constructing the problemmyresource.phoenix.edu/secure/resource/eth125r7/social problems 4… ·...

Is prejudice simply aboutwhat people think?

Prejudice and discrimination doinvolve individual attitudes, but bothare also built into the operation ofsociety.

What are minorities? Are they justcategories of people with small numbers?

Being a minority is mainly about power. Societiesconstruct minority categories as they give morepower and privileges to some than to others.

What is race? Is it only aboutskin color?

Race involves socially constructedcategories that often give peopleadvantages over others.

CONSTRUCTING THE PROBLEM

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Social Problems, Census Edition, Fourth edition, by John J. Macionis. Published by Merrill Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2012 by Pearson Education, Inc.

Racial and Ethnic Inequality

CHAPTER 3

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On a winter morning in 2008, a former president of the United

States joined a panel at a conference hosted by a major uni-

versity in Philadelphia to discuss the state of racial and ethnic

relations in the United States. Bill Clinton began by recalling how, back in

1967, the city of Detroit had exploded in violence on a hot July day, unleashing a

riot that lasted for almost a week. When the violence finally came to an end, 2,000

buildings had been burned across 14 square miles of the city, hundreds of people

were injured, and forty-six men and women were dead.

Making sense of this tragic event, a 1968 government commission concluded

that the basic cause of the rioting was white racism and warned that “our nation

is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.”

President Clinton then reminded the audience that just a few weeks after the

release of the Kerner Commission report, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed in Memphis, which

sparked rioting in 100 more cities across the country.

Clinton then stated, “We should not have to have a riot to do the right things.” The generation of people who

came of age in the 1960s has grown up and is now nearing retirement age. The children and grandchildren of

the ’60s generation are now taking their places at the center of U.S. society. Over past decades, how much has

changed in the United States in terms of race relations? President Clinton was quick to offer some positive com-

ments: “The general acceptance of people from other races and religions into our political life is something of

enormous significance—inconceivable when I grew up in the segregated South” (cited in Popp, 2008:19).

As this chapter explains, racial and ethnic inequality is still with us today. In some respects, the inequality

has decreased—for example, no one back in 1967 could have imagined electing an African American to be presi-

dent of the United States. Yet in other respects, the gaps remain almost as wide as they were back then.

Race and ethnicity are the foundation for many issues that peo-ple come to define as social problems. To understand why thisis the case, we need to answer some basic questions: What is“race”? How do race and ethnicity affect our everyday lives?How do they figure into problems of social inequality? Thischapter will also explore a range of related issues, includingprejudice, discrimination, segregation, multiculturalism, andaffirmative action. We start with a look at the central conceptsof race and ethnicity.

Race and EthnicityIn the United States and other countries, race and ethnicity areimportant aspects of social identity, just as they are majordimensions of social inequality. Yet many people are not quitesure what race and ethnicity are all about. Our first step is toclarify the meanings of the concepts.

RaceRace is a socially constructed category of people who share biologi-cally transmitted traits that members of a society define as important.For hundreds of years, societies have divided humanity intocategories based on skin color, hair texture, facial features, andbody shape.

Race has nothing to do with being human. All peopleeverywhere belong to a single biological species, Homo sapiens(Latin words meaning “thinking person”), that first emerged inAfrica some 250,000 years ago. But societies may attach impor-tance to physical differences that developed over thousands ofgenerations among people living in different regions of theworld. In tropical areas, humans living in the hot sun developeddarker skin from a natural pigment called melanin; in coolerregions, humans developed lighter skin.

If people had never moved from the place where they wereborn, everyone in any given geographic area of the world would

56 CHAPTER 3 Racial and Ethnic Inequality

CHAPTER OVERVIEWWHAT IS RACE AND ETHNICITY? How are they related to social inequality? Thischapter explores the social standing of various racial and ethnic categories of theU.S. population and describes examples of genocide, segregation, assimilation,and pluralism in our nation’s history. You will carry out theoretical analysis of racialand ethnic inequality and learn how “problems” and “solutions” involving diversityreflect people’s political attitudes.

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look pretty much the same. But throughout his-tory, people have migrated from place to place,and this movement has spread the physical traitscarried in our genes the world over.

This is especially true among people living inthe world’s “crossroads” regions, such as the MiddleEast, who display a great deal of physical diversity.On the other hand, historically isolated people havemany physical traits in common. For example,almost all Japanese people have black hair.

When Was Race Invented?

Centuries ago, global trade brought the world’speople into greater contact, raising awareness ofhuman diversity. By the late 1500s, Europeans beganusing the term race. By about 1800, European sci-entists came up with three broad classificationsfor humanity. They coined the term Caucasian(meaning European and Western Asian) to desig-nate people with light skin and fine hair; Negroid(derived from Latin meaning “black”) to refer topeople with dark skin and the coarse, curly hairtypical of people living in sub-Saharan Africa; andMongoloid (referring to the Mongolian region ofAsia) to refer to people with yellow or brown skinand distinctive folds on the eyelids.

Are Races Real?

Sociologists are quick to point out that at best, racial categoriesare misleading and at worst, they are a harmful way to dividehumanity. First, there is no biologically pure race. Becausehuman beings have migrated and reproduced throughout theworld, we find physical diversity everywhere. For example,Caucasian people can have very light skin (common inScandinavia) or very dark skin (common in southern India).Similarly, Negroid people can be dark-skinned (common inAfrica) or light-skinned (the Australian Aborigines).

Other physical traits often linked to race do not always lineup the same way. For example, people with dark skin can havekinky hair (common in Africa) or straight hair (common inIndia). Biologists tell us that people in various racial categoriesdiffer in only about 6 percent of their genes, which is less thanthe genetic variation that we find within each racial category.What this means is that from a scientific standpoint, physicalvariation is real, but racial categories simply do not describethat reality very well (Boza, 2002; Harris & Sim, 2002).

Should Races Exist at All?

If racial categories are not real, why do they exist? Some sociol-ogists argue that dividing humanity into racial categories is

simply a strategy to allow some people to dominate others(Bonilla-Silva, 1999; Johnson, Rush, & Feagin, 2000; Zuberi,2001). That is, Europeans attached cultural traits to skincolor—constructing the “honest and rational” European versusthe “beastlike” African and the “devious” Asian—in order tomake themselves seem better than the peoples they wanted tocontrol. In this way, European colonists justified oppressingpeople all over the world. North Americans did much the samething, defining native peoples in less than human terms—as“red savages”—to justify killing them and taking their land.Similarly, when people of English ancestry needed Irish andItalian immigrants to work for low pay, they defined them asracially different (Ignatiev, 1995; Camara, 2000; Brodkin, 2007).

Well into the twentieth century, many southern states legallydefined as “colored” anyone having as little as 1/32 African ances-try (that is, one African American great-great-great-grandpar-ent). By 1970, such “one drop of blood” laws had been over-turned by the courts, allowing parents to declare the race of theirchild as they wish (usually on the birth certificate). Even today,however, most people still consider racial identity important.

Multiracial People

Today, more people in this country than ever before identifythemselves as multiracial. In a recent government survey, almost

Racial and Ethnic Inequality CHAPTER 3 57

The fact that race is a socially constructed category means that any distinctivephysical traits may be used to assign people to a racial category. In the early decadesof the twentieth century, public opinion turned against European immigrants as theirnumbers grew. For a time, many southern Europeans—such as Italians—were“racialized” and defined as nonwhite.

GETTING INVOLVEDHow important is race in the dating patterns on your campus?

race a socially constructed category of people who share biologically transmittedtraits that members of a society define as important

ethnicity (p. 58) a shared cultural heritage, which typically involves commonancestors, language, and religion

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all marriages in the United States. One predictable result is thatthe official number of multiracial births has tripled over thepast twenty years and represents about 4 percent of all births(U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). As time goes on, fewer members ofour society will see one another in terms of rigid racial categories.

EthnicityRace revolves around biological traits, but ethnicity is a matterof culture. Ethnicity is a shared cultural heritage, which typicallyinvolves common ancestors, language, and religion. Just as U.S.society is racially diverse, so the population contains hundredsof distinctive ethnic categories. Table 3–1 shows the breadth ofthis nation’s racial and ethnic diversity.

Although race and ethnicity are different, the two may gotogether. For example, Korean Americans, Native Americans,and people of Italian or Nigerian descent share not only certainphysical traits but ethnic traits as well.

ImmigrationThis country’s remarkable racial and ethnic diversity is a product ofimmigration. Everyone living in North America is descended frompeople who lived elsewhere. Immigration may be a key reason oursociety is here at all, but immigration is also a source of differencecausing conflict. This conflict is nothing new, as you will soon see.

The “Great Immigration”

What historians call the “Great Immigration” started with theend of the Civil War in 1865 and lasted until World War I,which began in 1914. New industrial factories offered manyjobs, and East Coast cities were transformed as ships broughtsome 25 million people across the Atlantic Ocean in search ofeconomic opportunity. In 1900, fully 80 percent of the peopleliving in New York City either had been born abroad or hadparents who were (Glaab & Brown, 1967).

Nativists and the Quota System

Many people extended a welcome to the newcomers, but others—called nativists—opposed the high level of immigration, fearingthat it would endanger this country’s mostly English culture.Nativist attitudes were especially common after 1900 when mostimmigrants came from southern and eastern Europe, where peo-ple had darker skin, spoke languages other than English, andwere Catholic, Orthodox, or Jewish rather than Protestant.

Pressured by nativists, Congress acted during the 1920s topass laws, including the Immigration Act of 1924, that cutimmigration by creating a quota system for admitting peoplefrom various countries. These laws—and the economic depres-sion that began in 1929—reduced immigration to a trickle, andthe numbers stayed low until the mid-1960s.


7.5 million people in the United States described themselves asmultiracial, identifying with more than one racial category(U.S. Census Bureau, 2010).

Marriage between people of different racial categories isbecoming more common and now accounts for 7.4 percent of

Table 3–1 Racial and Ethnic Categories in the United States, 2009

Approximate Percentage ofRacial or Ethnic Classification U.S. Population Total Pop

Hispanic Descent 48,419,324 15.8%Mexican 31,689,879 10.3%Puerto Rican 4,426,738 1.4%Cuban 1,696,141 0.6%Other Hispanic 10,606,566 3.5%

African Descent 39,641,060 12.9%Nigerian 254,794 0.1%Ethiopian 186,679 0.1%Somalian 103,117 <Other African 39,096,470 12.7%

Native American Descent 2,457,552 0.8%American Indian 1,998,949 0.7%Alaska Native Tribes 108,763 <Other Native American 349,840 0.1%

Asian or Pacific Island Descent 14,592,307 4.8%Chinese 3,204,379 1.0%Asian Indian 2,602,676 0.8%Filipino 2,475,794 0.8%Vietnamese 1,481,513 0.5%Korean 1,335,973 0.4%Japanese 766,875 0.2%Cambodian 241,520 0.1%Other Asian or Pacific Islander 2,483,577 0.8%

West Indian descent 2,572,415 0.8%Arab descent 1,706,629 0.6%Non-Hispanic European descent 199,851,240 65.1%

German 50,709,194 16.5%Irish 36,915,325 12.0%English 27,658,720 9.0%Italian 18,086,617 5.9%Polish 10,091,056 3.3%French 9,411,910 3.1%Scottish 5,847,063 1.9%Dutch 5,024,309 1.6%Norwegian 4,642,526 1.5%

Other non-Hispanic European 31,464,520 10.2%Two or more races 7,505,173 2.4%

*People of Hispanic descent may be of any race. Many people also identify with morethan one ethnic category. Figures therefore total more than 100 percent.

<indicates less than 1/10 of 1 percent.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau (2010).

GETTING INVOLVEDDescribe yourself using the categories in Table 3–1. Is this an accuratepicture of you? Explain.

MAKING THE GRADEBe sure you understand the difference between race and ethnicity.

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The End of the Quota System

In 1965, Congress ended the quota system, lead-ing to another wave of mass immigration. Again,the arrival of immigrants—this time mostlyfrom Mexico and other nations in LatinAmerica, as well as the Philippines, South Korea,and other Asian countries—became controver-sial. Congress enacted the 1986 ImmigrantControl and Reform Act in another effort toreduce the number of immigrants coming tothis country. This act outlawed the hiring ofundocumented immigrants and threatenedbusinesses with fines for doing so. The idea wasthat if immigrants could not get jobs, they wouldnot come here. But many workers producedfraudulent documents and were able to findwork. In addition, the 1986 law granted amnestyto almost 3 million illegal immigrants already inthe country, which had the effect of encouragingeven more people to cross the border (Gamboa,2003; Tumulty, 2006).

Nowhere is the immigration issue moreimportant than in California, the state withthe largest immigrant population and where 43percent of the people speak a language other than English athome. In 1994, in reaction to the rising number of illegal immi-grants, Californians enacted Proposition 187, which discouragedimmigration by cutting off social service benefits, includingschooling, health care, and food stamps, to immigrants who hadentered the country illegally. This law did reduce illegal immigra-tion, but it also hurt those people already in California.

