Comprehensive Study Notes on Ethnicity and Ethnic Relations

Concepts of Minority Groups and Ethnic Subpopulations

• Terminology Preference: The terms "ethnic subpopulation" and "ethnic population" are preferred over "group" or "minority group" because they describe collected populations rather than small, face-to-face interactive groups.

• Classic Definition of Minority Group: Louis Wirth ($1945$, p. $347$) defined a minority group as:   > "A group of people who, because of their physical or cultural characteristics, are singled out from others in the society in which they live for differential and unequal treatment and who therefore regard themselves as objects of collective discrimination."

• Limitations of Wirth's Definition:

  • It targets individual members of a broader subpopulation rather than a cohesive face-to-face group.

  • The label "minority" is not always numerically accurate. Historically, numerical majorities have been subjected to discrimination (e.g., non-white populations in South Africa under apartheid).

• Revised Conceptualization:

  • Minority Group: An ethnic subpopulation in a society subject to discrimination by members of more powerful ethnic subpopulations.

  • Power Dynamics: The defining factor is power rather than numerical representation.

  • Dominant / Superordinate Ethnic Group: The ethnic subpopulation possessing the power to discriminate.

  • Subordinate Ethnic Group: The less powerful ethnic subpopulation that experiences discrimination.

Nature and Dimensions of Ethnic Discrimination

• General Definition of Discrimination: The process by which an individual, group, or subpopulation acts in ways that deny another individual, group, or subpopulation access to valued resources (e.g., jobs, income, education, health care, prestige, power).

• Ethnic Discrimination: Occurs when members of a superordinate ethnic subpopulation deny members of a subordinate ethnic subpopulation full access to valued resources.

• Reverse Discrimination:

  • Emphasizes scenarios where remedial programs designed to correct past discrimination against subordinate groups result in denying members of the dominant subpopulation equal access to resources (e.g., job placement or admission slots).

  • Controversy: Those denied access under affirmative measures are rarely the individuals who committed past discriminatory acts, leading to feelings of resentment and anger.

  • Political Debates: Citing research by Kinder and Sanders ($1990$), Thomas ($1990$), Feagins ($1990$), and Ross ($1990$), the discourse around "reverse discrimination" acts as a central ideological wedge in ethnic relations.

Types and Intensity Spectrum of Discrimination

Ethnic discrimination varies along a spectrum of intensity ranging from physical extermination to structural inclusion mechanisms:

• Genocide:

  • The most intense form of discrimination; involves systemic killing or total extermination of an ethnic subpopulation.

  • Historical Examples:

  • Nazi death camps and gas chambers targeting Jewish populations and others.

  • Exposure of Native Americans to lethal diseases alongside the military carnage of the Indian Wars.

  • "Ethnic cleansing" policies carried out by Serbians in the former Yugoslavia.

• Expulsion:

  • Forced exile of an ethnic subpopulation from a society. Less extreme than genocide because individuals retain life.

  • Direct vs. Indirect Expulsion:

  • Direct Expulsion: Coercive removal by state or military force.

  • Indirect Expulsion: Making living conditions so unviable and miserable that the subordinate population leaves "voluntarily."

  • Historical Example: Consideration by several U.S. presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, of establishing a dedicated black state in Africa to expel "free" black individuals.

• Segregation:

  • Spatial isolation of an ethnic subpopulation into distinct geographical areas, limiting their access to social and economic resources.

  • Historical Examples:

  • Post-World War II governmental and private housing policies in the United States that confined African Americans to decaying urban cores, withholding access to suburban jobs, schools, and housing.

  • Black townships and residential pass laws in South Africa.

  • The establishment of Indian reservations across the United States.

• Exclusion:

  • Policies and practices that deny members of an ethnic group access to specific positions or rights, independent of spatial segregation.

  • Historical Examples:

  • Complete denial of basic citizenship rights to enslaved populations.

  • Union exclusionary policies preventing African Americans from joining craft unions or advancing past basic job grades in industrial unions.

  • Political exclusion of African Americans and Latinos in the Southwestern U.S. via poll taxes, literacy tests, and gerrymandering.

