Race and Ethnicity

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Race and Ethnicity
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• Race A category of people who have been singled
  out as inferior or superior, often on the basis
  of physical characteristics such as skin color,
  hair texture, and eye shape.

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• Perceived biological characteristics that
  distinguish people
• Not scientific fact race is murky business

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Concept has no validity in the human species

• race is self-identification by people according
  to the race or races with which they most closely
  identify or are Identified
• What are "Races"?

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So why study it?

• We all live racially structured lives
• 2 major myths
• 1. any pure race
• 2. any superior race

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• Affects life chances education, health,
  religious views, occupation, longevity

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• Dominant Group Group that is advantaged and has
  superior resources and rights in a society.
  Perceptions of innate superiority, ability to
  oppress minority group members, ability to
  control political power

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• Ethnic Group A collection of people
  distinguished by others or by themselves on the
  basis of cultural or nationality characteristics
  (e.g., language and religion)

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• Subordinate Group minorityA group whose
  members, because of physical or cultural
  characteristics, are disadvantaged and subjected
  to unequal treatment by the dominant group.

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Continuum of race relations
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• Ethnic PluralismThe coexistence of a variety of
  distinct racial and ethnic groups within one
  society.

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• Assimilation A process by which members of
  minority groups become absorbed into the dominant
  culture and distinction disappears.

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Blocked Assimilation

• SegregationSpatial and social separation of
  categories of people by race, ethnicity, class,
  gender and/or religion.

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Internal Colonialism

• Occurs when members of a racial or ethnic group
  are conquered or colonized and forcibly placed
  under the economic and political control of the
  dominant group within a country

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Native Americans Example of Internal Colonialism

• 1830 Indian Removal Act - Called for relocation
  of all Native Americans to land west of the
  Mississippi.
• In the Trail of Tears, the U.S. Army rounded up
  all 16,000 Cherokees and marched them to
  Oklahoma.
• 4,000 Cherokees died.
• 1890 Wounded Knee ended the war and resulted in
  placement on reservations.

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• Genocide The deliberate, systematic killing of
  an entire people or nation.

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Global example

• Worse Than War Genocide

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• What are the driving forces behind these
  varieties of race relations?

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• Prejudice A negative attitude based on faulty
  generalizations about the members of selected
  racial and ethnic groups.

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• RacismA set of attitudes, beliefs, and practices
  that is used to justify the superior treatment of
  one racial or ethnic group and the inferior
  treatment of another racial or ethnic group.

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The Vicious Cycle of Racism
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Cycle leads to

• Discrimination Actions or practices of dominant
  group members that have a harmful impact on
  members of a subordinate group.

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Construction of Race U.S.

• From Eugenics to Human Genome Project
• Race The Power of Illusion

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History of race in the U.S.The 20th Century

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• Theory of racial formation - actions by the
  government substantially define racial and ethnic
  relations -- the politics of race
• But social protest movements help to rearticulate
  our understanding of race
• See -- www.jimcrowhistory.org

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• Between 1892 and 1921 -- estimated 6,000
  Lynchings of African Americans
• From Slavery to Jim Crow to Civil Disobedience
  -- Civil Rights Acts of 1964 1965

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As of 2000 the U.S. Census allows for
multi-racial classification

• Today over 6.4 million Americans report being
  multi-racial U.S. Census

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• Almost two million interracial marriages

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• In 1967, there were still sixteen U.S. states
  that had laws on the books banning interracial
  marriage. That year the US. Supreme Court
  unanimously struck down laws banning interracial
  marriages with these words "The freedom to
  marry, or not marry, a person of another race
  resides within the individual and cannot be
  infringed on by the State.

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Mildred and Richard Lovingscase led the U.S.
Supreme Court to strike down laws against
interracial marriages
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• 1998 - South Carolina voted to abolish its
  symbolic law against miscegenation
• 40 voted to keep it
• 2000 Alabama 32 percent voted to keep it.

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How Far Have We Come?
Majority of Americans describe Obama as our first
Black President
What does this tell us About our understanding Of
race in America?
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"One-drop rule American social and legal
custom of classifying anyone with one black
ancestor, regardless of how far back, as black.
Source Thinking About Race 1998
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A Color Blind Society?

• His (Obama's) election demonstrates America's
  extraordinary capacity to renew itself and adapt
  to a changing world," said former U.N. Secretary
  General Kofi Annan.

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Are We really Post Racial?

• Obama isn't 'post-racial.' He isn't the messiah
  whose coming ends bigotry and inequality for all
  time," Cynthia Tucker Atlanta Journal-Constitutio
  n .