The Current Immigration Controversy

As Congress continued to debate the immigration issue duringthe 1990s, about 1 million people entered the United States eachyear. This is actually a larger number than during the GreatImmigration a century ago, although today’s newcomers arejoining a population five times larger. In 2009, the total U.S.population of about 307 million included about 38.5 million(12.5 percent) who are foreign-born. About twice as many peoplehave at least one parent born abroad (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010).

In recent years, immigration has become a major issueacross the United States. The focus of the debate is now illegalimmigration. Although the numbers have fallen off with theweak economy, in recent years estimates suggest that at least500,000 people have been crossing this country’s southern bor-der with Mexico illegally each year. Of these, only a small num-ber have been caught by police. It is very difficult to control aborder that extends for almost 2,000 miles, along the southern

boundaries of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.Currently, most of the border has no fence or marking at all.Congress has debated various proposals in an effort to decidehow to improve control of the border and how to deal with ille-gal immigrants already living and working in the United States.The Diversity: Race, Class, & Gender box on pages 60–61 takesa closer look at the current immigration issue.

MinoritiesMost immigrants to the United States have found more oppor-tunities than they had in their homelands. But many have alsodiscovered that their race and ethnicity keep them at the mar-gins of U.S. society. Social scientists use the term minority torefer to any category of people, identified by physical or culturaltraits, that a society subjects to disadvantages.

Visibility

Minorities share a distinctive identity, which may be racial(based on physical traits, which are difficult to change) or eth-nic (including dress or accent, which people can change). Forexample, many people of Japanese ancestry in the United Stateshave little knowledge of their native language, and more thanhalf have non-Japanese spouses. Thus Japanese Americans arebecoming less of an ethnic category, and by marrying people ofother backgrounds, they are becoming less distinctive as a racial

The United States has always been a nation of immigrants. But immigration has alwaysbeen controversial, and in recent years the debate has sparked demonstrations acrossthe country. Currently, about 500,000 people enter this country illegally by crossing theborder from Mexico. Do you think that this flow of people is helpful or harmful to theUnited States? Why?


GETTING INVOLVEDDo you think all people of color, regardless of whether they are rich orpoor, should be considered minorities? Why or why not?

minority any category of people, identified by physical or cultural traits, that asociety subjects to disadvantages

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DIVERSITY: RACE,CLASS, & GENDER

Let Them Stay or Make Them Go? The Debate over Illegal Immigration

So many immigrants now enter the UnitedStates across the border with Mexico thattransportation departments have erectedsigns warning motorists to watch for peoplerunning across the roadways. The reason forthis steady flow of people is economics.Wages in the United States average aboutnine times higher than in Mexico.

Every year, about 500,000 people enterthis country legally from Mexico, but at leastanother 500,000 people cross the border ille-gally. About 61 percent of all those who enterthe United States illegally are from Mexico,22 percent are from other Latin Americannations, 10 percent are from an Asian coun-try, and the remaining 7 percent are fromAfrican countries and elsewhere.

So much immigration—especially illegalimmigration—is troubling to most people inthe United States. In 2006, in public opinionsurveys, more than 80 percent of U.S. adultssaid that this country is not doing enough to

control its borders, and 65 percent calledillegal immigration a serious social problem(Tumulty, 2006). By 2009, the weak economyhad reduced the number of people comingto the United States. But this countryremains divided over how to handle morethan 11 million illegal immigrants who arealready here.

Conservatives point out that entering thecountry illegally is a crime, and many wouldlike to declare illegal immigrants to be crimi-nals subject to arrest and punishment ordeportation. A bill that would have done thiswas passed by the House of Representativesin 2005 but never became law. But mostpeople think that with many millions of illegalimmigrants already here, this proposal isimpractical—there are not enough jails tolock up everyone who might be arrested. Butthere is broad support for the conservativeposition that illegal immigrants should not beallowed to become citizens ahead of others

who follow the law and apply officially toenter the country. And many people shareconservatives’ concerns that illegal immi-grants overtax schools and social serviceprograms in many communities. Some peo-ple also worry that immigrants’ ethnic differ-ences will bring dramatic changes to U.S.culture.

As social policy, conservatives supportgreater enforcement of border security andfavor either returning illegal immigrants totheir home country or allowing them to stayas guest workers if they pay a fine, pay backtaxes on their earnings, learn English, and goto the end of the line among people seekingcitizenship.

Liberals, too, support border control butare more accepting of undocumented immi-grants already here. They point out thatthrough their work, most illegal immigrantscontribute to our economy, often doing jobsthat others in our country do not want to do.

category as well. A minority’s ability to blend in with othersdepends on the minority members’ desire to hold on to theirtraditions and also on the willingness of other people to acceptthem. For instance, whites have shown a far greater willingnessto marry people of Japanese ancestry than to marry people ofAfrican descent (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010).

Power

A second characteristic of minorities is disadvantage. Minoritieshave less schooling and lower-paying jobs, which means higherrates of poverty. Of course, not all people in any minority cate-gory are disadvantaged. In other words, despite the statisticalaverages, some people of African, Asian, or Latino ancestry havevery high social standing. But even the most successful individ-uals know that their membership in a minority categoryreduces their standing in some people’s eyes (Benjamin, 1991).

Numbers

More than one-third of the U.S. population falls into a racial orethnic minority category. Minorities make up an increasing

share of this nation’s people. In fact, minorities have alreadybecome a majority in more than half of the 100 largest U.S.cities. A minority majority also exists in four states—Hawaii,California, New Mexico, and Texas—as well as the District ofColumbia. Other states will be added to the list in years tocome. Based on current trends, by about 2042, racial and ethnicminorities will become a majority of the U.S. population (U.S.Census Bureau, 2008, 2010).

We take up the question of whether women—of any race orethnicity—should also be counted as a minority in Chapter 4(“Gender Inequality”).

Patterns of Majority-Minority InteractionThe way majority and minority populations interact can rangefrom deadly to peaceful. In studying such patterns, sociologistsuse four models: genocide, segregation, assimilation, andpluralism.

GETTING INVOLVEDHave you ever joined an organization, attended a rally, or written a letter about the immigration issue?

MAKING THE GRADEAll four patterns of majority-minority interaction are found inour society, although patterns have shifted in importance overour history.

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Genocide

Genocide is the systematic killing of one category of people byanother. Genocide is mass murder; even so, it has taken placetime and again in human history, often tolerated and some-times even encouraged by governments and their people.

Beginning about 1500, the Spanish, Portuguese, English,French, and Dutch forcefully colonized North and SouthAmerica, resulting in the deaths of thousands of native people.Although most native people died from diseases brought byEuropeans to which they had no natural defenses, many werekilled outright (Matthiessen, 1984; Sale, 1990).

In the 1930s and 1940s, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi govern-ment murdered more than 6 million “undesirables,” includinghomosexuals, people with disabilities, and most of Europe’sJews. The Soviet dictator Josef Stalin slaughtered his country’speople on an even greater scale, killing some 30 million people,all of whom he defined as enemies. Between 1975 and 1980,Cambodia’s Communist regime butchered millions whom theysaw as “Western” in their cultural patterns. More recently, Hutus

Much low-wage labor on farms, at hotels andrestaurants, and in private homes is per-formed by immigrants. Liberals also remindus that 1.6 million undocumented immigrantsare children, and the children of illegal immi-grants born on U.S. soil (as most were) areU.S. citizens under the law, even if their par-ents are not.

Liberals favor amnesty for illegal immi-grants and giving those here illegally citizen-ship if they work and pay their taxes for anumber of years. Liberals want to free mil-lions of men, women, and children from “liv-ing in the shadows,” with no chance to applyfor a scholarship to go to a community col-lege or even to get a driver’s license. Mostseriously, liberals point out, illegal immigrantsmust live in constant fear that they or anotherfamily member may be arrested.

What is the radical-left position on theimmigration debate? Radicals on the leftoppose walling off this country from the rest

of the world and support legalization and cit-izenship for all immigrants already here. Inaddition, they claim, we must reduce theinequality that separates the United Statesfrom other countries. Until that happens, theycontinue, millions of people will keep comingto this country, many risking their lives in theprocess.

Finally, the immigration debate has polit-ical consequences. Allowing all immigrantsto become citizens would create 10 millionnew voters. In the 2008 presidential election,about 65 percent of Hispanic or Latino voterssupported Democratic candidates and 35percent voted Republican. If all immigrantswere able to vote, the Democratic candidatefor president in 2012 would have a very goodchance of winning the election. This is onereason liberals are willing to extend citizen-ship to Latinos. At the same time, conserva-tives must try to gain favor within what is nowthis country’s largest minority population.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

1. Do you think this country should reducethe number of people crossing the bor-der illegally? Do you think this will hap-pen? Explain your view.

2. Should public schools provide publiclyfunded education to the children of ille-gal immigrants? Should colleges anduniversities be able to extend scholar-ships to these young people? Why orwhy not?

3. Do you tend to agree more with conser-vatives, liberals, or radicals on thisissue? Explain.

Sources: Campo-Flores (2006), LoScalzo (2006), Hoefer,Rytina, & Baker (2009), and U.S. Department of Labor(2009).

massacred Tutsis in the African nation of Rwanda, Serbs sys-tematically killed Croats in Eastern Europe, and several hun-dred thousand people have been killed in the Darfur region ofAfrica’s Sudan.

SegregationSegregation is the physical and social separation of categories ofpeople. Sometimes minority populations decide that they wishto segregate themselves; this is the case with religious orderssuch as the Amish. Usually, though, the majority populationsegregates minorities by forcing them to the margins of society,where they have to “stay with their own.”

Racial segregation in the United States began with slaveryand later included legally separate hotels, restaurants, schools,buses, and trains for black and white people. A number of courtcases have reduced de jure (Latin words meaning “by law”) seg-regation in the United States. However, de facto (“in fact”) seg-regation is still common because most neighborhoods, schools,hospitals, and even cemeteries still contain mostly people of

genocide the systematic killing ofone category of people by another

segregation the physical and social separationof categories of people

assimilation (p. 63) the process by whichminorities gradually adopt cultural patternsfrom the dominant majority population

pluralism (p. 63) a state in whichpeople of all racial and ethniccategories have about the sameoverall social standing

Patterns of Majority-Minority Interaction

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one race. For example, the city of Detroit is 76 percent AfricanAmerican, and Livonia, Michigan, right next door, is 90 percentwhite (Emerson, Yancey, & Chai, 2001; Krysan, 2002; U.S.Census Bureau, 2010).

Intense segregation occurs in many inner-city areas.Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton (1989) documented thehypersegregation of African Americans who have little contactwith people outside of their community. Hypersegregationaffects just a few percent of poor white people, but it affects

about one in five African Americans living in about twenty-fiveof the largest U.S. cities (Wilkes & Iceland, 2004).

Because minorities, by definition, have little power, chal-lenging segregation is not easy and may even be dangerous.Sometimes, however, the actions of a single person do make adifference. The Defining Moment box describes the actions ofRosa Parks, who sparked a social movement to end segregationon buses and other forms of public transportation throughoutthe South.

CONSTRUCTING SOCIAL PROBLEMS

A DEFINING MOMENT

It began so routinely that no one would haveknown history was being made. On December 1,1955, Rosa Parks, a young African Americanwoman living in Montgomery, Alabama, hadjust finished a day of hard work as a seam-stress. She was tired and eager to get home.She walked to the street and boarded a citybus. At that time, Montgomery city lawrequired African Americans to ride in certainseats near the back of the bus, and Parks didexactly that. Slowly the bus filled with people.As the bus pulled to the curb to pick up somewhite passengers, the driver turned and askedfour black people to give up their seats so thatthe white people could sit down. Three did ashe asked. But Parks refused to move.

The driver pulled to the curb, left the bus,and returned with a police officer, who arrestedParks for breaking the city’s segregation law.She appeared in court, was convicted by ajudge, and was fined $14. The story of Parks’sstand (or sitting) for justice quickly spreadthroughout the African American community.Activists printed and distributed thousands ofhandbills asking every Negro to stay off thebuses Monday in protest of the arrest and trial.“You can afford to stay out of school for oneday. If you work, take a cab, or walk. Butplease, children and grown-ups, don’t ride thebus at all on Monday. Please stay off the busesMonday.”

A social movement was under way. AfricanAmericans in Montgomery successfully boy-cotted city buses on that Monday and for 382days after that. A year later, the city of Mont-gomery officially ended segregation on itsbuses, and within the decade, the U.S. SupremeCourt had banned racial segregation in any pub-lic accommodation anywhere in the country.

Rosa Parks lived the rest of her life as asymbol of the quiet determination to achievejustice. When she died in 2005, her funeral wasattended by national leaders including everyliving president. She will be remembered as aleader of the civil rights movement and asproof of the power of people—even one at atime—to change the world.

Rosa Parks: Saying No to Segregation

This photo shows RosaParks being fingerprintedby police in Montgomery,Alabama. At the time of herarrest, the law definedParks as the problem. Butthe bus boycott thatfollowed her arrest soonchanged that, definingracial segregation as theproblem.

MAKING THE GRADECan you see how immigration is linked to language diversityin National Map 3-1?

Is racial segregation still an important issue in our society? Explain.

