Sociological Perspective on Race

Social Construction

• A social phenomenon that was invented by human beings and is shaped by the social forces present in the time and place of its creation.

Social Construction of Race

• Race as we know it has no deterministic biological basis: but nonetheless, race is so powerful that it can have life-or-death consequences.

  • Race is a classification system invented by people

  • Not the work of a single person, but of masses of people

  • As societies change, so do ideas about race

    • People who we now consider to be entirely white, would not be considered white in the past

• Humans, regardless of their race, are 99.9% genetically identical

• Race is more meaningful to us on a social level than it is on a biological level

• Race can be defined as a group of people who share a set of characteristics—usually physical ones—and are said to share a common bloodline.

  • A lot of our ideas around race are extremely problematic

• Racism is the belief that members of separate races possess different and

• unequal human traits.

• Ethnocentrism is the judgment of other groups by one’s own standards and values.

• Social Darwinism the disproven notion that some groups or races had evolved more than others and thus were better fit to survive and even to rule other races

  • Theories about how certain races have evolved

    • When we brought African slaves over on “cruise ships”, people who were able to survive the journey were people who were better able to retain water and hence had higher BP, which is why we see higher BP today

      • Actually higher BP is because of stress from institutionalized racism

• Model minority myth

  • Not all populations have the same experiences

  • Some populations of asian americans have thrived while others have suffered

    • Do not assume that you can look at someone and assume their traits

• Eugenics the ‘science’ of genetic lines and the inheritable traits they pass on from generation to generation

  • claimed that traits could be traced through bloodlines and bred into populations (for positive traits) or out of them (for negative traits)

Color-Blind Racism

• As overt racism declines, scholars are beginning to find traces of a new kind of racism gaining ground. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva calls this color-blind racism.

  • This new kind of racism replaces biology with culture and presumes that there is something fixed, innate, and inferior about nonwhite cultural values

    • Reinforces historical and contemporary inequities

    • If we treat everyone the same then the racist experiences that marginalized groups have faced will disappear

Individual racism isn’t as terrible as institutionalized racism

• Belief that America is founded on racist principles that are so pervasive that it is hard to escape them in any aspect of our lives

Concept of Race

• The one-drop rule, which evolved from US laws forbidding miscegenation, was the belief that “one drop” of black blood makes a person black.

  • Would keep people from engaging in relations with people of other races

• Application of this rule was intended to keep the white population “pure” and lumped anyone with black blood into one category.

• This rule was critical in the Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld the Jim Crow laws.

  • Anti miscegenation rules kept people from interacting with each other because the less you interact with someone the less likely you are to marry them

• Miscegenation is the technical term for a multiracial marriage.

  • Loving vs. Virginia (1967)

    • US Supreme Court decided that people could intermarry with people from a different racial category

    • Last miscegenation law removed in early 2000s

Racism: the Gardener (Dr. Cameron Jones)

• Institutionalized Racism

  • Racism that is built into the laws and regulations of our social world

    • Eg: red lining: state sponsored action to put risk levels into the maps of neighborhoods that were for sale

      • If more minority residents, it was listed as higher risk

        • If higher risk, no mortgage and hence rental properties

      • White flight: white families leaving the mixed minority neighborhood to get a better financial outcome on their houses

        • Have loans that allow them to buy homes inexpensively

      • Less chance of better outcome made the areas undesirable and only the people who couldn't afford to move were left there

    • Laws set by governments to disadvantaged people of color

      • Can be obvious or insidious

        • Less money spent on school districts that are majority minority

          • Kids that graduate have less potential to go to college and make as much money

        • Hiring policies (high likelihood of getting a job if candidate looks like the manager that is doing the hiring)

    • Can be fixed only by making NEW laws that will fix the old laws

      • If action isn’t taken, the others can’t be fixed as effectively either

• Personally-Mediated Racism

  • Still extremely problematic

  • One individual actor that is acting in racist ways

    • Eg: A loan company makes it so that it is higher to get loans in one neighborhood (majority minority) than another (all white)

  • Individual actions that are racialized and have negative consequences for a person of color that is impacted by that

    • Eg: someone crossing the street to avoid a black person

    • Eg: Anthropologie made an announcement calling security guard to the front when a black customer came in

  • Can be fixed through education and discussion

• Internalized Racism

  • Appears as people starting to believe that the dominant racial group is better and hence the people take actions to start acting like the dominant group

    • Eg: asian newscasters having eye surgery to look more white

    • Black women straightening natural hair to give it a white appearance

    • Jewish people having nose jobs to have a “whiter nose”

    • Children selecting the white dolls

  • Can be fixed through education and discussion

Fastest growing minority group?

• Blacks

  • Fairly steady as of now

• Latinos

  • This is the fastest growing

• Asians

  • Slightly growing

• Native Americans

  • Decreasing

Race is not just Black and White

The changing face of America 1950-2050

• Percent of Total Population

• 

• In 1950, we were majority white (87%) and projections for 2050 put us at 47% white.

