Chapter 12

Race and Ethnicity

Chapter Outline

Race and Ethnicity Racial Stereotypes Prejudice, Discrimination, and Racism Theories of Prejudice and Racism Diverse Groups, Diverse Histories Patterns of Racial and Ethnic Relations Attaining Racial Equality: The Challenge 

Race and Ethnicity

Race is primarily a socially constructed category based on physical criteria.

An ethnic group is a social category of people who share a common culture.

Ethnic Minority: Characteristics

1. Possesses characteristics regarded as different from the dominant group (race, ethnicity, sexual preference, age, religion.)

2. Suffers prejudice and discrimination by the dominant group.

3. Membership is ascribed rather than achieved.

4. Members feel a sense of group solidarity.

Stereotypes

Reinforce prejudices and cause them to persist in society.

Racial and gender stereotypes receive ongoing support in the media.

Justify the oppression of groups based on race, ethnicity and gender.

Prejudice, Discrimination and Racism

Prejudice is an attitude involving prejudgment on the basis of race or ethnicity.

Discrimination is actual behavior involving unequal treatment.

Racism involves both attitude and behavior.

Prejudice and Socialization

Media stereotypes began to improve as a result of civil rights activity in the 1960s.

Positive interactions between Blacks and Whites have been 5% or less of total interactions on television programs.

Scapegoat Theory

Members of the dominant group have harbored frustrations in their desire to achieve success.

As a result of frustration, they vent their anger in the form of aggression.

The aggression is directed toward members of minority groups who serve as scapegoats.

Authoritarian Personality

Characteristics of authoritarianpersonalities make them likely to be prejudiced:

Tendency to categorize other people Rigidly conform Intolerance of ambiguity Inclined to superstition

Functionalist Theory

For race and ethnic relations to be functional to society, minorities must assimilate.

First step in assimilation is for minorities to adopt the culture of the dominant society.

Symbolic Interaction Theory

Addresses two issues:

1. Role of social interaction in reducing racial and ethnic hostility.

2. How race and ethnicity are socially constructed.

 Contact Theory

Interaction between whites and minorities will reduce prejudice if 3 conditions are met:

1. Contact is between individuals of equal status.

2. Contact is sustained.

3. Participants agree upon social norms favoring equality.

Conflict Theory

Class-based conflict is an inherent and fundamental part of social interaction.

Class inequality must be reduced to lessen racial and ethnic conflict in society.

Gender and race are intertwined but neither is separable from the effects of class.

 Native Americans

Population in north America in 1492 was from 1 to 10 million.

Conquest, disease, and expulsion from their lands resulted in a population of 300,000 by 1850.

 Native Americans

55% of all Native Americans live on or near a reservation.

Highest poverty rate of all minorities and suffer massive unemployment (50% among males).

Entrepreneurship has increased in recent years, through casinos and other enterprises.

 African Americans

Between 20 and 100 million Africans were transported to the Americas.

The majority went to Brazil and the Caribbean and 6% went to the U.S.

Slavery evolved as a rigid caste system, also involving the domination of men over women.

 African Americans

After the civil war, the system of sharecropping emerged as a new exploitative system.

The migration of Blacks to the urban north from the 1900s through the 1920s encouraged the development of political, social, and cultural action.

Latinos

Includes Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and other Latin American immigrants.

Includes Latin Americans who were early settlers in the U.S.

The terms Hispanic and Latino/a mask the great diversity among the groups.

Latinos

Entries into U.S. Society: Mexican Americans through military conquest

(1846-1848). Puerto Ricans through war with Spain (1898). Cubans as political refugees fleeing from a

political regime (1959).

Chinese

During 1865-1868, thousands of Chinese laborers worked for the Central Pacific railroad.

In 1882, the Chinese exclusion act banned immigration of laborers and intermarriage.

Hostility and exclusion resulted in the creation of Chinatowns.

Japanese

Immigration of the first generation (Issei) took place mainly between 1890 and 1924.

In 1924, passage of the Japanese immigration act forbade further immigration.

The second generation (Nisei) became better educated and assimilated.

Japanese

Members of the third generation (Sansei) still met with prejudice and discrimination.

During WWII, virtually all Japanese Americans were forced into relocation camps.

In 1987, legislation awarding $20,000 to each relocated person and offering an apology was passed.

 Middle Easterners

Immigrants from Middle Eastern countries such as Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and Iran began arriving in the mid-1970s.

Like other immigrants, many experienced downward mobility and formed their own ethnic enclaves.

 White Ethnic Groups

Immigration dates to the WASP immigrants from England, Scotland, and Wales.

40% of the world’s Jewish population lives in the U.S.

In 1924, the National Origins Quota Act, the most discriminatory act in U.S. immigration history, was passed.

Domestic Colonialism Model

Four elements: Forced and involuntary entry. Control of the group’s affairs by the colonizers. Racism is used to justify the colonizer’s

domination. The minority is prevented from expressing its

culture and values.

 Civil Rights Movement

Encouraged resistance to segregation through nonviolent techniques.

Civil rights bill in 1964 laid the legal framework for anti-discrimination policies.

Voting rights act of 1965. Fair housing act of 1968.