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Assimilation

Assimilation is the process by which minorities gradually adoptcultural patterns from the dominant majority population. Whenminorities—especially new immigrants—assimilate, they maychange their styles of dress, language, cultural values, and evenreligion.

Many people think of the United States as a “melting pot”where the different ways of immigrants blend to produce onenational lifestyle. There is some truth to this image, but our his-tory shows that minorities are the ones who do most of thechanging as they adopt the cultural patterns of more powerfulpeople who have been here longer. In some cases, minoritiesimitate people they regard as their “betters” in order to escapehostility and to move up socially. In many cases, however, themajority population forces change on minorities. For example,by 2008, legislatures in thirty states had enacted laws makingEnglish the official language. National Map 3–1 shows the shareof people in the United States who speak a language other thanEnglish at home.

The amount of assimilation on the part of minoritiesalso depends on where they live. Latinos living in Ohio orNew Hampshire (where they represent a small part of thepopulation) are more likely to speak English than theircounterparts living in south Texas along the Mexican border(where, in many communities, Spanish-speaking people area numerical majority). Of course, wherever they live, someminorities assimilate more than others. Looking back overthe decades, we also see that Germans and Irish have “melted”more than Italians, and Japanese have assimilated more thanChinese or Koreans.

PluralismPluralism is a state in which people of all racial and ethniccategories have about the same overall social standing. Pluralismrepresents a situation in which no minority category is subjectto disadvantage. The United States is pluralistic to the extentthat—officially, at least—all people have equal standingunder the law. But in reality, tolerance for diversity (major-ity tolerance for minorities and one minority population’stolerance for another) is limited. As just noted, for example,thirty states have passed laws designating English as theirofficial language. In addition, the social standing of mostminority populations is below that of the white, European-origin majority.

The Social Standing of U.S. MinoritiesThe United States is a nation of racial and ethnic diversity. It isimportant to know something of the history of the largestminorities in order to understand today’s racial and ethnicityinequality.

Native AmericansNative Americans (many of whom now prefer to be called“American Indians”) are descendants of the first people to cometo North America across the Bering Strait from Asia. Overthousands of years, they spread throughout the hemisphere,forming hundreds of distinct societies, including the Aleuts andEskimos of Alaska; a large number of North American Indian

A Nation of DiversityNATIONAL MAP 3–1 Language Diversity across the United States

Of more than 285 million people age five or older in theUnited States, the Census Bureau reports that 57 million(20 percent) speak a language other than English athome. Of these, 62 percent speak Spanish and 15 per-cent use an Asian language (the Census Bureau lists 29 languages, each of which is favored by more than100,000 people). The map shows that non–Englishspeakers are concentrated in certain regions of thecountry. Which ones? Can you explain this pattern?Source: U.S. Census Bureau (2010).

35.0% to 59.9%17.9% to 34.9%4.6% to 17.8%0.4 % to 4.5%

60.0% or more

Percentage ofPopulation That Speaksa Language Other thanEnglish at Home

HAWAII

ALASKA

U.S. average = 19.7%

ARIZONA

NEVADA

CALIFORNIA

OREGON

WASHINGTON

IDAHO

MONTANANORTHDAKOTA MINNESOTA

SOUTHDAKOTA

NEBRASKA

WYOMING

COLORADO

NEWMEXICO

TEXASLOUISIANA

ARKANSASOKLAHOMA

KANSAS MISSOURI

IOWA

WISCONSIN

MICHIGAN

ILLINOIS

INDIANA OHIO

KENTUCKY

TENNESSEE

VIRGINIAD.C.

NORTH CAROLINA

SOUTHCAROLINA

MISSISSIPPIALABAMA

GEORGIA

WEST VIRGINIA

DELAWARE

NEW JERSEY

MARYLAND

PENNSYLVANIA

NEWYORK

CONNECTICUTRHODE ISLAND

MASSACHUSETTS

MAINEVERMONT

NEW HAMPSHIRE

FLORIDA

UTAH

Elvira Martinez lives in ZapataCounty, Texas, where about three-quarters of the people in her community speak Spanish at home.

Jeffrey Steen lives in AdamsCounty, Ohio, where almostnone of his neighbors speaksa language other than English.

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societies, including the Cherokee, Zuni, Sioux, and Iroquois; theAztec of Central America; and the Inca of South America.

By 1500, the arrival of European explorers and colonizersbegan centuries of conflict. What some Europeans called “bring-ing civilization to the New World” was for Native Americans thedestruction of their ancient and thriving civilizations. From apopulation in the millions before Europeans arrived, the num-ber of “vanishing Americans” fell to barely 250,000 by 1900(Dobyns, 1966; Tyler, 1973).

At first, the U.S. government viewed native peoples as inde-pendent nations and tried to gain land from them throughtreaties. But the government was quick to use superior military

power against any who resisted. Soldiersforcibly removed the Cherokee from theirhomelands in the southeastern UnitedStates, causing thousands of deaths alongwhat came to be known as the Trail ofTears. By 1800, few native people remainedalong the East Coast.

In 1871, the United States declaredAmerican Indians wards of the federalgovernment. At this point, the goal wasassimilation. This meant remaking nativepeoples as “Americans” by moving them toreservations where they were forced toadopt Christianity in place of their tradi-tional religions and where schools taughtchildren English in place of ancestraltongues.

Since gaining full citizenship in 1924,many American Indians have assimilated,marrying people of other backgrounds. Yetmany continue to live on reservationswhere poverty rates are very high. As Table3–2 shows, American Indians remain dis-advantaged, with below-average income, ahigh rate of poverty, and a low rate of col-lege graduation.

In the past decade, American Indian organizations havereceived a large number of new membership applications, andmany children are learning to speak native languages betterthan their parents (Nagel, 1996; Martin, 1997). Many AmericanIndians operate a wide range of successful businesses, and sometribes have used the legal autonomy of reservations to buildcasinos. But the enormous profits from these casinos actuallyenrich only a few native people, with most profits going tonon-Indian investors (Raymond, 2001; Bartlett & Steele,2002). Overall, while some prosper, most American Indiansremain severely disadvantaged and share a profound senseof historical injustice suffered at the hands of white people.

Despite media reports of the financial success that legal gambling on reservations has broughtto some American Indians, the majority of Native people in the United States are greatlydisadvantaged. Scenes such as this one from the Hopi reservation near Tuba City, Arizona, aremore the rule than the exception.

Table 3–2 The Social Standing of Native Americans, 2009

Median Percentage Percentage with Four orFamily Living in More Years of CollegeIncome Poverty (age 25 and over)

Entire U.S. population $60,088 14.3% 29.9%

Native Americans 40,552 27.3 13.0


MAKING THE GRADETo what extent did genocide, segregation, assimilation, andpluralism play a part in the history of American Indians?

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African AmericansPeople of African ancestry arrived in theAmericas along with the first Europeanexplorers. After 1619, however, when aDutch trading ship delivered twenty Africansto Jamestown, Virginia, to work for whites,people came to see dark skin as a marker ofsubordination. In 1661, Virginia enacted thefirst slave law. By 1776, the year the UnitedStates declared its independence from GreatBritain, slavery was legal in every state, andAfrican Americans labored as slaves through-out the North as well as the South.

The demand for slaves was especially highin the South, where the plantation systemrequired large numbers of people to work thecotton and tobacco fields. To meet this demandfor labor, slave traders (including Arabs andAfricans as well as Europeans and NorthAmericans) legally transported human beingsacross the Atlantic Ocean, in chains and underhorrific conditions. Before 1808, when theUnited States declared the slave trade illegal,500,000 Africans were brought to the UnitedStates, and almost 10 million came to all of the Americas, Northand South. Keep in mind that this was just half the number wholeft Africa—the other half died during the brutal journey(Tannenbaum, 1946; Franklin, 1967; Sowell, 1981).

Owners could force slaves to do just about anything andcould discipline them in whatever way they wished. Slaves werenot allowed to attend school, and owners routinely separatedfamilies as they traded men, women, and children for profit.

Not all people of African descent were slaves. Roughly 1million free persons of color lived in the North and the South,most farming small parcels of farmland, working at skilled jobsin cities, or operating small businesses.

How could slavery exist in a society whose Declaration ofIndependence declared that “all men are created equal” andentitled to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”? Ratherthan making all people free, our society decided that AfricanAmericans were not really people. In the 1857 Dred Scott case,the U.S. Supreme Court stated that slaves were not citizens enti-tled to the rights and protections of U.S. law (Lach, 2002).

In the northern states, where slavery had less economicvalue, the practice had gradually come to an end. In the South,it took the Civil War to abolish slavery. As the guns roared,President Abraham Lincoln issued the EmancipationProclamation on January 1, 1863, declaring slavery abolished inthe breakaway southern Confederacy. When the fighting ended

in 1865, Congress banned slavery everywhere in the countrywith the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. In 1868,the Fourteenth Amendment reversed the Dred Scott decision,giving citizenship to all people, regardless of color, born in theUnited States.

But ending slavery did not mean ending racial discrimina-tion. States soon enacted so-called Jim Crow laws, which barredblack people from voting and sitting on juries and called forsegregated trains, restaurants, hotels, and other public places(Woodward, 1974).

After World War I, when Congress closed the borders tofurther immigration, the need for labor in the booming facto-ries sparked the “Great Migration,” which drew tens of thou-sands of men and women of color from the rural South to theindustrialized North. These were times of great achievements inAfrican American life as, for example, the Harlem Renaissance(centered in the large African American community in NewYork City) produced writers such as Langston Hughes andmusicians such as Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong. Evenso, racial segregation in neighborhoods, schools, and jobs was away of life in most of the United States.

But change was coming. In 1948, President Harry Trumandeclared an end to segregation in the U.S. military. Black legalscholars, including Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993), who laterserved for thirty years on the U.S. Supreme Court, led an attack


The mass media played a powerful role in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and1960s. Televised scenes such as this one in Birmingham, Alabama, in which police turneddogs and fire hoses on demonstrators, changed the mood of the nation in favor of theidea that all people should have equal opportunity and equal standing before the law.

Do you think that people living during the civil rights movement of the 1960s expected they would see an AfricanAmerican elected president?

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Table 3–4 The Social Standing of Asian Americans, 2009

Median Percentage Percentage with Four or Family Living in More Years of CollegeIncome Poverty (age 25 and over)


All Asian Americans 75,027 12.5 52.4

Chinese Americans 82,129 12.7 51.9

Japanese Americans 88,129 7.8 47.4

Korean Americans 61,683 14.9 52.8


on school segregation, leading to the 1954 case of Brown v.Board of Education of Topeka (Kansas). In this landmark deci-sion, the Supreme Court rejected the claim that black and whitechildren could be taught in “separate but equal” schools.

A year later, the heroic action of Rosa Parks sparked the busboycott that desegregated public transportation in Montgomery,Alabama. In the next decade, the federal government passed theCivil Rights Act of 1964 (prohibiting segregation in employmentand public accommodations), the Voting Rights Act of 1965(banning voting requirements that prevented African Americansfrom having a political voice), and the Civil Rights Act of 1968(which outlawed discrimination in housing). Together, theselaws brought an end to most legal discrimination in public life.

But African Americans’ struggle for full participation in U.S.society is far from over. People of African descent are still disad-vantaged, as shown in Table 3–3. African American families stillhave below-average income, and the black poverty rate is almostthree times as high as the white poverty rate. Although about 84percent of African Americans now complete high school, theircollege graduation rate is well below the national average.

By 2009, 41 percent of African American families earnedmore than $50,000 a year. But most black families remain in theworking class, and many remain in poverty. On average, AfricanAmerican families earn 57 percent as much as white families—and this gap has changed little in the past forty years. One reason

is that factory jobs, a key source of income for people living incentral cities, have moved away from the United States to coun-tries with lower labor costs. This is one reason that black unem-ployment is double the rate among white people; in some largecities, the rate is more than 40 percent (W. J. Wilson, 1996a;R. A. Smith, 2002; U.S. Department of Labor, 2008).

Asian AmericansAsian Americans include people with historical ties to any ofseveral dozen Asian nations. The largest number have roots inChina (3.2 million), India (2.6 million), the Philippines (2.5million), Vietnam (1.5 million), South Korea (1.3 million), andJapan (767,000). In all, Asian Americans number more than 14million, which is 4.6 percent of the total U.S. population. Otherthan Hispanics, Asian Americans are increasing in numberfaster than any other minority (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010).

The flow of immigrants from China and Japan to NorthAmerica began when the Gold Rush of 1849 created a demandfor laborers in California. Chinese men answered the call, num-bering 100,000 within a generation, and they were joined by asmall number of Japanese immigrants. As long as cheap laborwas needed, whites welcomed them.

But when the economy slowed, these workers were seen as aneconomic threat by whites who labeled them the “Yellow Peril.”

Table 3–3 The Social Standing of African Americans, 2009


Entire U.S. population $60,088 14.3% 29.9%African Americans 38,409 25.8 19.8


Although the United States was also at war with Germany,there was never any effort by the U.S. government to round uppeople of German ancestry. Why do you think the Japaneseand the Germans in this country were viewed differently?

Notice that African American families have income below thenational average. Make a list of factors that may explain this disparity.

