Race and Ethnicity

Chapter 11

The Social Meaning of Race and Ethnicity

Race – a socially constructed category composed of people who share biologically transmitted traits that members of a society consider important.

The Social Meaning of Race and Ethnicity

• Ethnicity – a shared cultural heritage.

• Race involves highlighting biological traits.

• Ethnicity involves highlighting cultural traits.

Minorities

A minority – any category of people, distinguished by physical or cultural difference, that a society sets apart.

(1)They share a distinctive identity.

(2) Subordination.

Characteristics:

Prejudice & Stereotypes

Prejudice – a rigid and irrational generalization about an entire category of people.

Prejudice & Stereotypes

• Prejudgments that are positive or negative.

• They lead us to characterize all members of an entire group, most of whom we’ve never met.

• Stereotypes – an exaggerated description applied to every person in some category.

• Both the majority group and minorities hold stereotypical beliefs.

Prejudice & Stereotypes

Measuring Prejudice

Social Distance Scale

• Student opinions show a trend toward greater acceptance

• People see less difference among various minorities

• 9-11 attacks may have reduced social acceptance of Arabs & Muslims

Emory Bogardus

Measuring Prejudice

Racism

• Racism – the belief that one racial category is innately superior or inferior to another.

• Racial difference in mental abilities result from environment rather than biology.

Theories of Prejudice

• A scapegoat – a person with little power whom people unfairly blame for their own troubles.

• Scapegoat Theory – prejudice springs from frustration among people who are themselves disadvantaged.

Theories of Prejudice

• Authoritarian Personality Theory – extreme prejudice is a personality trait in certain individuals

• These personalities are common among those with little education and broken homes.

Theories of Prejudice

• Culture Theory – extreme prejudice may be embedded in culture.

• Bogardus believed everyone in the United States expresses some bigotry because we live in a culture of prejudice.

Theories of Prejudice

• Conflict Theory – powerful people use prejudice to justify oppressing others.

• Steele contends that minorities themselves cultivate a climate of race consciousness in order to win greater power.

Discrimination

• Discrimination – treating various categories of people unequally.

• Institutional prejudice and discrimination.

•Prejudice and discrimination often occur together.

Discrimination

Prejudice and discrimination may combine in four waysa) a) Active bigotry (Southern Racist)b) Timid bigotry (Nebraska Racist)c) Fair-weather liberalism (people who are not prejudice, but will discriminate when they feel pressured to do so.)

d) All-weather liberalism (doesn’t discriminate)

Robert Merton

Discrimination

Prejudice: The Vicious Circle

Prejudice and discrimination

can form a vicious circle, perpetuating themselves.

Figure 11.2 (p. 310)

Sociological Theories

Structural Functionalism - Prejudice is functional in that it creates in-group solidarity and out-group antagonism.Social Conflict theory - focuses on competition and the ability of some group to exploit others.Symbolic interactionism-examines how perception and labels produce prejudice.

Dr. John Musalia, Western Kentucky U.

Majority and Minority:Patterns of Interaction

• Pluralism – a state in which racial and ethnic minorities are distinct but have social parity.

• Assimilation – the process by which minorities gradually adopt patterns of the dominant category.

• Segregation – the physical and social separation of categories of people.

• Genocide – the systematic killing of one category of people by another.

Majority and Minority:Patterns of Interaction

Native Americans• When the Europeans arrived in the fifteenth century, the Native Americans numbered in the millions.

• By 1900, they numbered a mere 250,000.

Race and Ethnicity in the U. S

Native Americans

• Christopher Columbus first called them “Indians” because he thought he landed in India.

• Not until 1924 were Native Americans entitled to citizenship.

Race and Ethnicity in the U. S

White Anglo-Saxon Protestants

WASPs were not the first to inhabit the U. S., but they came to dominate this nation.

Race and Ethnicity in the U. S

Historically, WASP immigrants were highly skilled and motivated to achieve the Protestant work ethic.

White Anglo-Saxon Protestants

WASPs were never one single group. English remains the dominant language today, and Protestantism is the majority religion.

Race and Ethnicity in the U. S

African Americans

• Most accounts mark the beginning of black history in the United States as 1619.

• A Dutch trading ship brought twenty Africans to Jamestown, Virginia.

Race and Ethnicity in the U. S

African Americans• Slavery was the foundation of the southern colonies’ plantation system.

• In 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment outlawed slavery.

Race and Ethnicity in the U. S

“An American Dilemma” A democratic society’s denial of basic rights and freedoms to an entire category of people

To resolve this, white people defined African Americans as innately inferior and undeserving of equality.

Race and Ethnicity in the U. S

Gunnar Myrdal

Asian Americans

• Enormous cultural diversity characterizes this category of people.

• In 2000, the total number of Asian Americans exceeded 10 million.

Race and Ethnicity in the U. S

Asian Americans

• The largest category of Asian Americans is people of Chinese ancestry.

Race and Ethnicity in the U. S

• More than one-third of Asian Americans live in California.

Hispanic Americans/Latinos

• In 2000, Hispanic Americans numbered more than 35 million.

• Few people in this category describe themselves as “Hispanic” or “Latino.”

Race and Ethnicity in the U. S

Hispanic Americans/Latinos• Hispanics are really a cluster of distinct populations, each of which identifies with a particular ancestral nation.

Race and Ethnicity in the U. S

• Most of the Hispanic population lives in the Southwest.

Arab Americans

Race and Ethnicity in the U. S

• “Arab” (an ethnic category) is not the same as “Muslim” (a follower of Islam). • Arab cultures differ from

society to society

• Share Arabic alphabet and language

• Arab Americans population is 1.2 million

Race and Ethnicity: Looking Ahead.

The United States has been and will remain a land of immigrants.

Immigration has generated striking cultural diversity.

Many new arrivals face much the same prejudice as those who came before them.