RACE AND ETHNIC STRATIFICATION

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RACE

ETHNICITY
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• Thats some nappy-headed hos there. Don Imus,
  on the Rutgers womens basketball team.

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Arent Race Ethnicity the same thing?
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ETHNICITY

• based on cultural differences/national origin
• common language, religion, norms, practices,
  customs, history

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RACE

• based on perceived physical differences
• A category of people who are alleged to share
  certain biologically inherited physical
  characteristics that are considered socially
  important within a society.
• what matters is what people believe are innate,
  genetic differences
• socially defined/arbitrary

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DNA

• Researchers have unanimously declared there is
  only one race the human race, said the New
  York Times in an article headlined Do Races
  Differ? Not Really, DNA Shows. Much heralded was
  the finding that 99.9 percent of the human genome
  is the same in everyone regardless of race. The
  standard labels used to distinguish people by
  race have little or no biological meaning,
  claimed the Times. Said Stephen Jay Gould,
  evolutionary biologist at Harvard The social
  meaning of race may finally liberate us from
  that simplistic and harmful idea.

http//www.policyreview.org/DEC01/satel.html
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The Idea of Race is Real

• If people define situations as real, they are
  real in their consequences.
• W.I. D.S. Thomas in Essentials of Sociology
• and the consequences can be devastating

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Pol Pot in Cambodia 1975-1979 2,000,000 deaths
Darfur 2003- at least 400,000 deaths
Nazi Holocaust 1938-1945 6,000,000 deaths
Rwandan Genocide 1994 800,000 deaths Hutu against
Tutsis
200,000 Deaths 1992-1995 Serbs against Muslims in
Bosnia
5 decade of lynchings in the U.S. From 1889 to
1918, more than 2,400 African Americans were
hanged or burned at the stake
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Which box do I check?

• Race became a factor in the census during
  slavery when five blacks were counted the same as
  three whites to determine how many
  representatives a state could send to Congress!
• Essential of Sociology, Henslin

• Census Categories

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Whose business is it anyway?

• The problems with not continuing to ask about
  race/ethnic heritage
• cant identify which groups need help
• Most people of mixed racial/ethnic heritage
  identify with one race more than another
• Most are treated as if they belonged to a single
  racial category

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Population of the United States by Race and
Hispanic/Latino Origin 2005
Source U.S. Census Bureau, National Population
Estimates.

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MINORITY GROUPS

• distinguishable physical or cultural
  characteristics
• suffers prejudice and discrimination
• usually ascribed status
• feel a strong sense of group solidarity we
  feeling

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MINORITY

• a sociological concept
• NOT
• a statistical concept
• refers to relative power
• NOT
• numbers/size of group

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RACISM

• The belief that another racial or ethnic group is
  innately inferior to ones own group.

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PREJUDICE

• An ATTITUDE that prejudges a person on the basis
  of stereotypes)

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STEREOTYPES

• An overgeneralization about a group and its
  members/oversimplified set of beliefs used to
  categorize individuals of that group.

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How to Tell Your Friends from the Japs Time
Magazine, Dec. 22, 1941

• Virtually all Japanese are short.
• Japanese are seldom fat they often dry up as
  they age.
• Most Chinese avoid horn-rimmed spectacles.
• Japanese walk stiffly erect, hard-heeled.
  Chinese more relaxed, have an easy gait.
• The Chinese expression is likely to be more
  kindly, placid, open the Japanese more positive,
  dogmatic, arrogant.
• Japanese are hesitant, nervous in conversation,
  laugh loudly a the wrong time.

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LIFE magazine article of December 22, 1941 How To
Tell Japs from The Chinese
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Theories Of Prejudice

• Scapegoat theory
• Disadvantaged people who unfairly blame
  minorities for their own problems
• Authoritarian personality theory
• Rigid moralists with little education who see
  things in black white (raised by cold and
  demanding parents grow into hostile and
  aggressive adults seek scapegoats)
• Culture theory
• Everyone has some prejudice because it is
  embedded in culture
• Conflict theory
• Self-justification for the rich and powerful in
  America
• Minorities may cultivate climate of race
  consciousness in order to win greater power and
  privileges

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DISCRIMINATION

• unequal treatment of members of some social group
  based on their membership in that group
• BEHAVIOR

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TUSKEGEE SYPHILIS EXPERIMENT

• Began in 1932 (US Public Health Service)
• Macon County, Georgia
• African American men who suffered from syphilis.
• The study continued until 1972 when its existence
  became public.