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Legislatures and courts were pressured to bar Asians from cer-tain work. In 1882, the federal government passed the ChineseExclusion Act, which ended the flow of new immigrants fromChina. A similar action against Japan took place in 1908. Afterthese laws were passed, the Asian population in the UnitedStates fell because almost all the people already here were men,and racial hostility prevented Asian men from marrying non-Asian women. Beginning in 1920, California and other statesenacted laws banning interracial marriage outright.

Many Asians settled in urban neighborhoods wherethey could help one another. Chinatowns soon flourished inSan Francisco, New York, and other large cities, withChinese-owned restaurants, laundries, and other small busi-nesses. Self-employment has been popular not only amongthe Chinese but also among all minorities who find fewemployers willing to hire them for good wages.

World War II brought important changes to both theJapanese American and Chinese American populations. Thewar in the Pacific began when Japan attacked Hawaii’s PearlHarbor naval base. The military strike stunned the UnitedStates, and many people wondered which side JapaneseAmericans would take in the conflict. Japanese Americansalways remained loyal to the United States. But fear of Japan’sindustrial and military might, coupled with racial hostility,pushed President Franklin Roosevelt to issue Executive Order9066, forcibly relocating all people of Japanese ancestry to mil-itary camps in remote areas away from the coast. The orderforced more than 100,000 Japanese Americans to sell their busi-nesses, homes, and farms for a fraction of their true value.Taken to camps, they lived under the watchful eyes of armedsoldiers until 1944, when the U.S. Supreme Court declared thepolicy unconstitutional. In 1988, Congress admitted that thisaction was wrong and awarded a symbolic compensation of$20,000 to each surviving camp inmate (Ewers, 2008).

Because China joined the United States in the fight againstJapan, in 1943 the federal government ended the 1882 ban onChinese immigration and gave citizenship to ChineseAmericans born abroad. The same offer was made after the war,in 1952, to foreign-born Japanese Americans.

After the war, many young people of Chinese and Japanesedescent entered college, believing that more schooling was thekey to success. By the 1980s, based on their cultural emphasison study and hard work, Asian Americans were finding them-selves described as the “model minority.”

There is some truth to the “model minority” notion. AsTable 3–4 shows, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Americans nowhave above-average income and education. Poverty rates also areclose to or below the national average. But this stereotype is mis-leading because many Asian families work long and hard in

low-paying jobs. In addition, although the Chinatowns and LittleTokyos found in some large cities may offer social support, theymay limit job opportunities by discouraging their residents fromlearning English (Kinkead, 1992; Gilbertson & Gurak, 1993).

Today, more than one-third of all immigrants to the UnitedStates each year are from an Asian nation. Many Asian Americans,especially those with high social standing, have assimilated intothe larger cultural mix. For example, few third- and fourth-gener-ation Japanese Americans (the Sansei and Yonsei) live in segre-gated neighborhoods. Most people of Japanese ancestry marrysomeone of another racial and ethnic background.

Many Koreans and Indians, on the other hand, follow theexample of immigrants a century ago and settle in ethnic neigh-borhoods, sometimes for protection from racial and ethnichostility. Although Asian Americans have fared better thanmost minorities, anti-Asian prejudice remains strong (Chua-Eoan, 2000; Parrillo, 2003). Many Asian Americans remainsocially marginal, living in two worlds and fully belonging toneither one.

From 1942 until 1944, more than 100,000 men, women, and childrenof Japanese ancestry were forced to live in military detention camps.This policy took away not just Japanese Americans’ liberty but alsomost of their property as families were forced to sell homes andbusinesses for a small share of what they were really worth.

GETTING INVOLVEDAfter reading the section below, decide how much truth there is to theclaim that Asians are a “model minority.”

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Hispanic Americans/Latinos

Hispanic Americans, also known as Latinos, are people withcultural roots in the nations of Central and South America, theCaribbean, and Spain. As a result, there are many Latino cul-tures. Racially, eight in ten Latinos consider themselves white,although these diverse people have a range of skin colors andphysical features.

On Census Bureau forms, people of any race may identifythemselves as being of Hispanic origin. In 2009, the official

Hispanic population of the United States topped 48 million,making Hispanics the largest U.S. minority, with 15.8 percent ofthe population (exceeding African Americans at 39.6 million, or12.9 percent).

National Map 3–2 shows the concentration of Latinos—as well as African Americans, Asian Americans, and ArabAmericans—across the United States. Many Latinos reside inthe Southwest because about two-thirds (almost 32 million) areof Mexican origin. Next in terms of numbers are Puerto Ricans(4.4 million) and Cuban Americans (1.7 million), with smaller

ARIZONA

NEVADA

CALIFORNIA

OREGON

WASHINGTON

IDAHO

MONTANANORTH

DAKOTAMINNESOTA

SOUTHDAKOTA

NEBRASKA

WYOMING

COLORADO

NEWMEXICO

TEXASLOUISIANA

ARKANSASOKLAHOMA

KANSAS MISSOURI

IOWA

WISCONSINMICHIGAN

ILLINOIS

INDIANA OHIO

KENTUCKY

TENNESSEE

MISSISSIPPI

ALABAMAGEORGIA

SOUTHCAROLINA

NORTHCAROLINA

VIRGINIA

D.C.WEST

VIRGINIA

DELAWARE

NEW JERSEY

MARYLAND

PENNSYLVANIA

NEWYORK


MASSACHUSETTS

MAINEVERMONT

NEW HAMPSHIRE

FLORIDA

UTAH

95.0% to 99.7%

70.0% to 94.9%

50.0% to 69.9%

25.0% to 49.9%

12.5% to 24.9%

5.0% to 12.4%

1.0% to 4.9%

0.1% to 0.9%

Hispanic/Latino

U.S. average: 15.8%

ALASKA

HAWAII

A Nation of DiversityNATIONAL MAP 3–2 The Concentration of Hispanics/Latinos, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Arab Americans, by County

In 2010, Hispanic Americans represented 15.8 percent of the U.S. population, compared with 12.9 percent for African Americans, 4.6percent for Asian Americans, and 0.6 percent for Arab Americans. These four maps show the geographic distribution of these cate-gories of people in 2010 (2000 for Arab Americans). Comparing them, we see that the southern half of the United States is home tofar more minorities than the northern half. But do the four concentrate in the same areas? What patterns do the maps reveal?Source: U.S. Census Bureau (2010).

ARIZONA

NEVADA

CALIFORNIA

OREGON

WASHINGTON

IDAHO

MONTANANORTH

DAKOTAMINNESOTA

SOUTHDAKOTA

NEBRASKA

WYOMING

COLORADO

NEWMEXICO

TEXASLOUISIANA

ARKANSASOKLAHOMA

KANSAS MISSOURI

IOWA

WISCONSINMICHIGAN

ILLINOIS

INDIANA OHIO

KENTUCKY

TENNESSEE

MISSISSIPPI

ALABAMAGEORGIA

SOUTHCAROLINA

NORTHCAROLINA

VIRGINIA

D.C.WEST

VIRGINIA

DELAWARE

NEW JERSEY

MARYLAND

PENNSYLVANIA

NEWYORK


MASSACHUSETTS

MAINEVERMONT

NEW HAMPSHIRE

FLORIDA

UTAH

70.0% to 86.5%

50.0% to 69.9%

25.0% to 49.9%

12.3% to 24.9%

5.0% to 12.2%

1.0% to 4.9%

0.0% to 0.9%

African American

U.S. average: 12.9%HAWAII

ALASKA

ARIZONA

NEVADA

CALIFORNIA

OREGON

WASHINGTON

IDAHO

MONTANANORTH

DAKOTAMINNESOTA

SOUTHDAKOTA

NEBRASKA

WYOMING

COLORADO

NEWMEXICO

TEXAS

LOUISIANA

ARKANSASOKLAHOMA

KANSAS MISSOURI

IOWA

WISCONSINMICHIGAN

ILLINOIS

INDIANA OHIO

KENTUCKY

TENNESSEE

MISSISSIPPI

ALABAMAGEORGIA

SOUTHCAROLINA

NORTHCAROLINA

VIRGINIA

D.C.WEST

VIRGINIA

DELAWARE

NEW JERSEY

MARYLAND

PENNSYLVANIA

NEWYORK


MASSACHUSETTS

MAINEVERMONT

NEW HAMPSHIRE

FLORIDA

UTAH

25.0% to 46.0%

12.5% to 24.9%

3.6% to 12.4%

1.0% to 3.5%

0.0% to 0.9%

Asian American

U.S. average: 4.6%

HAWAII

ALASKA

WESTVIRGINIA

ARIZONA

NEVADA

CALIFORNIA

OREGON

WASHINGTON

IDAHO

MONTANANORTH

DAKOTAMINNESOTA

SOUTHDAKOTA

NEBRASKA

WYOMING

COLORADO

NEWMEXICO

TEXAS

LOUISIANA

ARKANSASOKLAHOMA

KANSAS MISSOURI

IOWA

WISCONSINMICHIGAN

ILLINOIS

INDIANA OHIO

KENTUCKY

TENNESSEE

MISSISSIPPI

ALABAMAGEORGIA

SOUTHCAROLINA

NORTHCAROLINA

DELAWARE

NEW JERSEY

MARYLAND

PENNSYLVANIA

NEWYORK


MASSACHUSETTS

MAINEVERMONT

NEW HAMPSHIRE

FLORIDA

UTAH

1.2% to 2.7%

0.7% to 1.1%

0.4% to 0.6%

0.2% to 0.3%

0.0% to 0.1%

Arab American

U.S. average: 0.6%

VIRGINIAD.C.

HAWAII

ALASKA

In 2006, President Bush stated that people in this countryshould sing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” our national anthem,only in English. Why do many people feel this way? Do youagree or not? Explain your position.

MAKING THE GRADEHow do historical factors such as immigration account forpatterns shown in the four maps below?

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numbers from dozens of other countries. Overall, Latinos are sonumerous and their cultural contributions so great thatSpanish has become the unofficial second language of theUnited States.

Many Mexican Americans have lived for centuries on landthat after the Mexican War (1846–1848) became what is nowTexas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, California, andColorado. Others are new arrivals, drawn to the United Statesby a desire for greater economic opportunity. As alreadyexplained, a majority of people entering the United States ille-gally are from Mexico, where wages are typically far lower thanin this country.

Puerto Rico, an island controlled by the Spanish for about300 years, became a U.S. territory at the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898. Since 1917, all island residents havebeen U.S. citizens, although Puerto Rico is a commonwealthand not a state. The largest Puerto Rican community off theisland is New York’s Spanish Harlem, home to roughly 800,000people. “Between 1990 and 2009, the Puerto Rican populationof New York actually fell by more than 100,000.” (U.S. CensusBureau, 2010) (Navarro, 2000).

Many Cubans fled to the United States after Fidel Castrogained control of Cuba in 1959. These men and women, num-bering several hundred thousand, included affluent business-people and professionals. Most settled in Miami, Florida, wherethay established a vibrant Cuban American community.

Table 3–5 shows that the social standing of HispanicAmericans is below the U.S. average. However, various cate-gories of Latinos have very different rankings. The best-offare Cuban Americans, who have higher income and moreschooling. Puerto Ricans occupy a middle position in termsof income, although those who are immigrants have a lowrate of high school completion. Mexican Americans have thelowest relative ranking, with median family income at slightlyless than two-thirds the national average. One reason for this

disadvantage is that many Mexican Americans continue tospeak only Spanish and not English, which can limit jobopportunities.

More than one-third of Hispanic American families nowearn more than $50,000 annually. But many challenges remain,including schools that do not do a very good job teaching stu-dents whose first language is Spanish. Chapter 13 (“Education”)reports that 21 percent of Latinos between the ages of sixteenand twenty-four leave school without a high school diploma. Inaddition, their cultural differences—and dark skin—stillspark hostility.

Arab AmericansArab Americans are another U.S. minority that is increasing insize. Like Asian Americans and Latinos, these are people whotrace their ancestry to one of several different nations aroundthe world, in this case the nations of northern Africa or theMiddle East. It is important to remember, however, that someof the people who live in one of the twenty-two nations that areconsidered part of the “Arab world” are not Arabs. For example,Morocco in northwestern Africa is home to the Berber people,just as Iraq in the Middle East is home to the Kurds.

Arab cultures are diverse but share use of the Arabicalphabet and language, and Islam is the dominant religion.But once again, the term “Arab” refers to an ethnic category,and the word “Muslim” refers to a follower of Islam. A major-ity of the people living in Arab countries are Muslims, butsome Arabs are Christians or followers of other religions. Tomake matters more complex, most of the world’s Muslimsactually live in Asia rather than Africa or the Middle East andare not Arabs.

Immigration to the United States from many nations hascreated a culturally diverse population of Arab Americans.Some Arab Americans are Muslims and some are not; some

Table 3–5 The Social Standing of Hispanic Americans, 2009



All Hispanic Americans 39,730 25.3 13.9

Mexican Americans 39,754 25.1 9.0

Puerto Ricans 41,542 25.7 15.4

Cuban Americans 49,356 15.5 24.0


MAKING THE GRADELook ahead to pages 72-73 to see evidence of a relativelyhigh level of prejudice against Arab Americans.