• Selective Inclusion:

  • Allowing subordinate subpopulation members access to specific, restricted economic or occupational positions while excluding them from all others (a pincer movement).

  • Historical Examples:

  • European Jews historically excluded from general economic, political, and social roles but permitted into finance.

  • Early Chinese immigrants allowed to work on transcontinental railroads and open small service businesses.

  • Japanese immigrants in California during the $1920\text{s}$ excluded from industrial labor markets, shifting into agriculture and land ownership (Takaki, $1993$).

  • Contemporary Asian immigrants gaining access to retail business ownership while facing barriers in corporate white-collar executive structures.

  • Mexican American laborers restricted to low-wage agricultural labor and light industry while barred from educational, political, and corporate advancement.

Gender Dimension of Ethnic Discrimination

• Intersection of Gender and Ethnicity: Access to valued resources differs significantly between men and women within the same ethnic subpopulation.

• Income Discrepancies ($1999$ Data):

  • White American: Male median income = $\text{\\n37,931}$; Female median income = $\text{\\n27,199}$; Female-to-male earnings proportion = $0.72$

  • African American: Male median income = $\text{\\n26,897}$; Female median income = $\text{\\n22,765}$; Female-to-male earnings proportion = $0.85$

  • Latino: Male median income = $\text{\\n21,005}$; Female median income = $\text{\\n18,664}$; Female-to-male earnings proportion = $0.89$

  • Asian: Male median income = $\text{\\n35,293}$; Female median income = $\text{\\n29,112}$; Female-to-male earnings proportion = $0.82$

• Occupational Distribution Breakdown ($1998$ Current Population Survey & $1990$ Census):

  • Managerial and Professional Specialty:

  • White American: Male = $31.0\%$, Female = $34.1\%$

  • African American: Male = $16.8\%$, Female = $23.3\%$

  • Latino: Male = $12.0\%$, Female = $18.7\%$

  • Asian American: Male = $35.5\%$, Female = $33.0\%$

  • Native American ($1990$): Male = $13.5\%$, Female = $20.9\%$

  • Technical, Sales, and Administrative Support:

  • White American: Male = $20.7\%$, Female = $41.8\%$

  • African American: Male = $19.2\%$, Female = $39.7\%$

  • Latino: Male = $15.0\%$, Female = $37.6\%$

  • Asian American: Male = $24.9\%$, Female = $36.9\%$

  • Native American ($1990$): Male = $13.9\%$, Female = $22.4\%$

  • Service Occupations:

  • White American: Male = $8.2\%$, Female = $15.3\%$

  • African American: Male = $16.4\%$, Female = $24.5\%$

  • Latino: Male = $17.0\%$, Female = $25.0\%$

  • Asian American: Male = $13.6\%$, Female = $16.3\%$

  • Native American ($1990$): Male = $10.0\%$, Female = $22.1\%$

  • Precision Production, Craft, and Repair:

  • White American: Male = $18.4\%$, Female = $1.9\%$

  • African American: Male = $14.8\%$, Female = $2.1\%$

  • Latino: Male = $19.7\%$, Female = $2.3\%$

  • Asian American: Male = $11.2\%$, Female = $4.4\%$

  • Native American ($1990$): Male = $22.1\%$, Female = $3.2\%$

  • Operators, Fabricators, and Laborers:

  • White American: Male = $18.3\%$, Female = $5.7\%$

  • African American: Male = $31.7\%$, Female = $10.2\%$

  • Latino: Male = $27.8\%$, Female = $15.0\%$

  • Asian American: Male = $13.2\%$, Female = $8.5\%$

  • Native American ($1990$): Male = $35.1\%$, Female = $11.8\%$

  • Farming, Forestry, and Fishing:

  • White American: Male = $3.4\%$, Female = $1.2\%$

  • African American: Male = $1.1\%$, Female = $0.2\%$

  • Latino: Male = $8.5\%$, Female = $1.4\%$

  • Asian American: Male = $1.6\%$, Female = $0.9\%$

  • Native American ($1990$): Male = $5.4\%$, Female = $1.2\%$

• Structural Dynamics: Female minority populations suffer earnings penalties due to double concentrations in low-paying secretarial and administrative support fields and severe exclusion from unionized, high-wage precision craft and blue-collar trades.

