10.1: Race

10.1.1: Race

The idea of race refers to superficial physical differences that a particular society considers significant.

Learning Objective

Interpret ”the ideology of race” based on examples from the text

Key Points

Phenotype refers to the composite observable traits and behaviors of an individual or group.
Geneotype refers to a person’s genetic makeup.
Among humans, race has no taxonomic significance — all living humans belong to the same hominid subspecies, Homo sapiens sapiens.
An “ideology of race,” formed through the merging of folk beliefs about group differences with scientific explanations of those differences, argued that races are primordial, natural, enduring and distinct.

Key Terms

phenotype: Any observable characteristic of an organism, such as its morphological, developmental, biochemical or physiological properties, or its behavior.
race: A large group of people distinguished from others on the basis of a common heritage or common physical characteristics, such as skin color and hair type.
ideology of race: The belief that races are primordial, natural, enduring, and distinct, derived from folk beliefs and scientific explanations generated during the 17th-19th centuries.

While many people conflate the terms “race” and “ethnicity,” these terms have distinct meanings for sociologists. The idea of race refers to superficial physical differences that a particular society considers significant, while ethnicity is a term that describes shared culture.

Social and Scientific Conceptions of Race

Historically, the concept of race has changed across cultures and eras. Race has been used as a classification system to categorize humans in a variety of ways: as large and distinct populations, as groups distinguished by phenotype (observable traits and behaviors), and as groups of differing geographic ancestry and ethnicity. In the past, theorists have posited categories of race based on various geographic regions, ethnicities, skin colors, and more. Their labels for racial groups have connoted regions (Mongolia and the Caucus Mountains, for instance) or denoted skin tones (black, white, yellow, and red, for example). It was assumed for centuries that race was based in biology and genetically distinguishable among different subgroups (e.g., African Americans, Caucasians, American Indians, etc.).

However, this typology of race developed during early racial science has fallen into disuse; over time the concept has become less connected with ancestral and family ties and more concerned with superficial physical characteristics. While biologists sometimes use the concept of race to make distinctions among sets of traits, others in the scientific community suggest that this idea of race is often used in a naive or simplistic way.

Now, race is far more widely accepted to be a social construction and therefore not distinguishable based on biology alone. Among humans, race has no taxonomic significance — all living humans belong to the same hominid subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens. Social conceptions and groupings of races vary over time, according to different folk taxonomies that define essential types of individuals based on perceived traits. Many scientists consider this sort of biological essentialism obsolete, and generally discourage racial explanations in favor of other physical or behavioral distinctions.

Early Modern Conceptions of Race

The word “race” was originally used to refer to any nation or ethnic group. For example, the 13^th century traveler Marco Polo used the term “Persian race”, to describe people inhabiting the territory of the nation-state Iran.

However, anthropologists only trace the current concept of “race,” along with many of the ideas now associated with the term, to the 16^th and 17^th centuries and the time of the Scientific Revolution. This era was one of European imperialism and colonization, during which new – often exploitive – political relations were established between Europeans and other cultures of the world. As Europeans encountered people from different parts of the world, they speculated about the physical, social, and cultural differences among various human groups.

According to historian Milton Meltzer, the rise of the Atlantic slave trade created a further incentive to categorize human groups in order to justify the subordination of African slaves. Similarly, the tradition of hostility between the English and Irish was a powerful influence on early European thinking of the Irish as an inferior “race. “

As Europeans began to sort themselves and others into groups based on physical appearance, they attributed to individual members of these groups certain behaviors and capacities that were supposedly deeply ingrained. These supposed physical, intellectual, behavioral, and moral differences soon became part of common folk belief.

From the 17^th through the 19^th centuries, the merging of folk beliefs about and scientific explanations of group differences produced what social anthropologist Audrey Smedley has called an “ideology of race. ” According to this ideology, races are primordial, natural, enduring and distinct. During this time, it was further argued that some groups may be the result of mixture between formerly distinct populations, but that careful study could distinguish the ancestral races that had combined.

Contemporary Uses of Racial Categories

Contemporary conceptions of race illuminate how far removed modern race understanding is from biological qualities. In modern society, some people who consider themselves “white” actually have more melanin (a pigment that determines skin color) in their skin than other people who identify as “black. ” In some countries, such as Brazil, class is more important than skin color in determining racial categorization. People with high levels of melanin in their skin may consider themselves “white” if they enjoy a middle-class lifestyle. On the other hand, someone with low levels of melanin in their skin might be assigned the identity of “black” if they have little education or money.