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speak Arabic and some do not; some maintain the traditions oftheir homeland and some do not. As is the case with Latinosand Asian Americans, some are recent immigrants and somehave lived in this country for decades or even generations.

Officially, the government counts 1.7 million ArabAmericans, but because many people may choose not to declaretheir ethnic background, the actual number may well be twicethat high. If so, Arab Americans represent 1 percent of the pop-ulation. The largest populations of Arab Americans have ances-tral ties to Lebanon (30 percent of all Arab Americans), Egypt(12 percent), and Syria (10 percent). Most Arab Americans (69percent) report ancestral ties to one nation, but 31 percentreport both Arab and non-Arab ancestry (U.S. Census Bureau,2010). A look at National Map 3–2 shows the distribution of theArab American population throughout the United States.

Arab Americans are diverse in terms of social class. Someare highly educated professionals who work as physicians,

engineers, and professors; others are working-class people whoperform various skilled jobs in factories or on constructionsites; still others do service work in restaurants, hospitals, orother settings or work in small family businesses. Overall, asshown in Table 3–6, median family income for Arab Americansis slightly above the national average ($65,843 compared to anational median of $60,088 in 2009), but Arab Americans havea higher than average poverty rate (17.8 percent versus 14.3percent for the population as a whole). Arab Americans arehighly educated; 44.5 percent over age twenty-five have a col-lege degree, compared to about 30 percent of the population asa whole (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010).

A number of large U.S. cities—including New York,Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, and Dearborn (Michigan)—have large, visible Arab American communities. Even so, manyArab Americans choose to downplay their ethnicity as a wayto avoid prejudice and discrimination. The fact that many ofthe terrorist attacks against the United States and othernations have been carried out by Arabs encourages some peo-ple to link being Arab (or Muslim) with being a terrorist. Thisattitude is unfair because it blames an entire category of peo-ple for the actions of a few individuals. But this attitude helpsexplain rising hostility toward Arabs and Arab Americansafter 2001. It is also true that Arab Americans have been tar-gets of an increasing number of hate crimes, and many feelthat they are subject to “ethnic profiling” that threatens theirprivacy and civil liberties (Ali & Juarez, 2003; Ali, Lipper, &Mack, 2004; Hagopian, 2004).

PrejudiceAs the preceding accounts show, minorities face the problemof prejudice, any rigid and unfounded generalization about anentire category of people. Prejudice is a prejudgment, an atti-tude one develops before interacting with the specific peoplein question. Because such attitudes are not based on directexperience, prejudices are not only wrong but also difficult tochange.

Table 3–6 The Social Standing of Arab Americans, 2009



Arab Americans 65,843 17.8 44.5


Some people in the United States link being Arab American or Muslimwith support for anti-American terrorism. Why is this so? What canyou suggest to eliminate this stereotype?

Why do you think many people of Arab descent may notopenly reveal their ancestry? Can you think of any other categories of people who might do likewise?

prejudice any rigid and unfounded generalization about an entire category of people

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Prejudice can be both positive and negative. Positive preju-dices lead us to assume that certain people (usually those likeourselves) are better or smarter. Negative prejudices lead us tosee someone who differs from us as less worthy. Prejudices—both positive and negative—involve social class, gender, reli-

gion, age, and sexual or political orientation. But probably nodimensions of difference involve as many prejudices as race andethnicity. The Diversity: Race, Class, & Gender box usesnational survey data to reveal the extent of prejudice towardvarious racial and ethnic categories of people.

DIVERSITY: RACE,CLASS, & GENDER

Attitudes toward Race and Intelligence

Almost every year, as part of a nationalresearch project known as the General SocialSurvey, researchers ask a representativesample of U.S. adults to rank racial and eth-nic categories with regard to overall intelli-gence. They ask people to use a seven-pointscale that ranges from 1 (very low intelli-gence) to 7 (very high intelligence). The graphshows the average score respondents gaveto each category of people.

Apparently, the U.S. public believesthat some racial and ethnic categoriesare smarter than others. Whites, themajority category, rank themselves highin intelligence. Notice, however, thatsouthern whites—who historically havehad less education than those in otherregions—get a lower rating. A commonopinion is that most minorities are lessbright. An exception is Jewish people,most of whom are white and nonsouth-ern and who have above-average edu-cation. Asian Americans also areranked slightly above whites. The sur-vey data place African Americans andLatinos farther down the scale.

Almost all scientists agree thatsome individuals are smarter than otherindividuals. But just a few researchersargue that entire categories of peopleare innately smarter than others. Forexample, Richard Herrnstein andCharles Murray reviewed research onintelligence and reported that the aver-age intelligence quotient (IQ) of whitepeople (of European ancestry) wasabout 100, the average IQ for people ofEast Asian ancestry was a bit higher at103, and the IQ for people of Africandescent was somewhat lower at 90.

Most social scientists consider any suchdifferences a reflection of environment andculture rather than innate intelligence. Forexample, Thomas Sowell found that early inthe last century, immigrants from Poland,Lithuania, Italy, Greece, China, and Japanscored 10 to 15 points below the U.S. aver-age on IQ tests. Today, people in these samecategories have IQ scores that are average

or above. Among Italian Americans, averageIQ jumped almost 10 points in fifty years;among Polish and Chinese Americans, therise was almost 20 points.

Sowell found a similar pattern amongAfrican Americans. On IQ tests, black peopleliving in the North outscore black people liv-ing in the South by about 10 points, a differ-ence that biology cannot explain. Similarly,African Americans who migrated from the

South to the North after 1940 soon per-formed much better on IQ tests.

Sowell concludes that cultural pat-terns are the main cause of IQ differ-ences between categories of people.Asians score higher on tests notbecause they are smarter but becausetheir cultures value learning andencourage excellence. African Ameri-cans score lower because they carry alegacy of disadvantage that can under-mine self-confidence and discourageachievement.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

1. Why do you think U.S. adults rankracial and ethnic categories differ-ently with regard to intelligence?

2. Do you think what we call “intelli-gence” is real? Can it be measuredfairly?

3. Why are IQ tests important? Doyou think the use of IQ tests canfuel unfair prejudice? Why or whynot?

Sources: Sowell (1994, 1995), Herrnstein & Murray(1994), and NORC (2008).

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How U.S. Adults Link Intelligence to Race and EthnicitySurvey research shows that people in the United Statestend to view some racial and ethnic categories asmore intelligent than others.Source: NORC (2008).

GETTING INVOLVEDHow does the box below demonstrate the value of sociological research in combating prejudice?

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StereotypesA concept closely linked to prejudice is stereotype, an exagger-ated description applied to every person in some category. Theword stereo comes from the Greek word for “hard” or “solid,”suggesting a rigid belief, one that is largely at odds with reality.For just about every racial or ethnic category, our culture con-tains stereotypes, which typically describe a category of peoplein negative terms. What stereotypes are conveyed in phrasessuch as “Dutch treat,”“French kiss,”“Russian roulette,” and “get-ting gypped” (a reference to Gypsies)?

We all form opinions about the world, identifying peopleas “good” or “bad” in various ways. Generalizations about spe-cific people that are based on actual experience may be quitevalid. But racial or ethnic stereotypes are more of a problembecause they assume that an entire category of people sharesparticular traits, as when a white person thinks all AfricanAmericans are unwilling to work hard or a person of colorthinks every white person is hostile toward black people.Forming a judgment about another individual on the basis ofactual personal experience is one thing, but when we place oth-ers in a category before we have a chance to judge them as indi-viduals, stereotypes dehumanize people.

RacismThe most serious example of prejudice is racism, the assertionthat people of one race are less worthy than or even biologicallyinferior to others. Over the course of human history, people theworld over have assumed they were superior to those theyviewed as lesser human beings.

Why is racism so widespread? Because the claim that peo-ple are biologically inferior, although entirely wrong, can beused to justify making them socially inferior. For example,Europeans used racism to support the often brutal colonizationof much of Latin America, Asia, and Africa. When Europeansspoke of the “white man’s burden,” they were claiming to besuperior beings who had the obligation to help “inferior” beingsbecome more like them.

Even today, hundreds of hate groups in the United Statescontinue to claim that minorities are inferior. In addition, sub-tle forms of racism are common in everyday life.

Measuring Prejudice: The Social Distance ScalePrejudice shapes everyday life as it draws us toward some cate-gories of people and away from others. Early in the twentiethcentury, Emory Bogardus (1925) developed the social distancescale to measure prejudice among students at U.S. colleges and

universities. Bogardus asked students how closely they were will-ing to interact with people in thirty racial and ethnic categories.Figure 3–1 shows the seven-point scale Bogardus used. At oneextreme, people express very high social distance (high negativeprejudice) when they say that some category of people should bebarred from the country (point 7 in the figure). At the otherextreme (little or no negative prejudice), people say they wouldaccept members of some category into their family throughmarriage (Bogardus, 1925, 1967; Owen, Elsner, & McFaul, 1977).

Decades ago, Bogardus found that students, regardless oftheir own race and ethnicity, were most prejudiced againstLatinos, African Americans, Asians, and Turks; they were will-ing to have these people as coworkers but not as neighbors,friends, or family members. At the other extreme, they weremost accepting of the English, Scots, and Canadians, whomthey were willing to have marry into their families.

Recently, Vincent Parrillo and Christopher Donoghue(2005) repeated the social distance study to see how studentstoday felt about various minorities1. There were three majorfindings:

1. Today’s students are more accepting of all minorities.Figure 3–1 shows that the average (mean) response on thesocial distance scale was 2.14 in 1925 and 1946, dropping to2.08 in 1956, 1.92 in 1966, 1.93 in 1977, and just 1.44 in 2001.In the most recent study, students (81 percent of whom werewhite) expressed much more acceptance of African Ameri-cans: Placed near the bottom in 1925, this category was nearthe top in 2001.

2. Today’s students see less difference between the variousminorities. In the earliest studies, although students werevery accepting of some people (scores between 1 and 2),they were not very accepting of other minorities (scoresbetween 4 and 5). In the 2001 study, no minority receiveda score greater than 1.94.

3. The terrorist attacks in 2001 probably increased prejudiceagainst Arabs and Muslims. The most recent study wasdone just weeks after the terrorist attacks of September 11,2001. Perhaps the fact that the nineteen attackers were Arabsand Muslims helps explain why students expressed the great-est social distance toward these categories. Even so, not onestudent in the study said that Arabs or Muslims should be

stereotype an exaggerated description applied to every person in some categoryIs the stereotype of Asian Americans as a “model minority”really positive or not? Explain.

1Parrillo and Donoghue dropped seven of Bogardus’s original categories(Armenians, Czechs, Finns, Norwegians, Scots, Swedes, and Turks) because theyare no longer visible minorities and added nine new categories (Africans, Arabs,Cubans, Dominicans, Haitians, Jamaicans, Muslims, Puerto Ricans, andVietnamese). This change probably encouraged higher social distance scores,making the downward trend all the more significant.

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barred from the United States. Also, even the most preju-diced score by today’s students (Arabs, with a mean score of1.94) shows much more tolerance than students back in 1977expressed toward eighteen of the thirty minority categories.

Institutional Racism: The Case of Racial ProfilingThe studies we have just looked at involve prejudice in terms ofindividual attitudes. But if those attitudes are widespread, weshould expect prejudice to be built into the operation of societyitself. This idea underlies the work of Stokely Carmichael and

Charles Hamilton (1967), who described institutional racismas racism at work in the operation of social institutions, includingthe economy, schools, hospitals, the military, and the criminal jus-tice system. Whenever race plays a part in the operation of anyof these social institutions, harming minorities, institutionalracism is at work.

Racial profiling—in which police or others in power con-sider race or ethnicity to be, by itself, a sign of probable guilt—illustrates the operation of institutional racism. This is not amatter of one individual police officer being prejudiced andthinking that, say, all African Americans are potential criminals.Prejudice is institutional when such attitudes are part of the

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I would accept a [minority category] as a . . .

(a) Social Distance Scale

(b) Mean Social Distance Score by Category, 2001

1family memberby marriage.

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(Less social distance = greater acceptance) (Greater social distance = less acceptance)

1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 2.0

Mean Score for All Categories:

1925 1946 1956 1966 1977 2001

2.14 2.14 2.08 1.92 1.93 1.44(c)

FIGURE 3–1 Bogardus Social Distance ScaleUsing this seven-point scale, Emory Bogardus and others have shown that people feel much closer to some categories of peoplethan they do to others. Between 1925, when the study was first carried out, and the most recent study in 2001, the averagesocial distance response has dropped from 2.14 to 1.44, showing increasing tolerance of diversity.Source: Parrillo & Donoghue (2005).

Dimensions of Difference

GETTING INVOLVEDDo any of the results shown in Figure 3-1 below surprise you? Explain.

racism the assertion that people of one race are less worthy than or evenbiologically inferior to others

institutional racism racism at work in the operation of social institutions,including the economy, schools, hospitals, the military, and the criminal justicesystem

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Many African Americans claim that skin color alone is enough toprompt a response from police. Often, this claim centers on blackdrivers being stopped for no apparent reason—the alleged crime of“driving while black.” To what extent do you think this pattern existsin the United States? Explain.

society’s culture—and also part of the culture of a policedepartment—so that there is a widespread pattern of policeautomatically assuming that a black person who comes to theirattention is engaged in wrongdoing. If police generally considerblack persons more dangerous than whites, they may be quickerto draw their weapons on black people, perhaps with tragicresults. In recent years, a number of African Americans whoturned out to be neither armed nor guilty of any crime havebeen killed by police who may well have reacted partly or pri-marily to their skin color.

