobs, which resulted in limited travel between China and the U.S. and the formation of Chinatowns

Immigration Act of 1924

Further curtailed Chinese immigration and included the National Origins Act

National Origins Act

Part of the Immigration Act of 1924 that wanted to keep the U.S. population racially undiluted by barring the immigration of “undesirable” immigrants

Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965

Allowed Chinese immigration to resume and increase (and families were reunited)

California Alien Land Law of 1913

Prevented immigrants (including Asian and Japanese immigrants) from owning land

Model minority

A minority group stereotype that they are successful in education/socioeconomic levels without challenging the existing establishment; harmful because not everyone in the group meets these expectations

Bracero Program

Program in the 1940s-1950s which provided benefits to Mexican guest workers in America

Operation Wetback

A program in 1954 which deported thousands of illegal Mexican workers

Douglas Massey

Suggested that even though the standard of living in Mexico is lower than in America, it’s not low enough such that labor in America is the end goal of most Mexican workers

1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act

Made stricter rules on immigration and granted legal status to many immigrants currently in the U.S., which changed the immigration of Mexicans from seasonal to permanent

Cuban Migration Agreement of 1995

Sought to curtail Cuban immigration, which led to many Cubans trying to immigrate illegally by boat

Jacob Vigdor

Wrote in his book “Measuring Immigrant Assimilation in the United States” that Mexican immigrants experienced relatively low levels of assimilation

Arizona Senate Bill 1070

Gave police officers the right to detain any individual they suspected of being in the country illegally and made it a crime to not have documentation papers