Mechanics of Institutionalized Discrimination

• Isolated Acts of Discrimination: Individual acts denying resource access (e.g., a landlord refusing to sell to an Asian buyer, police brutality against minorities, or a supervisor denying promotion) remain isolated if they:

  1. Are not supported or sanctioned by broader cultural norms, values, and beliefs.

  2. Are not part of official policy within formal institutions (corporations, school boards, police forces).

  3. Are not pervasive features of daily informal social contact.

• Institutionalized Discrimination: Defined as discriminatory practices that are systematically backed by social norms, legal codes, and organizational structures, becoming standard operational procedures.

• Lag Effect of Historical Discrimination: Formal bans on discrimination do not eliminate structural disadvantages. Prior discrimination creates persistent physical and socio-economic inertia:

  • Segregation into urban slums limits exposure to quality education, infrastructure, and job networks.

  • Historical wealth exclusion prevents families from funding higher education or business ventures, creating an ongoing systemic barrier even in the absence of explicit present-day individual bias.

• Unintentional Institutional Discrimination:

  • Organizational structures can discriminate without explicit malice or discriminatory intent.

  • Educational Systems: Standardized testing, non-responsive curricula, and culturally insensitive teaching methods put minority and immigrant children at a structural disadvantage.

  • Citing research by Hilliard ($1988$), Medina ($1988$), Trueba ($1986$), and McCarthy ($1990$), school environments that alienate minority students drive up dropout rates, permanently cutting off students from credential-based labor markets.

System of Ethnic Stratification

• Definition: The hierarchical positioning of ethnic subpopulations caused by sustained discrimination, controlling resource distributions across society.

• Three Interrelated Processes:

  1. Distribution of resource shares (amount, level, and type of wealth, power, prestige, health, and education received).

  2. Location of the majority of an ethnic subpopulation within macro-level social hierarchies.

  3. Creation of distinctive group behavioral and socio-economic profiles that dominant groups then use as justification for ongoing prejudice and discrimination.

• Class Distribution: Discrimination causes subordinate populations to be disproportionately clustered in the lower and working classes, or restricted to narrow middle-class niches (e.g., small family-owned retail).

Structure of Ethnic Prejudice

• Definition: A system of negative beliefs and stereotypes applied to a category of people based on perceived or actual biological, behavioral, organizational, or cultural traits.

• La Piere's ($1934$) Empirical Disconnect Study:

  • Traveled across the U.S. with a Chinese couple, receiving courteous service at hotels and restaurants.

  • Subsequent survey sent to those exact establishment owners revealed that over $90\%$ stated they would refuse service to Chinese guests.

  • Conclusion: Explicit prejudice does not automatically correlate with direct individual discrimination in every situational encounter.

• Merton's ($1949$) Typology of Prejudice and Discrimination:

  1. All-Weather Liberals: Unprejudiced non-discriminators.

  2. Reluctant Liberals: Unprejudiced individuals who discriminate when social or business interests pressure them to do so.

  3. Timid Bigots: Prejudiced individuals who refrain from discriminating due to social or legal pressure (observed in La Piere's study).

  4. Active Bigots: Prejudiced individuals who actively discriminate without hesitation.

• Four Functions of Prejudicial Beliefs in Sustaining Stratification:

  1. Highlights specific traits to mark subordinate members as easily identifiable targets.

  2. Supplies negative mental images that legitimize unequal treatment.

  3. Generates fear and hostility, placing subordinate populations in constant social tension.

  4. Fosters a generalized culture of intolerance that easily expands to other marginalized groups (e.g., the disabled, the elderly).

Modes of Adaptation to Prejudice and Discrimination

Subordinate ethnic subpopulations utilize six primary adaptive strategies when confronted with systemic oppression:

1. Passive Acceptance:

   • Adopted when power differentials are overwhelming.

   • Frequently involves active interpersonal tactics rather than true passivity (e.g., the character Uncle Tom in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, using deference to navigate white dominance while preserving personal survival).

