Chp 9 Race, Ethnicity and Class: Understanding Identity and Social Inequality

Hindu texts

Based on ________, varna is the hierarchy of Brahmans (priests), Kshatriyas (warriors and rulers), Vaishyas (traders), and Shudras (artisans and servants)

Social inequality

________ requires the consent of those who benefit from it.

Ethnicity

________ may be based on any number of cultural traits: language or dialect, clothing, foodways, etiquette, or bodily modifications such as tattoos or piercings.

biological inferiority

Americans equated lower socioeconomic status with ________ and lesser intelligence, thus naturalizing wealth and the capacity to acquire it.

Prejudice

________- preformed, usually unfavorable opinions that people hold about people from groups who are different from their own.

Socioeconomic status

________ is a quantifiable category, but its social implications are more complicated.

Peggy McIntosh

________ (1997) shows that having relatively light skin pigmentation in the United States as an unearned privilege because light- skinned people may do everyday things without additional attention or judgment directed at them.

American scientists

European and ________ have long tried to naturalize race, or categorize humans into racial groups and explain why nature organizes people into those groups.

Instrumentalism

________- a social theory that ethnic groups are not naturally occurring or stable but instead are highly dynamic groups created to serve the interests of one powerful group or another.

skin tone

Racial markets (________, facial features) are arbitrary and variable.

Intersectionality

________- the circumstantial interplay of race, class, gender, sexuality, and other identity markers in the expression of prejudicial beliefs and discriminatory actions.

Caste

________- the system of social stratification found in Indian society that divides people into categories according to moral purity and pollution.

Race

________ is assumed to have some biological reality tied to physical appearance.

Discrimination

________- the negative or unfair treatment of an individual because of his or her membership in a particular social group or category.

Naturalization

________- the social processes through which something becomes part of the natural order of things.

Racialization

________- the social, economic, and political processes of transforming populations into races and creating racial meanings.

Irish Americans

________ are an excellent example of the fluidity of culturally constructed racial categories.

Social stratification

________ (the classification of people into unequal groupings) may be formalized as caste: the system found in Indian society that divides people into categories according to moral purity and pollution.

Jati

________ are actual social groupings, but varna are the larger caste groupings in practice.

heart medication BiDil

The ________ was developed for and tested on African Americans.

Jati hierarchies

________ are often based on occupation so in a single village may have more than a dozen jati.

Biological variation

________ is clinical, meaning that change is gradual across groups and traits shade and blend into one another.

Discrimination

________: the negative or unfair treatment of an individual because of his or her membership in a particular social group or category.

Ethnicity

________: belonging to a group with a particular history and social status.

Race

________ and ethnicity are sometimes used interchangeably in the United States, but the terms have distincly different meanings.

Prejudice

________ is based on a number of markers, because people have multiple identities.

Social stratification

________- the classification of people into unequal groupings.

Discrimination

________ occurs in many forms, most notably explicit and disguised.

Race

________- a concept that organizes people into groups based on specific physical traits that are thought to reflect fundamental and innate differences.

prejudice

But ________ and discrimiantion are developed in cultural contexts (although they are ubiquitous in socially stratified societies)

Racism

________: the repressive practices, structures, beliefs, and representations that uphold racial categories and social inequality.

4

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This is race

a concept that organizes people into groups based on specific physical traits that are thought to reflect fundamental and innate differences

Chapter 9 focuses on the question

If differences of identity are not rooted in biology, why do they feel so real, powerful, and unchangeable

This is just one example of the idea of human races and naturalization

the social processes through which something, such as race, becomes part of the natural order of things

Yet, the project of naturalization has one basic flow

there is no single biological trait or genre unique to any group or race of people

Racism

the repressive practices, structures, beliefs, and representations that uphold racial categories and social inequality

Discrimination

the negative or unfair treatment of an individual because of his or her membership in a particular social group or category

Races are constructed through racialization

the social, economic, and political processes of transforming populations into races and creating racial meanings

But history illustrates at least one example of regression

in the earliest days of European colonies in North America, Africans were not viewed as racially inferior-and certainly not considered "property."

See "Thinking Like an Anthropologist

Counting and Classifying Race in the American Census"

Race, and racism, are all too real, in addition to other bases for discrimination

ethnicity, class, and caste

Ethnicity

belonging to a group with a particular history and social status

Ethnicity may be based on any number of cultural traits

language or dialect, clothing, foodways, etiquette, or bodily modifications such as tattoos or piercings

The reality of ethnic groups is more accurately explained by instrumentalism

a social theory that ethnic groups are not naturally occurring or stable but highly dynamic groups created to serve the interests of one powerful group or another

Other forms of social stratification may be based on class

the hierarchical distinctions between social groups in society usually based on wealth, occupation, and social standing

Social stratification (the classification of people into unequal groupings) may be formalized as caste

the system found in Indian society that divides people into categories according to moral purity and pollution

Below these are the so-called untouchables, who do the dirty work of Indian society

metalwork, garbage collection, leather working, and so on

As frustrating as the social learning of prejudice can be, it offers one positive conclusion

learned behavioral patterns can be unlearned

Perhaps the most disguised, or unrecognized, aspect of discrimination is unearned privilege

an unnoticed and underappreciated lack of discrimination against certain groups

Caste

the system of social stratification found in Indian society that divides people into categories according to moral purity and pollution

Class

the hierarchical distinctions between social groups in society, usually based on wealth, occupation, and social standing

Discrimination

the negative or unfair treatment of an individual because of his or her membership in a particular social group or category

Ethnicity

a concept that organizes people into groups based on their membership in a group with a particular history, social status, or ancestry

Instrumentalism

a social theory that ethnic groups are not naturally occurring or stable but instead are highly dynamic groups created to serve the interests of one powerful group or another

Intersectionality

the circumstantial interplay of race, class, gender, sexuality, and other identity markers in the expression of prejudicial beliefs and discriminatory actions

Naturalization

the social processes through which something becomes part of the natural order of things

Prejudice

preformed, usually unfavorable opinions that people hold about people from groups who are different from their own

Race

a concept that organizes people into groups based on specific physical traits that are thought to reflect fundamental and innate differences

Racialization

the social, economic, and political processes of transforming populations into races and creating racial meanings

Racism

the repressive practices, structures, beliefs, and representations that uphold racial categories and social inequality

Social stratification

the classification of people into unequal groupings