Race & Ethnicity - Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Defining, Attaining, and Benefitting From Whiteness

Audit study

Research method used to identify patterns of racism on average. It involves the creation of fake auditors who are identical in all aspects, except for the category of focus (e.g., race). Auditors are then distributed to subjects in the real world and the researcher determines if any group is favored on average.

Boundaries

The dividing lines between social groups.

Direct racism

Form of racism that is direct, obvious, and intentional. Found often in racist laws and policies.

Dominant group

The group within a social hierarchy that maintains control of economic, political, social, and cultural power.

Fair Housing Act

Civil rights legislation from 1968 that protects people from racial discrimination in housing. Outlawed the racist real estate practices that produce racialized suburbanization and concentrated home equity among Whites.

Federal Housing Administration

Government agency created in 1934 with the task of designing mortgage rules and insuring loans for home construction and purchase.

Indirect racism

Form of racism that results in unequal outcomes but is only indirectly related to anything racial. Often seen through the legacy of previous direct racism.

Johnson-Reed Immigration Act

1924 immigration act intended to end immigration from southern and eastern European sources.

Naturalization

Process by which a person becomes a citizen of the United States.

Naturalization

The process through which an immigrant gains citizenship.

Racism

Historical, cultural, institutional, and interpersonal dynamics that create and maintain a racial hierarchy that advantages Whites and hurts people of color.

Social construction

The process through which social realities are created by society itself, rather than being natural, biological, or God-given.

Social norm

Patterns of behavior established by a culture and regarded as normal or expected.

Social norms

Rules for behavior that we take for granted as “normal” in everyday life.

Symbolic ethnicity

Nostalgic and superficial connections to one’s ethnic origin commonly practiced by White Americans.

Trump effect

The apparent connection between former president Trump’s controversial racial rhetoric and the commission of hate crimes documented in social research.

White privilege

Taken-for-granted ways in which society advantages Whites.