2. Marginal Participation:

   • Finding specialized economic niches untouched or ignored by the dominant majority (e.g., historical European Jewish involvement in finance, Chinese-operated service businesses, or Japanese agricultural dominance in $1920\text{s}$ California).

   • Less viable for large minority populations like African Americans or Chicanos due to their numerical size.

3. Assimilation:

   • The process of shedding distinct cultural traits to blend entirely into the superordinate culture.

   • Facilitated when racial or physical markers are less distinctive (e.g., Protestant Irish, German, Polish, Italian, and Catholic Irish immigrant populations in America).

   • Significantly harder for visibly distinct racial groups like African Americans.

4. Withdrawal and Self-Segregation:

   • Establishing independent, self-sustaining institutions, communities, and businesses isolated from dominant society.

   • Example: Early Black Muslim movement creating separate urban and rural communes.

   • Difficult to maintain long-term due to resource constraints and the pervasive reach of global media and urban economies.

5. Revolt and Rebellion:

   • Unorganized or volatile outbursts of physical aggression, hostility, and rioting.

   • Examples: Widespread U.S. urban riots in the $1960\text{s}$; the $1992$ Los Angeles riots triggered by the acquittal of white police officers in the beating of Rodney King.

6. Organized Protest:

   • Concerted, structured social movement activity aimed at dismantling policy and law enforcement patterns of discrimination.

   • Example: The Civil Rights Movement utilizing sit-ins, freedom rides, and legal advocacy organizations to alter U.S. social and legal landscapes.

Geographic Shift: Minority-Majority Urban Centers

According to $1990$ U.S. Census Data, combined minority populations (African Americans, Latinos, and Asians) formed the numerical majority in $51$ of the $200$ U.S. cities with populations exceeding $100,000$. Between $1980$ and $1990$, $20$ cities crossed the threshold into minority-majority status.

Census Data on Minority Population Shares ($1990$ vs. $1980$):