Challenging cases of institutionalized racism is difficult.Police departments are part of society’s power structure andclaim to serve the public interest. When institutional racisminvolves an organization with a lot of power, it is often ignored.

Causes of PrejudiceWhat causes people to become prejudiced in the first place?Researchers point to two key factors: the personality of individ-uals and the structure of society itself.

Personality Factors

T. W. Adorno and his colleagues (1950) claimed that prejudiceis strong in people with an authoritarian personality. Such peo-ple feel a lot of hostility, rigidly conform to conventionalnorms, and see the world in stark contrasts of “right” versus“wrong” and “us” versus “them.” What creates such a personal-ity? Adorno pointed to cold and demanding parents who filltheir children with insecurity and anger. Such children, espe-cially when they lack schooling, develop little tolerance of oth-ers and are quick to direct their anger at people who differ fromthemselves.

Societal Factors

Prejudice also results from the structure of society itself.Scapegoat theory, for example, says that prejudice developsamong people who are frustrated at their lack of control overtheir lives (Dollard et al., 1939). Working-class whites in south-west Texas, for example, may feel anxious and angry at theirlack of economic security, but where do they direct their anger?They might blame their political leaders, the people who runtheir communities, but that would be dangerous. A safer targetwould be poor, illegal immigrants from Mexico who are willingto grab any job they can find, often at less than minimum wage.Scapegoat theory suggests that people direct their hostility atsafe, less powerful targets such as illegal immigrants or otherminorities. Because many of society’s least powerful people areminorities, they often end up as scapegoats blamed for a host oftroubles that are not their fault.

Cultural theory claims that prejudice is built into ourculture. An illustration of this is the research using EmoryBogardus’s social distance scale, described earlier in this chap-ter. Bogardus showed that most of us turn out to have the samekinds of prejudice, favoring certain categories of people andavoiding others. The fact that these attitudes are so widelyshared suggests that prejudice is not a trait of deviant individu-als as much as it is a normal part of our cultural system.

MulticulturalismIs there a way to address prejudice deeply rooted in our culture?One strategy for change is multiculturalism, educational pro-grams designed to recognize cultural diversity in the United Statesand to promote respect for all cultural traditions.

Multiculturalism claims, first, that U.S. society has long down-played its cultural diversity. Schools have taught generations ofchildren that the United States is a cultural “melting pot” thatblends human diversity into a single culture we call “American.”However, multiculturalism maintains that our diverse popula-tion has “melted” far less than most people think. More cor-

Many African Americans report having been pulled over by police for “driving while black.” How is that a case of institutional prejudice?

multiculturalism educational programs designed to recognize cultural diversity inthe United States and to promote respect for all cultural traditions

Eurocentrism the practice of using European (particularly English) culturalstandards to judge everyone

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rectly, race and ethnicity have formed a hierar-chy. At the top, Europeans (especially theEnglish) represent the cultural ideal of thewell-informed, well-groomed, and well-behaved man and woman. What we call assim-ilation, then, is really a process of Anglicizationas immigrants try to become more like theprivileged white Anglo-Saxon Protestants(WASPs).

In addition, U.S. institutions—includingschools, law, and the economy, as well as dom-inant religions and family forms—are allmodeled along Western European lines.Multiculturalists describe this bias asEurocentrism, the practice of using European(particularly English) cultural standards tojudge everyone. To multiculturalists, U.S.culture is itself an expression of prejudiceagainst people in this country who differfrom the dominant model. Multicultur-alism asks that we rethink our national her-itage and recognize the accomplishmentsnot just of the cultural elite but of people ofevery race and ethnicity.

Although there is strong support for mul-ticulturalism (especially among liberals) because it gives morevisibility and power to minorities, others (especially conserva-tives) claim that this approach divides society by downplayingwhat we have in common. The Latin phrase that appears on allU.S. currency—E pluribus unum—literally means “out of many,one.” Thus the controversy over multiculturalism is really abouthow much stress we should place on a single national identityand how much we should highlight differences.

DiscriminationDiscrimination involves the unequal treatment of various cate-gories of people. Prejudice is a matter of attitudes, but discrimi-nation is a matter of actions. Like prejudice, discriminationcan be positive or negative. We discriminate in a positiveway when we single out people who do especially good workor when we provide special favors to family members orfriends. We discriminate in a negative way when we put oth-ers down or avoid entire categories of people based on theirrace or ethnicity.

Few people would object to an employer who hires a jobapplicant with more schooling over one with less. But what if anemployer favors one category of people (say, Christians) overanother (say, Jews)? Unless a person’s religion is directly related

to the job (for example, if a church is hiring a priest), ruling outan entire category of people is wrongful discrimination, whichviolates the law.

Institutional DiscriminationAs in the case of prejudice, some discrimination involves theactions of individuals. For example, a restaurant owner mightrefuse to serve students with dark skin. Almost everyone con-demns discrimination of this kind, and in a public setting suchas a restaurant, it is against the law.

Institutional discrimination is discrimination that is builtinto the operation of social institutions, including the economy,schools, and the legal system. A well-known example of institu-tional discrimination is this nation’s history of treating blackand white children differently by placing them in separateschools. As noted earlier, not until 1954 did civil rights activistssucceed in overturning the legal doctrine of “separate butequal” schools, which the U.S. Supreme Court concluded wasunconstitutional in the landmark case of Brown v. Board ofEducation of Topeka. But that did not end racial segregation inour country; more than half a century after the Brown decision,most children still sit in classrooms surrounded by students ofthe same race (Kozol, 2005).

Wouldn’t most people assume that the gloved hand holding the wine glass is white?Despite the outlawing of racial discrimination, there is still considerable social inequalitybeween white and black people in U.S. society. The widespread pattern of people ofcolor providing personal service to members of the dominant white majority goes all theway back to the beginnings of slavery.

MAKING THE GRADEBe sure you are clear as to how discrimination differs fromprejudice.

discrimination the unequal treatment of various categories of people

institutional discrimination discrimination that is built into the operation ofsocial institutions, including the economy, schools, and the legal system

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Prejudice and Discrimination: A Vicious CirclePrejudice and discrimination reinforce each other, maintainingsocial inequality over time. Let’s begin with how prejudice canlead to discrimination: If prejudiced white police officers thinkthat most African Americans are criminals, they may wellengage in racial profiling, stopping a large number of blackmotorists and being quick to arrest black citizens on the street.Such discrimination, if it is widespread, will overly criminalizeAfrican Americans, reducing their chances of finding good jobsand raising their odds of living in neighborhoods marked bypoverty, drug abuse, and crime. As people see minorities in suchconditions, this discrimination unleashes a new round of prej-udice. And so it goes, around and around, forming a vicious cir-cle that harms minorities.

Affirmative Action: ReverseDiscrimination or Cure for Prejudice?One strategy aimed at breaking the vicious circle of prejudiceand discrimination is affirmative action, policies intended toimprove the social standing of minorities subject to past prejudice

and discrimination. Affirmative action policies have changedover time, and they will continue to change in response to courtrulings.

History of Affirmative Action

After World War II, the government assisted veterans by fund-ing education under what was known as the GI Bill, andminorities who might not otherwise have gone to college werethus able to enter classrooms across the country. By 1960,almost 350,000 African Americans had used government helpto earn a college degree, but many of these men and womenwere not getting the types of jobs for which they were qualified.The Kennedy administration concluded that education alonecould not overcome deep-seated, institutionalized prejudiceand discrimination against people of color, so it devised thepolicy of affirmative action, which required employers to“throw a wider net” to identify and hire qualified minorityapplicants. In the years that followed, employers hired thou-sands of African American women and men for good jobs,helping build the black middle class and reduce racial prejudice.

By the 1970s, affirmative action was extended to includecollege admissions, and many policies took the form of “quota

Throughout much of the United States until the 1960s, public facilities, including bus and railroad stations, weresegregated. But today—fifty years later—racial segregation is still commonly found. For example, Montgomery CountyHigh School in Mount Vernon, Georgia, still holds a white prom and a black prom that divide students by race.

GETTING INVOLVEDHow do you suggest breaking the vicious circle of prejudice and discrimination?

affirmative action policies intended to improve the social standing of minoritiessubject to past prejudice and discrimination

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systems” in which employers or colleges set aside a certainnumber of places for minorities, which by then includedwomen, Hispanics, veterans, and in some cases people withphysical disabilities. In 1978, the Supreme Court heard thecase of University of California Regents v. Bakke, brought byAllen Bakke, a white man who was denied admission to med-ical school at the University of California at Davis. The med-ical school had a policy of setting aside 16 places (out of 100in each entering class) for African Americans, Asian Americans,Native Americans, and Hispanic Americans. Such rigid quotaswere ruled to be illegal, but the Court did endorse the use ofrace and ethnicity as part of the overall process of admittingstudents or hiring employees in order to increase minorityrepresentation in settings from which minorities had histori-cally been excluded.

By the mid-1990s, opposition to affirmative action pro-grams had increased. In 1995, the University of California sys-tem declared it would no longer consider race and gender whenmaking admission, hiring, and contract decisions. The follow-ing year, California voters passed Proposition 209, whichrequired state agencies to operate without regard to race, eth-nicity, or gender. A similar proposition passed in the state ofWashington. Also in 1996, a federal district court declared (inHopwood v. Texas) that race and gender could no longer be con-sidered by public colleges and universities in Texas, Louisiana,and Mississippi.

Seeking a socially diverse student body, many colleges anduniversities have tried to find a way around the new regulations.In Texas, for example, public universities admit all students inthe top 10 percent of their high school class, a policy thatbenefits students from predominantly African American andLatino schools.

In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court once again addressed theissue of affirmative action. The case involved admission policiesat the University of Michigan, a state university. In the under-graduate admissions process, applicants of underrepresentedminorities had received a numerical bonus that was added to atotal score, which also reflected grades and College Board scores.The Supreme Court struck down this point system as too simi-lar to the racial quota systems rejected by the Court in the past.However, the Court did say that colleges and universities couldcontinue to take account of applicants’ race with the goal of cre-ating a racially diverse student body. In this administrativeprocess, rather than a rigid point system, race was treated as oneof several variables used in giving each applicant individual con-sideration. In these decisions, the Court was affirming thenational importance of allowing colleges and universities to cre-ate racially diverse campuses while at the same time stating thatall applicants must be considered as individuals (Stout, 2003).

The United States continues to wrestle with the issue ofaffirmative action. Most people agree that society needs to givereal opportunity to people in every racial and ethnic category.But disagreement remains as to whether affirmative action ispart of the problem or part of the solution (Fineman & Lipper,2003; Kantrowitz & Wingert, 2003; NORC, 2007).

Theoretical Analysis:Understanding Racial and Ethnic InequalityWhy do the various racial and ethnic categories of the U.S. pop-ulation have unequal social standing? The following discussiondraws answers from sociology’s three major theoreticalapproaches: structural-functional, symbolic-interaction, andsocial-conflict analysis.

Structural-Functional Analysis: TheImportance of CultureStructural-functional theory places great importance on cul-ture. To the extent that various racial and ethnic categories havedifferent cultural orientations—for example, more or lessemphasis on education or achievement—unequal social stand-ing is the likely result.

The Culture of Poverty

Chapter 2 (“Poverty and Wealth”) introduced the “culture ofpoverty” thesis of Oscar Lewis (1966). Lewis studied the low-income Puerto Rican population of San Juan and New York andfound a widespread way of thinking that he called “fatalism.”This outlook leads people to accept their situation and theassumption that life will never get better. Growing up poor andlearning to accept that situation, young people develop low self-esteem and a sense of hopelessness. Over time, they grow intoadults who are not likely to take advantage of the opportunitiessociety offers them.

Joan Albon made a similar claim about American Indians,whose traditional cultures tend to be cooperative and “in directopposition to the principles of the modern, competitive, capi-talistic order” (1971:387). Some African American peer groupshave also been described as having an “oppositional culture”that discourages members from excelling by defining schoolachievement as “acting white” (Fordham & Ogbu, 1992). Insuch an environment, adds Shelby Steele (1990), a successfulman or woman of color risks the charge of not being a “real”African American.

GETTING INVOLVEDTo what extent do you support affirmative action based on race? Explain.

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CRITICAL REVIEW Although few people doubt thatculture matters, critics claim that relying on this approachamounts to defining people as responsible for their owndisadvantage—what Chapter 2 described as “blaming thevictim.” People who live in individualistic societies such asthe United States find it easy to blame people for their ownpoverty. But do poor people really deserve to live as theydo? If disadvantaged people lack some of the optimismand confidence found among people who are better off,critics suggest, this is more the result than the cause of lowsocial standing.

The Applying Theory table summarizes the contributionsof the structual-functional approach, as well as the social-interaction and social-conflict approaches, which follow.

