Anthro 101 "Race and Ethnicity" - Exam 1

Define race (Golash Boza)

(1) social construction to describe people by shared physical/cultural traits and ancestry 

(2) Implies people can be divided into biologically exclusive groups based on physical and cultural traits

Define race (textbook)

A system that ranks people in hierarchies using physical traits as if they were innate differences rooted in genetic and biological differences

Define ethnicity (Golash Boza) 

Group identity based on notions of similar and shared history, culture, and kinship

Define ethnicity (textbook) 

Etic term developed in the early 1900s to denote a shared origin

Sources of ethnic solidarity?

• Shared language 

• Shared beliefs, customs, norms, and religion

• Collective name 

• Belief in common descent 

• Shared historical experience or “origin story” 

  • Can mean shared geographic origin, or more of a shared lifestyle 

• Connection to a place

Do origin stories need to be fact? Example?

Origin stories don’t need to be historical fact; they can unify people through shared identity. 

• Rome: founded by Romulus/Remus, myth of divine ancestry 

• Tenochtitlan (Aztec): founded where an eagle landed on a cactus eating a snake

Audrey Smedley’s argument on race?

Race is social, not biological, but has real effects (making it powerful)

3 things race is not?

Not biological, not universal, not ahistorical (race is recent, invented in modern times)

Define assimilation

adopting majority culture, losing identity

Define Multiculturalism

coexistence of diverse cultures

Metaphors: 

1. Melting pot → sameness, blending 

2. Salad→differences remain, but COEXIST IN ONE WHOLE

What was Bacon’s Rebellion’s racial impact?

Led elites to intensify racial laws to divide Black & white workers.

•  An armed rebellion where indentured servants (poor whites) and enslaved Africans united against the wealthy planter elite. 

Why is Angela’s site important?

Archaeological evidence of early enslaved Africans’ lives in Jamestown.

• Help reconstruct the lives of the first enslaved Africans

• Angela was one of the first enslaved woman that arrived in 1619

Indentured servitude

• primarily Europeans.

• Labor for a fixed term (7 years) in exchange for passage to America.

• Not hereditary 

Enslavement

• Primarily Africans.

• Permanent, hereditary bondage with no rights.

• Became the preferred labor system for plantations.

What is racialization?

Process of creating/defining racial categories and meanings.

Seneca Village, NYC

• Community in what is now Central Park in New York City where enslavement took place

• Enslavement was not confined to the south because it was legal in New York until 1827

I-375 and the destruction of Black Bottom and Paradise Valley, Detroit (be able to describe the connection between these sites)

• Black bottom and paradise valley were dense black communities in Detroit

• In the 40s/50s city leaders (motivated by racist policies) campaigned on keeping Black people out of white neighborhoods → “slum clearance”

• they implemented the construction of I-375 to get rid of the communities for “sum clearance”

• left many black people in poverty

CONNECTION BETWEEN SENECA AND I-375 

Examples of the destruction of prosperous Black communities through urban planning and “renewal” projects

Birchwood Wall at 8 Mile, Detroit

• Mall which acted as historical boundary between Black Detroit neighborhoods and mostly white suburbs. 

• Showed how space and urban planning REINFORCED RACIAL HIERARCHIES similar to Seneca and Black Bottom/Paradise Valley → urban development hurt black communities

Ozawa vs. Thind court cases?

Ozawa = Japanese denied “whiteness” despite light skin. → Was not given citizenship because his race was not caucasian (white)
Thind = Indian Sikh denied “whiteness” despite being Caucasian. → Was not given citizenship because his race was not white since he came from India despite being called Caucasian

FHA & GI Bill racial discrimination?

• Government programs designed to help americans buy homes/get loans after great depression and WWII 

• Racial discrimination in these housing programs and in housing in general

• excluded black families with redlining and blockbusting

• These policies made segregation physical and economic.

• Being white = wealth

• Being black = poor

Redlining

• maps were drawn marking Black neighborhoods as “hazardous (red)

• denying them loans and insurance

• Segregated cities and prevented Black wealth accumulation.

Blockbusting

• Real estate agents would scare white homeowners into selling cheap by claiming Black families were moving in

• Resell the houses at inflated prices to Black buyers 

Titus Kaphar’s TED Talk, “Can Art Amend History?”

• Art and culture are not just decorative or passive

• They are deeply intertwined with inequality, shaping what societies remember, value, and who is made invisible.

What does Alexander argue about race in U.S. history?

Race evolves as a system of social control; not fixed, but continually reshaped.

• Systems of control that relate to race do not end with the abolition of slavery during the U.S. civil war. 

• Nor do they end after the dismantling of de jure Jim Crow laws and the Civil Rights Movement.

De facto

• something can exist in reality, REGARDLESS OF LEGAL RECOGNITION

• racial caste system within the U.S. (still exists today)

De Jure

• something that exists BY LEGAL RIGHTS OR OFFICIAL MANDATE

• Jim Crow Laws

What was Indian Removal Act (1830)?

A law signed by President Jackson forcing Native Americans from the Southeast to west of the Mississippi.

What was the purpose of the Indian Removal Act?

To open land for white settlers, especially cotton farming.

What was the Trail of Tears?

The deadly relocation of Native Americans caused by the Indian Removal Act.

Key idea of the Indian Removal Act?

Race was used to justify “civilizing” Natives and legitimizing land seizure.

What was the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)?

A U.S. law banning Chinese laborers from immigrating for 10 years.

What was the purpose of the Chinese Exclusion Act?

To protect white workers’ jobs amid anti-Chinese sentiment.

Who was most affected by the Chinese Exclusion Act?

Chinese immigrants, especially railroad and mining workers.

What was the significance of the Chinese Exclusion Act?

It was the first major U.S. immigration law restricting entry based on race/nationality.

Key idea of the Chinese Exclusion Act?

Codified racial discrimination in U.S. immigration policy.

Look at patterns of how race has been as (in Alexander’s words) a “wedge” to break up powerful multiracial coalitions. 

• Race has been used to divide groups that could unite politically or economically

• to give a strategic advantage to a certain group who deem themselves to be seen as “above”

• Race is NOT about skin color – it’s a TOOL OF SOCIAL CONTROL

What is Horace Pippin’s “Mr. Prejudice” painting

Painting of a man physically splitting or pushing people apart along racial lines

Horace Pippin’s “Mr. Prejudice” painting connection to the “wedge”

visual representation of how prejudice/racism divides people who could otherwise units