RACIAL AND ETHNIC RELATIONS

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CHAPTER 10

• RACIAL AND ETHNIC RELATIONS

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Section 1 Race, Ethnicity, and The Social
Structure

• One of the best known classification systems sort
  people into three racial groups
• Caucasoids fair skin, straight or wavy hair
• Mongoloids yellowish or brownish skin, distinct
  folds on the eyelids
• Negroids dark skin, woolly hair
• This classification system is no longer used
  because there are no biologically pure races.

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• Race deals with physical characteristics
• Ethnicity deals with cultural characteristics

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Five characteristics that distinguish minority
groups from other groups in society

• Identifiable physical characteristics that differ
  from the dominate group
• Victims of unequal treatment at the hands of the
  dominant group
• Membership is an ascribed status
• Share a strong bond and a sense of group loyalty
• Tend to practice endogamy

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Section 2 Discrimination and Prejudice

• Discrimination involves behaviors
• Range from name calling to acts of violence on an
  individual level
• Legal discrimination and institutionalized
  discrimination on a societal level
• Prejudice involves attitudes
• Sociologist generally focus on the negative forms
  of prejudice such as racism

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Robert K. Mertons Patterns of Discrimination and
Prejudice

• Active Bigot is prejudice, does discriminate
• Timid Bigot is prejudice, afraid to discriminate
• Fair-weather Liberal is not prejudice, does
  discriminate
• All-weather Liberal is not prejudice, does not
  discriminate

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SOURCES OF DISCRIMINATION AND PREJUDICE

• STEREOTYPING
• SCAPEGOATING
• SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT

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Patterns of Minority Group Treatment

• Assimilation
• Cultural Pluralism
• Legal Protection
• Population Transfer
• Subjugation
• Extermination

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Section 3 Minority Groups in the United States

• The American Dilemma
• Americans have not always practiced what they
  preached
• Preach- equality, freedom, individual and
  inalienable rights
• Practiced- segregation, population transfer of
  Indians to reservations, and the internment of
  Japanese during WWII
• Standard by which minority groups were measured
  how closely they adapted to the WASP (white,
  Anglo-Saxon, Protestant)

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African Americans

• Second largest minority group as of the 2000
  census.
• First brought to the U.S. as slaves
• Civil Rights Act helped them gain more power and
  status
• Election of 2008 First African American
  President of the U.S.

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Hispanic Americans

• Largest and fastest growing minority group in the
  U.S. as of the 2000 census
• Have gained increasing political power in recent
  years.
• Still lag behind non-Hispanic Americans in areas
  as education and employment