• The Hispanic population is growing rapidly

  • Latino and Hispanic population is very close to the same

    • Most are of Mexican origin

    • Latinx: people whose ancestry comes from Latin American countries

      • People from Spain not included since Spain is not in Latin America

    • Hispanic: people whose ancestry comes from Spanish speaking countries

      • Brazil no included because majority speaks Portuguese

    • In census number, they included people from any Spanish speaking country

• 

• As of 2016 our population is 62% white, non hispanic

Indigenous People

• Today, people claiming at least some Native American ancestry number about 5.6 million.

• Only about one-fifth of Native Americans live in a designated American Indian area.

• Native Americans rank among the worst in terms of high-school dropout rates and unemployment, which go hand in hand with poor health outcomes such as alcoholism, suicide, and premature death.

  • We do provide healthcare for the indigenous people, but it's a very bad system

• There are major differences when we look between tribes so it becomes difficult to make generalizations

African Americans/Black Americans

• African Americans

  • Today about 12.7 percent of the American population is black.

  • The median income of African Americans as a group is roughly 62.8 percent that of whites.

    • Higher policing and hence incarceration levels

  • Among men ages 25 to 39, blacks are imprisoned 2.5 times and 6 times as often as Hispanics and whites, respectively.

  • Sociologists today are beginning to study how new black immigrants are fracturing the holistic conception of “African American.”

College Graduates by Race and Ethnicity

• % with a college degree (among adults age 25+)

  • 

Median Household Income by Race/Ethnicity

Median Household Wealth, 2011

• In 2011 dollars

  • 

  • Numbers have gotten worse

Latino Americans

• Latino, like the term Hispanic (the two are often used interchangeably), refers to a diverse group of people of Latin or Hispanic origin.

• In 2012 Latinos made up approximately 17 percent of the population.

• In 2013, the majority of Latinos in the United States were from Mexico (about 63.2%), Puerto Rico (about 9.5%), Cuba (3.9%), and the Dominican Republic (3.3%).

• Can we talk about Latinos as one?

  • 

  • When we look at different backgrounds for Latinx populations, we find major differences in what we call American success

    • Homeownership rate for Cuban Americans is much higher than Dominican Americans

    • Education levels for Cubans are still high and median household income is also decent

      • During the communist scare, there were a number of policies created to diminish the power of Castro

        • Cubans who entered the US during this time, were provided help with job placement, housing benefits, etc.

        • When we help people, they do better

        • Because of these programs, the people who were coming over from Cuba tended to be of a higher SES

      • Programs helping immigrants are helpful in reducing poverty and government reliance, but it takes time

        • The data is 60 years or so after the programs that helped the Cubans were established

  • Most Hispanics in the US have Mexican Origins

    • 

    • Most hispanics are of mexican origin

• Is “Latino” race or ethnicity

  • For the first time ever, the 2000 Census allowed respondents to check off more than one box for racial identity.

    • If look at the way other countries (african nations, South America) calculate race, they differentiate between different types of black and have different words for different parts of Asia and Africa

    • The US lumps a whole lot of cultures together (Asia for example)

      • Start by asking if someone is of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin

      • If you say Hispanic, nothing else would matter (you’re just lumped in Hispanic)

        • We say it’s not a racial category btu we use it like one

      • For the rest of it, yo can mark more than one box

        • Some censuses will mark all multiple boxes as multiracial

        • Some others will form a hierarchy of race

          • Use racial category that is most likely to cause problem as the identifier

            • If you’re from Iran, it's hard to categorize your race

              • If two people from Iran mark different categories, the data is fucked up

              • We can’t tell how accurate it is because there is a problem when categorizing people of Middle Eastern descent

      • Given extreme activity of immigration enforcement, there would be a tremendous reduction in people filling out the census if we asked them to report if they’re illegal immigrants

    • Census may not give you the best data

      • Asks for no. of people in the house, age, gender, race, etc.

        • Provides no insight into the levels of racial bias experienced

        • May help understand the population a little better but it's not all that helpful

  • About 9 million self-identified as multiracial by checking more than one race box in 2010.

Asian Americans

• Research shows that no matter how many generations have been in America, Asian Americans will always be seen as ‘foreign’

• Achievements in income, education, etc. have led to Asian Americans being seen more like Whites

• Greater rates of inter-marriage among Asian-Americans than other racial/ethnic groups

• Model minority myth

Middle Eastern Americans

• Middle Easterners come from places as diverse as the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, Iran, Iraq, and the Palestinian territories.

• Today about 2 million Americans report Arab ancestry, and even more Americans have a Middle Eastern heritage, because not all Middle Easterners are Arab.

• Widespread misunderstandings about Middle Easterners derive, in part, from their negative stereotyping in the mainstream media.

• No way of counting them on the census

Being White

• “White” is a flexible label that has expanded over time to include many formerly nonwhite groups such as Jews, Irish, and Italians.

• Peggy McIntosh argues that whiteness is an “invisible knapsack of privileges” that puts white people at an advantage, just as racism places nonwhites at a disadvantage.

Intermarriage trend 1980-2010

• % married someone of a different race/ethnicity

  • 

• % of newlyweds in 2010 who married someone of a different race or ethnicity

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Acceptance of Interracial Families

• Acceptance of mixed-race couples is more likely to be found in black families.

• About three-quarters of Latino families would accept black people.

• Among Asian Americans:

  • 77% would accept a White family member

  • 71% would accept a Latino.

  • 66% would accept a Black person.

• Black/White Couples are still the least common.