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Symbolic Ethnicity

• a nostalgic allegiance to the culture of the
  immigrant generation, or that of the old country
  a love for and pride in a tradition that can be
  felt without having to be incorporated in
  everyday behavior
• Herbert
  Gans

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Mertons types of discrimination and prejudice

• Non-prejudiced/ non-discriminator all weather
  liberal
• Non-prejudiced discriminator fair weather
  liberal
• Prejudiced Non-discriminator fair weather
  bigot
• Prejudice Discriminator - all weather bigot

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Theories

• Dollard
• frustration aggression
• Unable to strike out at real source of frustration

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• Scapegoat A person or group that is incapable of
  offering resistance to the hostility or
  aggression of others.

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Adornos Authoritarian Personality Type --

• excessive conformity, submissiveness to
  authority, intolerance, insecurity, a high level
  of superstition, and rigid, stereotypic thinking.

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• Stereotypes rigid mental image Overgeneralizations
  about the appearance, behavior, or other
  characteristics of members of particular
  categories.
• e.g., all blonds are dumb, all blacks are good
  athletes..

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Social distance

• The extent to which people are willing to
  interact and establish relationships with members
  of racial and ethnic groups other than their
  own. Bogardus Scale

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Hartley Study

• Wallonians, Denierians, Perenians.. Significance
  of Study
• Humans have shown a universal ability to be
  prejudiced against people they have never met!

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• Bobo and Klugel found
• Younger and More Educated score lower on the
  Social Distance Scale. less prejudiced

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• Individual Discrimination One-on-one acts by
  members of the dominant group that harm members
  of the subordinate group or their property.

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• Institutional DiscriminationDay-to-day practices
  of organizations and institutions that have a
  harmful impact on members of subordinate groups.

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Why do White Americans Have more wealth than
minority groups? Luck or a history of
Institutional Racism?

• Does White Privilege Exist? Tim Wise

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Feagins types

• Isolate harmful action by a dominant group
  member and is supported by other dominant group
  members in the immediate community. (e.g., a
  judge who gives harsher sentencing to members of
  a minority group)
• Small-group - similar but not supported by other
  members of the dominant group -- e.g., racially
  motivated vandalism

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• Direct Institutionalized e.g., intentional
  exclusion of people of color from public
  institutions
• Indirect - unintended consequences such as
  special education classes that were intended for
  students with various disabilities but some
  claim they have resulted in segregation

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Home Ownership

• Housing Segregation still taking place
• ghettos with grass - Whites move out of
  suburban neighborhoods when blacks and Latino(a)
  residents move in.
• Institutional Racism Wealth

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Most Racially Segregated Metropolitan Areas
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Who Are We Today?

• Latino Americans
• If we include those also here illegally, the
  number of Latinos in the U.S. is estimated to be
  45 million largest minority group
• The Bureau predicts they will number more than
  96 million in 2050.

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Diverse group

• For example Mexicans or Chicano/as (largest
  segment -- approx. 2/3), Puerto Ricans (since
  1917 have been able to move freely to and from
  the mainland), Cubans (different experiences
  according to their class origins before
  immigration)

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• Asian Americans -- fast growing ethnic minority
  group -- Also very diverse group -- some
  examples
• Chinese -- transcontinental railroad, gold rush
  / Japanese -- 120,000 internment camps
• Korean kye represents a strong sense of
  community
• Filipinos - over one million
• Indochinese -- Vietnamese, Cambodians, Thailand,
  Laos.. More recent immigration

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• African Americans (African descent) or Blacks
  (Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Trinidad, the Caribbean)
  -- unique and different experiences in that while
  both have experienced discrimination (recent
  example of Haitian refugees) African American
  experiences have distinct relationship of slavery
  and Jim Crow

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• Blacks have a 375-year history on this continent
  245 involving slavery, 100 involving
  discrimination, and only 30 involving anything
  else. Historian Roger Wilkins

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Starting the conversation by acknowledging
privilege

• Why is it so hard to talk about race?
• How do we open the conversation?
• A Helpful Resource http//pewresearch.org/pubs/1
  240/sotomayor-supreme-court-affirmative-action-min
  ority-preferences
• http//colorandmoney.blogspot.com/

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• http//www.npr.org/templates/dmg/dmg.php?prgCodeA
  TCshowDate20-Dec-2002segNum6NPRMediaPrefRM

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• Growing Pains?
• By 2056 the roots of the average U.S. resident
  will be from everywhere except Western
  Europe..... Today 5 workers for every one Social
  Security recipient -- by 2020, 3 for every 1 and
  the three will be non-white

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Another view

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vMf6H47hXa3UNR1