Symbolic-Interaction Analysis: The Personal Meaning of RaceForty years after the end of slavery in the United States, the pio-neering sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois published The Souls ofBlack Folk, an analysis of the social standing of black people. AsDu Bois saw it, even though slavery was gone, most AfricanAmericans were still living as second-class citizens.

Every time black people and white people met, said DuBois, race hung in the air, defining each in the eyes of the other.From the African American perspective, race produces “a pecu-liar sensation, [a] double-consciousness, [a] sense of alwayslooking at oneself through the eyes of others, of measuringone’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused con-tempt and pity” (2001:227, orig. 1903). In effect, Du Bois said,U.S. society makes whites the standard by which others (includ-ing African Americans) should be measured. In daily encoun-ters, race operates as a master status, a trait that defines anddevalues any person of color.

Today, more than a century later, race continues to shapethe everyday lives of everyone, regardless of their color.Manning Marable sums it up this way: “As long as I can remem-ber, the fundamentally defining feature of my life, and the livesof my family, was the stark reality of race” (1995:1).

CRITICAL REVIEW Symbolic-interaction analysisinvestigates how we use color (or in the case of ethnicity,cultural background) as we define ourselves and evaluateother people. In short, race and ethnicity are key buildingblocks of the reality we experience in everyday life.

At the same time, race involves more than personalunderstandings. Race is also an important structure ofsociety, a dimension of social stratification. This insightbrings us to the social-conflict approach.

Social-Conflict Analysis: The Structure of InequalitySocial-conflict analysis claims that the unequal standing ofminorities reflects the organization of society itself. Class, race,and ethnicity operate together as important dimensions ofsocial inequality.

The Importance of Class

Karl Marx traced the roots of social inequality to a society’seconomy. As explained in Chapter 2 (“Poverty and Wealth”),Marx criticized capitalism for concentrating wealth and powerin the hands of a small elite. He explained that this capitalistelite, realizing that the strength of the working class lies in itsgreater numbers, tries to divide the workers by playing up racialand ethnic differences. Marx’s colleague Friedrich Engelspointed to the racial and ethnic diversity of the United States asthe main reason U.S. workers had not come together to form asocialist movement. “Immigration,” Marx and Engels wrote,

divides the workers into two groups: the native born and theforeigners, and the latter in turn into (1) the Irish, (2) theGermans, (3) the many small groups, each of which under-stands only itself: Czechs, Poles, Italians, Scandinavians, etc.And then the Negroes. To form a single party out of theserequires unusually powerful incentives. (1959:458, orig. 1893)

Marx and Engels hoped that the increasing misery of workerswould eventually provide the incentive for workers to unifythemselves into a politically active class. To some degree, thishas happened, and a number of unions and worker organiza-tions have memberships that are black and white, Anglo andLatino. However, racial and ethnic differences still divide theU.S. workforce as they do workers around the world.

Multicultural Theory

Social-conflict theory also notes the importance of culture. Amulticultural perspective claims that U.S. culture provides priv-ileges to the European majority while pushing minorities to themargins of society.

Cultural bias against minorities colors accounts of U.S. his-tory. When Christopher Columbus landed in the Bahamas in1492, he encountered Native Americans who were, on thewhole, peaceful. Tragically, this gentleness made it easy for themore competitive and aggressive Europeans to take advantageof them. Yet most of our historical accounts portray Europeansas heroic explorers and Native Americans as thieves and mur-derers (Matthiessen, 1984; Sale, 1990).

As W. E. B. Du Bois noted, bias involving race and ethnic-ity is still part of everyday life. Take the common case in whichpeople assume that “classical music” refers only to European

MAKING THE GRADERemember that social-conflict theories can focus on class(Marx) and also race (multiculturalism).

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and not to Chinese, Indian, or Zulu compositions of a certainperiod. Cultural bias also leads people to apply the term “ethnic”to anyone not of English background or even to speak of “whitesand blacks,” placing the dominant category first (as we do for“husbands and wives”).

CRITICAL REVIEW One criticism of social-conflicttheory is that this approach downplays what people in theUnited States have in common. Whatever their color or cul-tural background, most people identify themselves as“Americans,” and they have joined together over and over

again to help each other in bad times and, in good times, tocelebrate the principle of individual freedom that definesour way of life.

A second problem is that painting minorities as victimsruns the risk of taking away people’s responsibility for theirown lives. It is true that minorities face serious barriers, butwe need to remember that people also make choices abouthow to live and can act to raise their social standing andjoin together to improve their communities.

Third and finally, conflict theory all but ignores the sig-nificant strides this nation has made in dealing with its

Racial and Ethnic Inequality

What do we learn about racial andethnic inequality?

Are racial and ethnic differenceshelpful or harmful to society?

Structural-functionalapproach

Macro-level The structural-functional approach highlightsthe importance of culture to social standing.Various categories of the population havediffering cultural orientations that affectpatterns of education and achievement.

The “culture of poverty” thesis developedby Oscar Lewis is one example of a theoryto explain why some low-income peoplehave a fatalistic view of their situation.

Ethnic differences are cultural and asource of identity and pride for mostpeople. At the same time, traditional orfatalistic cultural orientations can be abarrier to achievement for somecategories of people.

Symbolic-interactionapproach

Micro-level The symbolic-interaction approach focuseson how people experience society in theireveryday lives. Race and ethnicity affect theway we evaluate ourselves and others. W. E. B. Du Bois claimed that most peopleconsider race a basic element of socialidentity, to the disadvantage of people of color.

To the extent that race or ethnicitybecomes a master status thatdevalues people, these socialstructures take away from ourcommon humanity.

Social-conflict approach

Macro-level The social-conflict approach links race andethnicity to class—all are elements of socialstratification.

Marx and Engels claimed that race andethnicity divided the working class.

Multicultural theory claims that our culturehas a European bias that pushes minorityways of life to the margins of society.

As elements of social stratification,race and ethnicity serve the interestsof elites and are harmful to theoperation of society.

What is the levelof analysis?

� APPLYING THEORY �

MAKING THE GRADEUse the table below to review the three theoreticalapproaches to racial and ethnic inequality.

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social diversity. Over time, U.S. society has moved closer tothe ideals of political participation, public education, andequal standing before the law for everyone. As a result, theshare of minorities who are well schooled, politically active,and affluent has steadily increased. Although much remainsto be done, there is also reason for pride and optimism. Theelection of Barack Obama, an African American man, aspresident of the United States is surely a sign that race isno longer the barrier it once was (West, 2008).

POLITICS, RACE, AND ETHNICITY

Constructing Problems and Defining SolutionsShould racial and ethnic inequality be defined as a problem? Ifso, what should be done about it? Conservative, liberal, andradical-left viewpoints produce different answers.

Conservatives: Culture and Effort MatterConservatives support the idea that all people should haveequal standing before the law and the chance to improve theirlives. Believing that these things are mostly true in the UnitedStates, conservatives also believe that people are responsible fortheir own social standing.

If some racial and ethnic minorities are more successfulthan others, it is likely that cultural differences are at work. Onaverage, people in various racial and ethnic categories placedifferent emphasis on schooling, aspire to different kinds ofjobs, and even attach different levels of importance to financialsuccess. For instance, Italians have long worked in the buildingtrades, the Irish lean toward public service occupations, Jewshave long dominated the garment industry and are well repre-sented in most professions, and many Koreans operate retailbusinesses (Keister, 2003). Such differences make no one “better”than anyone else. But as conservatives see it, they do producesocial inequality.

According to the conservative view, social standing shouldreflect people’s level of ambition, the importance they place onschooling, and their commitment to hard work. In a societysuch as ours, people are free but also unequal. Conservativesclaim that any society in which government tries to engineerrigid social equality would almost certainly offer little personalfreedom.

The defense of individual freedom is the reason conserva-tives typically oppose affirmative action policies. They arguethat instead of being an effective way to give everyone an equal

chance—a path toward the goal of a color-blind society—affirmative action is really a system of “group preferences.” Inpractice, as they see it, such policies amount to “reverse discrim-ination” that favors people based not on their individual qualifi-cations and performance but on their race, ethnicity, or gender.If treating people according to color was wrong in the past, howcan it be right today?

Conservatives add that affirmative action harms minoritiesby calling into question their accomplishments: How wouldyou feel, for example, if other people thought you had beenadmitted to college not because of your abilities but because ofyour skin color or ethnic background?

Finally, conservatives point out that affirmative actionhelps the minorities who need it least. Minorities on collegecampuses and in the corporate world are, by and large, alreadywell off; affirmative action does less for the minority poor, whoneed help the most (Gilder, 1980; C. Murray, 1984; Sowell,1987, 1990; Carter, 1991; Steele, 1990; B. L. Stone, 2000).

Liberals: Society and Government MatterLiberals claim that prejudice and discrimination, and not cul-tural differences, are the main causes of social inequality. Forthis reason, liberals claim, it is simply not true that everyone hasthe same chance to get ahead. Prejudice and discrimination arestill very much a part of our society’s schools, military, corpo-rate economy, criminal justice system, and other institutions.

Liberals acknowledge that there may be cultural differencesbetween various categories of the population. But liberals seesuch differences as more the result than the cause of socialinequality. That is, people who are shut out of opportunity—whether they are inner-city or rural residents—may develop asense of hopelessness about their situation. But minoritiesthemselves are not the problem; the responsibility for this situ-ation lies in the structure of power and privilege in the largersociety.

If inequality is so deeply rooted in our society, we cannotexpect minorities acting as individuals to improve their situa-tion. Therefore, liberals look to government as the solution,supporting policies—including antidiscrimination laws—thatreduce racial and ethnic inequality.

This call for government action helps explain why liberalssupport affirmative action. As they see it, an affirmative actionprogram is a necessary correction for historical prejudice anddiscrimination directed against minorities. African Americanstoday face the legacy of two centuries of slavery and an addi-tional century and a half of racial segregation. In short, for mostof its history, our nation has had a policy of majority preference,one reason the social standing of whites is higher than that of

GETTING INVOLVEDWhat do you think are the strongest point and the weakest point made byconservatives?

GETTING INVOLVEDWhat do you think are the strongest point and the weakest point made by liberals?

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blacks and other minorities. For this reason, liberals think thatminority preference is not only fair but also necessary as a stepto help level the playing field.

Liberals claim that affirmative action has been good for thecountry. Where would minorities be today without the affirmativeaction that began in the 1960s? After all, major employers ingovernment and corporate business began hiring large num-bers of minorities and women only because of affirmativeaction, resulting in the growth of the African American middleclass (Johnson, Rush, & Feagin, 2000; Kantrowitz & Wingert,2003).

The Radical Left: FundamentalChanges Are NeededLeft radicals claim that much more than liberal reform isneeded to end the problem of racial and ethnic inequality.Following Marx, radicals point out that as long as a capitalistsociety defines workers simply as a supply of labor, there is lit-tle reason to expect an end to exploitation and oppression,which is based on both class and race. Therefore, left radicalsargue that the only way to reduce racial and ethnic inequalityis to attack the source of all inequality: capitalism itself (Liazos,1982).

A more recent addition to radical thinking about racialinequality focuses not on economics but on culture. Some oftoday’s activist scholars conclude that to end racial inequality, asociety must eliminate the concept of race entirely. As they seeit, as long as a society continues to recognize race, it will dividepeople, giving advantages to some at the expense of others.Could we really leave behind the notion of race, which has beenso basic to conventional ways of thinking? In time, perhaps.Doing so would certainly be a radical change because abolish-ing race will demand basic changes to the current white powerstructure. As one group of sociologists claims:

A useful place to begin undoing racism is to address thesocial, economic, and political embeddedness of white racismwithin the foundation of the U.S. political system. . . . Thus,[we] call for a new constitutional convention, one that willrepresent fairly and equally, for the first time, all majorgroups of U.S. citizens. What might the social, political, andeconomic landscape of the United States look like if westarted with a social system constructed to actually meet theneeds of democracy and humanity rather than the goals ofprivilege-maintenance and racial hierarchy? (Johnson, Rush,& Feagin, 2000:101)

The Left to Right table on page 82 provides a summary ofthe three political perspectives applied to the issue of racial andethnic inequality.

Going On from HereFor most people living in the lower-income nations of theworld, everyday life is guided by their kin group, tribe, or reli-gion. In high-income countries, by contrast, people break freeof traditional categories and are more likely to say that theirlives should be guided by personal choices, talents, and efforts.

Conservatives tend to support restricting immigration laws not onlyout of respect for law but also to limit the rate of cultural change.Liberals endorse greater immigration out of respect for diversity andwelcome cultural change. Radicals on the left claim that racial andethnic inequality will persist as long as our capitalist economycontinues.

GETTING INVOLVEDWhat do you think are the strongest point and the weakest point made by the radical left?

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82 CHAPTER 3 Racial and Ethnic Inequality82

The Politics of Racial and Ethnic InequalityRADICAL-LEFT VIEW LIBERAL VIEW CONSERVATIVE VIEW

WHAT IS THEPROBLEM?

Striking inequality and racism are builtinto the very institutions of U.S.society.