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PATTERNS OF PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION
Does the person discriminate? YES
NO
Is the person prejudiced?
YES NO
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• PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION BEGIN AS
  ETHNOCENTRIC ATTITUDES
• AS A RESULT, GROUPS CAN BE PLACED IN A SITUATION
  WHERE THEY ARE SOCIALLY DISADVANTAGED AND LABELED
• A GROUPS SITUATION, OVER TIME, IS THUS EXPLAINED
  AS A RESULT OF INNATE INFERIORITY RATHER THAN
  LOOKING AT THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF REASONS THE
  CYCLE THEN REPEATS ITSELF

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INSTITUTIONALIZED RACISM

• inequality that is built into customs and
  practices that, on the surface, may have nothing
  to do with racial discrimination

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The United StatesAre we really a melting pot?
Or are we a tossed salad?
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SOME FOLKS ARE LUCKY ENOUGH TO GET BEYOND THE
SELF-IMPOSED LIMITATIONS OF COLOR

• PLURALISM
• ASSIMILATION
• SEGREGATION
• DE JURE AND DE FACTO
• GENOCIDE
• ONE GROUP KILLS OFF ANOTHER GROUP

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Apr 10, 2007 (AP) Ga. Senior Class to Try
Integrated Prom After Decades of Segregated
Proms, South Georgia High School Hopes to Unite
Behind Dance By GREG BLUESTEIN The Associated
Press ASHBURN, Ga. - Breaking from tradition,
high school students in this small town are
getting together for this year's prom. Prom
night at Turner County High has long been an
evening of de facto segregation white students
organized their own unofficial prom, while black
students did the same.
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White Privilege - Robert Jensen

•   Jensen describes white privilege as follows
• When I seek admission to a university, apply for
  a job, or hunt for an apartment, I don't look
  threatening. Almost all of the people evaluating
  me for those things look like me--they are white.
  They see in me a reflection of themselves, and in
  a racist world that is an advantage. I smile. I
  am white. I am one of them. I am not dangerous.
  Even when I voice critical opinions, I am cut
  some slack. After all, I'm white.

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• Peggy McIntosh, Associate Director of the
  Wellesley College Center for Research on Women,
  describes white privilege as an invisible
  package of unearned assets, which I can count on
  cashing in each day, but about which I was
  meant to remain oblivious. White privilege is
  like an invisible weightless knapsack of special
  provisions, maps, passports, code books, visas,
  clothes, tools, and blank checks (McIntosh,
  1989).
• The following are examples of ways white
  individuals have privilege because they are
  white.
• 1. I can arrange to be in the company of people
  of my race most of the time
• 2. I can go shopping alone most of the time,
  pretty well assured that I will not be followed
  or harassed.
• 3. I can turn on the television or open to the
  front page of the paper and see people of my race
  widely represented.
• 4. When I am told about our national heritage or
  about civilization, I am shown that people of
  my color made it what it is.
• 5. I can be sure that my children will be given
  curricular materials that testify to the
  existence of their race.

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• 6. I can go into a music shop and count on
  finding the music of my race represented, into a
  supermarket and find the food I grew up with,
  into a hairdressers shop and find someone who
  can deal with my hair.
• 7. Whether I use checks, credit cards, or cash, I
  can count on my skin color not to work against
  the appearance of financial responsibility.
• 8. I am not made acutely aware that my shape,
  bearing, or body odor will be taken as a
  reflection on my race.
• 9. I can worry about racism without being seen as
  self-interested or self-seeking.
• 10. I can take a job or enroll in a college with
  an affirmative action policy without having my
  co-workers or peers assume I got it because of my
  race.
• 11. I can be late to a meeting without having the
  lateness reflect on my race.
• 12. I can choose public accommodation with out
  fearing that people of my race cannot get in or
  will be mistreated.
• 13. I am never asked to speak for all of the
  people of my racial group.

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• 14. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk
  with the person in charge I will be facing a
  person of my race.
• 15. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS
  audits my tax return, I can be sure I havent
  been singled out because of my race.
• 16. I can easily by posters, postcards, picture
  books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and
  childrens magazines featuring people of my race.
• 17. I can choose blemish cover or bandages in
  flesh color and have them more or less match my
  skin.
• 18. I can do well in a challenging situation
  without being called a credit to my race.
• 19. I can walk into a classroom and know I will
  not be the only member of my race.
• 20. I can enroll in a class at college and be
  sure that the majority of my professors will be
  of my race.
• Racial privilege is only one forms of privilege.
  Can you think of ways one might have privilege
  based on gender, sexual orientation, class, and
  religion? (e.g., that you do not have to worry
  about being verbally or physically harassed
  because of your sexual orientation or you can be
  sure that your religious holiday will be
  acknowledged and represented in store displays,
  classroom discussions, etc.).

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• McIntosh and Jensen point out in their writings
  that white privilege is not something that is
  taught and is not necessarily the result of overt
  white supremacist attitudes. 
• White privilege is, rather, a result of a society
  that has been trained, as a whole, to be more
  accepting, understanding and forgiving of people
  with white skin.