Chapter 7

Race: Myth & Reality

• Humans first emerged in Africa some 250,000 years ago. As humans spread throughout the world, their adaptations to diverse climates and other living conditions resulted in this profusion of colors, hair textures, and other physical variations. 

• There is no such thing as a “pure” race.

• Race and ethnicity are social constructions.

• They are defined and maintained through interaction.

• They do not exist biologically. They do not exist in the natural world but only in

• the social world.

• They have real consequences and are used as the basis for inequality.

• Race is so arbitrary that biologists and anthropologists cannot agree on how many “races” exist.

Race & Ethnicity

• Race: A socially constructed category of people who share physical characteristics that distinguish them from other groups. For hundreds of years, people in most societies have divided humanity into categories based on skin color, hair texture, facial features, and body shape.

• Ethnicity: A shared cultural heritage or characteristics, which typically involves common language, religion, nationality, history, or another cultural factor. Can be hidden.

• Sociologists see race and ethnicity as social constructions because they are not rooted in biological differences, they change over time, and they never have firm boundaries (e.g., White, Black, Asian, Hispanic).

• Genocide: The annihilation or attempted annihilation of a people because of their presumed race or ethnicity.

Minority and Dominant Groups

• Minority Group: People who are signaled out for unequal treatment and who regard themselves as discrimination (e.g., expansion through political boundaries, by migration).

• Dominant Group: The group with the most power, greatest privileges, and highest social status.

Racism, Prejudice, and Discrimination

Racism

• Prejudice and discrimination on the basis of race.

• A set of beliefs about the superiority of one racial or ethnic group.

• Used to justify inequality.

• Often rooted in the assumption that differences between groups are genetic.

• Rooted in white supremacy. 

• Combined with structural and systemic power. 

• Institutionalized racism is pervasive.

• If all racist people went away, racism would still exist because it is in our institutions. 

• It does not reside in any one person but it is in the fabric and patterned interactions (social structure).

• It is an ideology.

Prejudice

• (A thought process) An attitude or prejudgment, usually in a negative way.

• An idea about the characteristics of a group.

• Applied to all members of the group.

• Unlikely to change regardless of the evidence against it.

• Can be positive (e.g., Asians are smart, Black people are athletic) but typically negative.

• Contact Theory: The idea that prejudice and negative stereotypes decrease and racial-ethnic relations improve when people from different racial-ethnic backgrounds, who are of equal status, interact frequently.

• People can be prejudiced against their own group.

Discrimination

• (An action) An act of unfair treatment directed against an individual or a group.

• Unequal treatment of individuals because of their social group.

• Usually motivated by prejudice.

• Can be based on many characteristics (age, sex, weight, skin, color, sexual orientation, disability, etc.)

• Individual Discrimination (or racism): Discrimination carried out by one person against another.

• Institutionalized Discrimination (or racism): Discrimination carried out systematically by social institutions (political, economic, educational, and others) that affect all members of a group who come into contact with it (e.g., home mortgage (bank loans), healthcare, employment).

White Privilege

• Refers to the fact that white people, relative to those in minority categories, enjoy social advantages. Most non-minorities do not understand the disadvantages faced by minorities.

• Racism and discrimination disadvantages some but benefits others in the form of an invisible unseen privilege.

• Invisible Knapsack: Refers to the unearned resources (carried in the Invisible Knapsack) that are not in broad view or intended to be seen (e.g., “I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed).

• White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks.

Theories of Prejudice

Psychological Perspectives

• Frustration and Scapegoats -> People are unable to strike out at the real source (unfairly blamed). 

• The Authoritarian Personality ranks high on conformity, intolerance, insecurity, submissiveness (older, less educated, less intelligent, and lower social class).

Sociological Perspectives

• Functionalism -> How racial inequality is functional for society to maintain social order.

• Conflict Theory -> Racial and ethnic differences create intergroup conflict - Split Labor Force - People who are exploited and want to strike, employer says go ahead and says that another minority group will do it prob for lower wages. // Reserve Labor Force - Companies know economic booms are about to occur, so they open the job force for a short period of time until the boom decreases.

• Symbolic Interactionism -> Labels and Stereotypes - Race and ethnicity are part of our presentation of self.

Racial Breakup

• Whites (European Americans) - 62%, Latinos (Hispanics) - 17%, African Americans - 13%, Asian Americans - 5%, Native Americans - 1%, Claim two or more races - 2%

• Native Americans (Indigenous People): Conflict between American Indians and Europeans led to the destruction of the Native American civilization. Soldiers forcibly removed Natives from their homelands, causing thousands of deaths known as the Trail of Tears. Endured forced assimilation and moved them to reservations. Many American Indians still live on reservations with very high rares of poverty, abuse, depression, and suicide. Did not gain full citizenship until 1924.

• African Americans: Up to 1808 - Slave traders brough 500,000 Africans to the United States as slaves. 1857 - Dred Scott case affirmed that slaves were not citizens entitled to rights. 1863 - Emancipation Proclamation. 1865 - Thirteenth Amendment banning slavery. 1868 - Fourteenth Amendment granting citizenship to everyone born in the United States. After the Civil War: “Jim Crow” laws passed by states. After World War I - “Great Migration” brought thousands to the North; Harlem Renaissance. 1954 - Brown versus Board of Education ended school segregation. 1960s - Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act brought an end to the most legal discrimination. Today - people of African descent are still disadvantaged.

• Asian Americans: Include people with historical ties to dozens of Asian nations. -> The largest number have roots in China, the Philippines, India, South Korea, and Japan. Immigration from China and Japan began with the California Gold Rush of 1849. Once the economy slowed, whites pressured legislatures and courts to bar Asians from certain works. World War II: President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 relocated 100,000 Japanese Americans to military camps. Citizenship granted to Chinese Americans in 1943 and to Japanese Americans in 1952. By the 1980s, they were called the “model minority,” based on their cultural commitment to study and hard work Asian Americans.

• Hispanic Americans/Latinos: The largest U.S. minority group: 55.2 million people; 17.3% of the total population. Latinos are so numerous and their cultural contributions so great that Spanish has become the unofficial second language of the United States. Overall standing is below U.S. average: Mexican Americans have lowest relative ranking with the language barrier leading to limited job opportunities. Hispanic Americans, now the largest ethnic category in the U.S. population, are a hugely important segment of our society.

Global Patterns of Intergroup Relations: A Continuum

Video: How the US stole thousands of Native American children

• White people tried to act as a “savior” to eradicate Native Americans

• Richard Henry Pratt took prisoners of war and taught them English, how to read and write, had them wear military uniforms, and ran an assimilation experiment and took his results to the federal government. This project was funded in 1879.

• Carlisle Indian Industrial School was the first ever off-reservation boarding school for Native American children, taking them away from their families and culture.

• Pratt created propaganda to show that his experiment was “working.”

• The Adoption Era took off as boarding schools were forced to close as a continuation of the boarding school assimilation tactics for reasons, such as overcrowding, poverty, poor housing, lack of modern plumbing.

• Indian Children Welfare Act: Seeks to keep Indian children with Indian families.

Race, Ethnicity, and Life Chances

• Race and ethnicity influence all aspects of our lives:

• Health

• Education

• Work

• Family

• Interactions with the criminal justice system