Social and economic inequality placesminorities at the margins of U.S.society.

Some people are still prejudiced anddiscriminate against minorities; someminority communities need to improvetheir standing.

WHAT IS THESOLUTION?

There must be fundamental change ineconomic, political, and other socialinstitutions to eliminate racialhierarchy.

Government programs must attackprejudice and discrimination andprovide assistance to minorities.

All people need to treat others asindividuals. Some minorities mustovercome cultural disadvantagesthrough individual effort in order torealize higher achievement.

� LEFT TO RIGHT �

JOIN THE DEBATE1. Consider the following statement: “Over the course of its

history, the United States has moved closer to the ideal ofbeing a color-blind society.” Do you agree or disagree with thisstatement? Why? How would conservatives, liberals, and leftradicals respond to this statement?

2. What does the election of Barack Obama, an AfricanAmerican, as this country’s president suggest about the

changing importance of race in our national life? Do youexpect this event to encourage further change? Explain.

3. Which of the three political approaches regarding racial andethnic inequality included here do you find most convincing?Why?

This is why most members of our society think that categoriz-ing people on the basis of their skin color or cultural heritage iswrong. That is also why we define this type of race-based rank-ing as unfair prejudice and discrimination.

Social institutions in the United States have changed overtime to reflect these new beliefs. Slavery was abolished (1865);soon after, African Americans gained citizenship (1868), fol-lowed by Native Americans (1924), Chinese immigrants (1943),and Japanese immigrants (1952).

But as this chapter has explained, racial and ethnic inequal-ity continues today. Minorities still suffer the consequences ofprejudice and discrimination. These harmful biases exist notonly in the attitudes and actions of individuals but also in theoperation of society itself. For this reason, the inequalitydescribed in this chapter is carried from generation to genera-tion, as too many young Latinos, African Americans, and Nativepeople grow up poor.

In 1903, W. E. B. Du Bois predicted that race would be thedefining problem of the twentieth century. He was right. Couldwe say the same for the twenty-first century? What are the

prospects for change over the next 100 years? What does the factthat our country has now elected an African American to thehighest office in the land mean for our nation’s future?

The conservative solution to problems of race amounts toadopting a set of “color-blind” attitudes: Treat people as indi-viduals and demand that people take responsibility for theirown social standing. Liberals also endorse the long-range“color-blind” goal, but they argue that to reach it, governmentaction (including programs that take people’s race and ethnic-ity into account) is needed to guarantee that all categories ofpeople are full participants in society. Radicals on the leftweigh in with a greater challenge: Racism is too deeplyentrenched in U.S. institutions to expect well-meaning indi-viduals or even government reform to level the playing field;therefore, institutions must undergo fundamental change toensure equality for all.

Throughout its history, U.S. society has debated issuesrelated to racial and ethnic inequality. Let us hope that by theend of this century, we find answers that satisfy all categories ofpeople.

MAKING THE GRADEUse the table below to review the three political approaches to racial and ethnic inequality.

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Is increased immigration to the United States a problem? For many people, the answer to this question depends on whether the immigration is legal orillegal, and for everyone, it reflects political attitudes. What people say we ought to do aboutthe current high level of immigration also depends on their political viewpoint. Look at thephotos below, which show two responses to this issue.

CHAPTER 3 Racial and Ethnic Inequality

D E F I N I N G S O L U T I O N S

1. Use the campus library and the Internet to learn more about thehistory of a racial or ethnic category of interest to you. Whendid these people begin to come to the United States? What pat-terns of prejudice and discrimination have they faced? What aretheir special achievements? What is their social standing today?

2. An easy and interesting research project is to watch ten or twentyhours of television over the next week or two while taking noteson the race of TV actors and the kinds of characters they play.Although your sample may not be representative of all shows, itwill get you thinking about racial stereotypes in the mass media.

3. The U.S. Census Bureau collects data on interracial marriage:Refer to the Statistical Abstract or other documents in the library,or go to http://www.census.gov. Since 1970, how has the percent-age of interracial marriages changed? What other interesting pat-terns involving interracial marriage can you find?

4. Do an Internet search to learn the latest on the debate aboutdeveloping a national policy on illegal immigrants. Try to iden-tify both conservative and liberal approaches to this issue. Canyou find radical proposals?

What about the idea that everyone should obeythe law? If you are more conservative, you mighthave some sympathy for these volunteers whowork for the Minuteman Project along theArizona border with Mexico. This organization,with about 1,000 members, sets up observationpoints and reports illegal border crossings to theU.S. Border Patrol. From this point of view,what’s wrong with a high level of immigration?

Getting Involved: Applications & Exercises

Do you see increased immigration as a threat toour way of life or as a source of national strength?If you are more liberal, you might well support theapproach of Rosendo Delgado, who teachesEnglish to Mexican immigrants in his town nearDetroit, Michigan. From this point of view, whydoes immigration strengthen the country?

Liberals see the United States as the product ofimmigration. In addition, they view ethnic and racialdiversity as good, and they seek to promote toleranceof different ways of life. Immigration is also a sourceof talent as newcomers to the country bring theirskills, work hard, and pay taxes. Conservatives recog-nize that we’re all immigrants, but they see increas-ing numbers of immigrants as bringing too muchcultural change—a concern that leads many conser-vatives to support making English our nation’s offi-cial language. In addition, conservatives point to theimportance of the rule of law and believe that wecannot allow hundreds of thousands of people tobreak the law by entering this country illegally. Theyalso say that only immigrants with legal statusshould be eligible to receive government benefitssuch as education and health care.

HINT

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84 CHAPTER 3 Racial and Ethnic Inequality84

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Race and Ethnicity

MAKING THE GRADE

• RACE is a socially constructed category basedon physical traits that members of a societydefine as important.

• ETHNICITY is a shared cultural heritage.

• Both race and ethnicity are importantdimensions of inequality in the United States.

MINORITIES are categories of people that

• share a distinctive identity (which may be racialor ethnic)

• suffer disadvantages (such as poor schoolingand low-paying jobs)

The great racial and ethnic diversity of the United States is a product of IMMIGRATION from other countries.

• The “Great Immigration” (1865–1914) brought 25 million people in search of economic opportunity.

• Nativists, fearing that high immigration would endanger this country’s mostly English culture, pressured fora quota system, which Congress enacted in the 1920s.

• Congress ended the quota system in 1965, resulting in another large wave of immigration.

• Today, the issue of illegal immigration is a hotly debated topic.

pp. 59–60

The Social Standing of U.S. Minorities

Native Americanssuffered greatly at thehands of Europeansover the course of fivehundred years. Eventoday, NativeAmericans haverelatively low socialstanding.

pp. 63–64

African Americanscame to the UnitedStates as cargotransported by slavetraders. Despitesubstantial gains,African Americansare still, on average,disadvantaged.

pp. 65–66

Asian Americanshave lived in theUnited States formore than a century.Although their socialstanding is averageor above averagetoday, they still sufferfrom prejudice anddiscrimination.

pp. 66–67

Hispanic Americans orLatinos are a diversepeople sharing a culturalheritage. Somecategories, such as PuertoRicans, have low socialstanding; others, such asCuban Americans, arebetter off.

pp. 68–69

Arab Americans have ancestors invarious nations. Like other categoriesof minorities, they are subject to bothprejudice and discrimination.

pp. 69–70

race (p. 56) a socially constructed category of people who share biologically transmitted traitsthat a society defines as important

ethnicity (p. 58) a shared cultural heritage, whichtypically involves common ancestors, language,and religion

minority (p. 59) any category of people, identifiedby physical or cultural traits, that a society subjectsto disadvantages

genocide (p. 61) the systematic killing of one category of people by another

segregation (p. 61) the physical and social separation of categories of people

assimilation (p. 63) the process by which minoritiesgradually adopt cultural patterns from the dominantmajority population

pluralism (p. 63) a state in which people of allracial and ethnic categories have about the sameoverall social standing

pp. 56–58

pp. 58–59

Patterns of Majority-Minority Interaction

GENOCIDE is thedeliberate killing of acategory of people.Europeancolonization of theAmericas resulted inthe deaths ofthousands of nativepeople.

pp. 60–61

SEGREGATION is thephysical and socialseparation of somecategory of apopulation. De jureracial segregationexisted in the U.S.until the 1960s. Defacto segregationcontinues today.

pp. 61–62

ASSIMILATION is aprocess (a “meltingpot”) by whichminorities adoptstyles of dress, thelanguage, culturalvalues, and even thereligion of thedominant majority.

p. 63

PLURALISM is astate in which racialand ethniccategories, thoughdistinct, have equalsocial standing. Inthe U.S., all peoplehave equal standingby law; however,social tolerance fordiversity is limited.

p. 63

Prejudice

PREJUDICE consists of rigid prejudgments about some category of people.

• A STEREOTYPE is an exaggerated and unfair description.

• The study of prejudice using the social distance scale shows a trend toward greater tolerance on the partof U.S. college students.

• RACISM is the assertion that people of one race are innately superior to people of another. Racism hasbeen used throughout human history to justify the social inferiority of some category of people.

• Researchers have linked prejudice to individual traits (authoritarian personality theory) and to socialstructure (scapegoat theory) and patterns of belief (culture theory).

pp. 70–75

prejudice (p. 70) any rigid and unfounded generalization about an entire category of people

stereotype (p. 72) an exaggerated descriptionapplied to every person in some category

racism (p. 72) the assertion that people of onerace are less worthy than or even biologically inferior to others

institutional racism (p. 73) racism at work in theoperation of social institutions, including the economy,schools, hospitals, the military, and the criminaljustice system

multiculturalism (p. 74) educational programsdesigned to recognize cultural diversity in the UnitedStates and to promote respect for all cultural traditions

Eurocentrism (p. 75) the practice of using European (particularly English) cultural standards to judge everyone

A DEFINING MOMENT

Rosa Parks: Saying No to Segregation p. 62

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� Prejudice is a matter of attitudes; discrimination is a matter of actions. (p. 75)� Prejudice and discrimination reinforce each other and form a vicious circle that harms minorities. (p. 76)

Discrimination

Theoretical Analysis: Understanding Racial and Ethnic Inequality

The STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIONAL APPROACHexplains racial and ethnicinequality in terms of culturalvalues.

• The ”culture of poverty”theory developed by OscarLewis claims that minoritiesdevelop a fatalistic culturaloutlook that leads to a senseof hopelessness and lowself-esteem.

The SOCIAL-CONFLICTAPPROACH highlights howracial and ethnic inequality isbuilt into the structure of society.

• Marxist theory argues thatelites encourage racial andethnic divisions as astrategy to weaken theworking class.

• More recently, multiculturaltheory notes ways in whichmuch U.S. culture is biasedagainst minorities.

The SYMBOLIC-INTERACTIONAPPROACH highlights howrace often operates as amaster status in everydayinteraction.

• W. E. B. DuBois claimed thatU.S. society makes whitesthe standard by whichothers should be measuredand in so doing devaluesany person of color.

pp. 77–78p. 78

pp. 78–80

discrimination (p. 75) the unequal treatment ofvarious categories of people

institutional discrimination (p. 75) discriminationthat is built into the operation of social institutions,including the economy, schools, and the legal system

affirmative action (p. 76) policies intended toimprove the social standing of minorities subject topast prejudice and discrimination

DISCRIMINATION consists of actions that treatvarious categories of a population differently.

• Example: An employer refuses to consider jobapplications from people with Arabic-soundingnames.

• INSTITUTIONAL DISCRIMINATION is bias builtinto the operation of the economy, legal system,or other social institution.

• Example: U.S. law prior to 1954 required blackand white children to attend separate schools.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION policies allow employers and universities to consider factors such as race in hiringand admissions decisions.

• Liberals favor affirmative action in order to increase minority representation in settings from whichminorities have been excluded in the past, but conservatives criticize such policies as reversediscrimination.

p. 75p. 75

pp. 76–77

Structural-Functional Analysis: The Importance of Culture

Symbolic-Interaction Analysis: The Personal Meaning of Race

Social-Conflict Analysis: The Structure of Inequality

See the Applying Theory table on page 79.

• RADICALS ON THE LEFT claim thatcapitalism is the root cause of racialand ethnic inequality.

• Radicals on the left call for basicchange to all U.S. social institutions,including the capitalist economicsystem and the political system, sothat they operate in the interests ofall categories of people.

• LIBERALS point to social structure,including institutional prejudice anddiscrimination, as the cause of racialand ethnic inequality.

• Liberals endorse government reformsto promote equality, includingenforcement of antidiscriminationlaws and affirmative action.

• CONSERVATIVES point to culturalpatterns, such as the importancegiven to education, as a cause ofracial and ethnic inequality.

• Conservatives claim that individualsshould be responsible for their socialstanding; they oppose governmentpolicies that treat categories ofpeople differently.

p. 81pp. 80–81

p. 80

Politics, Race, and Ethnicity: Constructing Problems and Defining Solutions

The Radical Left: Fundamental Changes Are Needed

Liberals: Society and Government Matter

Conservatives: Culture and Effort Matter

See the Left to Right table on page 82.

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constructing the problemmyresource.phoenix.edu/secure/resource/eth125r7/social problems 4… ·...

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