• Atlanta, GA: $1990$ = $69.7\%$, $1980$ = $67.9\%$

• Baltimore, MD: $1990$ = $61.3\%$, $1980$ = $56.3\%$

• Birmingham, AL: $1990$ = $64.2\%$, $1980$ = $56.3\%$

• Bridgeport, CT

  • Transitioned to minority-majority state between $1980$ and $1990$

  • $1990$ = $54.0\%$, $1980$ = $39.6\%$

• Chicago, IL: $1990$ = $61.9\%$, $1980$ = $56.0\%$

• Chula Vista, CA

  • Transitioned to minority-majority state between $1980$ and $1990$

  • $1990$ = $50.0\%$, $1980$ = $31.3\%$

• Cleveland, OH

  • Transitioned to minority-majority state between $1980$ and $1990$

  • $1990$ = $52.1\%$, $1980$ = $47.3\%$

• Corpus Christi, TX: $1990$ = $56.0\%$, $1980$ = $52.3\%$

• Dallas, TX

  • Transitioned to minority-majority state between $1980$ and $1990$

  • $1990$ = $52.2\%$, $1980$ = $42.7\%$

• Detroit, MI: $1990$ = $79.2\%$, $1980$ = $65.9\%$

• East Los Angeles, CA: $1990$ = $97.0\%$, $1980$ = $95.7\%$

• El Monte, CA: $1990$ = $84.6\%$, $1980$ = $65.1\%$

• El Paso, TX: $1990$ = $73.5\%$, $1980$ = $66.5\%$

• Elizabeth, NJ

  • Transitioned to minority-majority state between $1980$ and $1990$

  • $1990$ = $60.0\%$, $1980$ = $45.6\%$

• Flint, MI

  • Transitioned to minority-majority state between $1980$ and $1990$

  • $1990$ = $51.6\%$, $1980$ = $44.5\%$

• Fresno, CA

  • Transitioned to minority-majority state between $1980$ and $1990$

  • $1990$ = $50.3\%$, $1980$ = $36.2\%$

• Gary, IN: $1990$ = $85.8\%$, $1980$ = $77.8\%$

• Hartford, CT: $1990$ = $69.1\%$, $1980$ = $54.5\%$

• Hialeah, FL: $1990$ = $89.0\%$, $1980$ = $75.8\%$

• Honolulu, HI: $1990$ = $74.3\%$, $1980$ = $69.7\%$

• Houston, TX

  • Transitioned to minority-majority state between $1980$ and $1990$

  • $1990$ = $59.2\%$, $1980$ = $47.1\%$

• Inglewood, CA: $1990$ = $91.1\%$, $1980$ = $77.6\%$

• Jackson, MS

  • Transitioned to minority-majority state between $1980$ and $1990$

  • $1990$ = $56.6\%$, $1980$ = $47.7\%$

• Jersey City, NJ: $1990$ = $63.1\%$, $1980$ = $50.1\%$

• Laredo, TX: $1990$ = $94.3\%$, $1980$ = $93.2\%$

• Long Beach, CA: $1990$ = $50.2\%$, $1980$ = $30.9\%$

• Los Angeles, CA: $1990$ = $62.4\%$, $1980$ = $51.0\%$

• Macon, GA

  • Transitioned to minority-majority state between $1980$ and $1990$

  • $1990$ = $53.1\%$, $1980$ = $45.3\%$

• Memphis, TN

  • Transitioned to minority-majority state between $1980$ and $1990$

  • $1990$ = $56.3\%$, $1980$ = $48.5\%$

• Miami, FL: $1990$ = $87.7\%$, $1980$ = $80.1\%$

• New Haven, CT

  • Transitioned to minority-majority state between $1980$ and $1990$

  • $1990$ = $50.8\%$, $1980$ = $40.6\%$

• New Orleans, LA: $1990$ = $66.8\%$, $1980$ = $59.5\%$

• New York, NY

  • Transitioned to minority-majority state between $1980$ and $1990$

  • $1990$ = $56.5\%$, $1980$ = $47.2\%$

• Newark, NJ: $1990$ = $83.1\%$, $1980$ = $76.7\%$

• Oakland, CA: $1990$ = $71.5\%$, $1980$ = $64.0\%$

• Ontario, CA

  • Transitioned to minority-majority state between $1980$ and $1990$

  • $1990$ = $52.7\%$, $1980$ = $32.4\%$

• Oxnard, CA: $1990$ = $67.5\%$, $1980$ = $56.5\%$

• Pasadena, CA

  • Transitioned to minority-majority state between $1980$ and $1990$

  • $1990$ = $53.1\%$, $1980$ = $43.9\%$

• Paterson, NJ: $1990$ = $75.1\%$, $1980$ = $62.7\%$

• Pomona, CA: $1990$ = $71.6\%$, $1980$ = $52.5\%$

• Richmond, VA: $1990$ = $57.0\%$, $1980$ = $52.3\%$

• Salinas, CA

  • Transitioned to minority-majority state between $1980$ and $1990$

  • $1990$ = $61.0\%$, $1980$ = $47.0\%$

• San Antonio, TX: $1990$ = $63.6\%$, $1980$ = $61.6\%$

• San Bernardino, CA

  • Transitioned to minority-majority state between $1980$ and $1990$

  • $1990$ = $54.2\%$, $1980$ = $42.1\%$

• San Francisco, CA

  • Transitioned to minority-majority state between $1980$ and $1990$

  • $1990$ = $53.2\%$, $1980$ = $46.2\%$

• San Jose, CA

  • Transitioned to minority-majority state between $1980$ and $1990$

  • $1990$ = $50.2\%$, $1980$ = $35.1\%$

• Santa Ana, CA: $1990$ = $76.7\%$, $1980$ = $53.8\%$

• Savannah, GA: $1990$ = $53.8\%$, $1980$ = $50.6\%$

• Stockton, CA

  • Transitioned to minority-majority state between $1980$ and $1990$

  • $1990$ = $56.2\%$, $1980$ = $41.2\%$

• Vallejo, CA: $1990$ = $53.7\%$, $1980$ = $38.7\%$

• Washington, DC: $1990$ = $72.5\%$, $1980$ = $73.6\%$