While race is largely understood to be a social construct, most scholars agree that race has real material effects in the lives of people through institutionalized practices of preference and discrimination. Socioeconomic factors, in combination with early but enduring views of race, have led to considerable suffering within disadvantaged racial groups. Racial discrimination often coincides with racist mindsets, whereby the individuals and ideologies of one group come to perceive the members of an outgroups as both racially defined and morally inferior. As a result, racial groups possessing relatively little power often find themselves excluded or oppressed. Racism today continues to contribute to the suffering of many people in the form of slavery, genocide, systemic oppression, and institutionalized discrimination.

Law enforcement officers often utilize race to profile suspects, a term commonly referred to as “racial profiling”. This use of racial categories is frequently criticized for perpetuating an outmoded understanding of human biological variation, and promoting stereotypes.

10.1.2: Race and Genetics

Racial groups are sociologically, rather than biologically, different; that is to say, there is no “race” gene or set of genes.

Learning Objective

Recall what recent discoveries in genetics has revealed about the concept of race

Key Points

Genetic studies reveal that the existence of geographic ancestral origin is more valid than a claim that socially-defined categories of races each have a distinct biological basis.
While a person’s race can generally be visually determined, different racial groups do not in fact differ biologically in substantial ways.
The significance of race is social, meaning that defining race in in biological terms is a product of cultural socialization.

Key Terms

allele: One of a number of alternative forms of the same gene occupying a given position on a chromosome.
endogamy: The practice of marrying or being required to marry within one’s own ethnic, religious, or social group.
race: A large group of people distinguished from others on the basis of a common heritage or common physical characteristics, such as skin color and hair type.

People’s understanding of “race” emerged long before we knew anything about genetics. There are very few biological differences between the races and there is no “race” gene or set of genes to speak of.

Scientific Studies on Race and Genetics

The relationship between race and genetics has relevance for the ongoing controversies regarding race.

Ongoing genetic research has investigated how ancestral human populations migrated in the ancestral geographic environment into different geographic areas. Today it is possible to determine, by genetic analysis, the geographic ancestry of a person and the degree of ancestry from each region. Such analysis can pinpoint the migrational history of a person’s ancestors with a high degree of accuracy. Often, due to practices of group endogamy, allele frequencies cluster locally around kin groups and lineages, or by national, cultural, or linguistic boundaries – giving a detailed degree of correlation between genetic clusters and population groups when considering many alleles simultaneously.

Recent discoveries in genetics offer a means of categorizing race which is distinct from past methods, which were often based on very broad criteria corresponding to physical characteristics, such as skin color, and which do not correlate reliably with geographic ancestry. Some anthropologists, particularly those working with forensics, consider race to be a useful biological category as it is often possible to determine the racial category of a person by examining physical remains, although what is actually being identified is the geographical phenotype.

While a person’s race can generally be visually determined, different racial groups do not in fact differ biologically in substantial ways. In a December, 2003, Scientific American article, Bamshad and Olson, two geneticists working on mapping the human genome, concluded that “race” does not exist genetically. Rather, race is a social construct and a product of culture, not biology.

10.1.3: Legal Definition of Race

Many governments provide legal definitions of race for purposes of census-taking and calculating budgets for governmental programs.

Learning Objective

Paraphrase the legal definition of race and how it is used in government and law enforcement in the U.S., the U.K., and France

Key Points

The use of “race” as a broad, non-scientific description of general appearance is a common practice in law enforcement agencies around the world.
Racial profiling refers to the use of an individual’s race or ethnicity by law enforcement personnel as a key factor in determining whether to engage in enforcement (e.g., make a traffic stop or arrest). The practice is controversial and is illegal in some nations.
In an attempt to facilitate the job of law enforcement officers, the FBI employs the term “race” to summarize the general appearance of individuals whom they are attempting to apprehend.

Key Term

racial profiling: Racial profiling refers to the use of an individual’s race or ethnicity by law enforcement personnel as a key factor in deciding whether to engage in enforcement (e.g., make a traffic stop or arrest).

Legal Definition of Race

Many governments provide legal definitions of race for purposes of census-taking and calculating budgets for governmental programs such as those that promote equal opportunity employment. For instance, in the U.S. Federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the U.S. Census Bureau currently uses race and ethnicity as self-identification data items. In this system, the residents choose the race or races with which they most closely identify and indicate what their ethnic origin is (e.g., Latino).

The racial categories represent a social-political construct for the race or races that respondents consider themselves to be. OMB defines the concept of race as outlined for the U.S. census as not “scientific or anthropological” and takes into account “social and cultural characteristics as well as ancestry”, using “appropriate scientific methodologies” that are not “primarily biological or genetic in reference. ” The race categories include both racial and national-origin groups .

Governmental Use of Racial Categories

This image illustrates U.S. real median household income per year by race and ethnicity from 1967 to 2008, as compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Race and Law Enforcement

In an attempt to provide general descriptions that may facilitate the job of law enforcement officers seeking to apprehend suspects, the FBI employs the term “race” to summarize the general appearance (skin color, hair texture, eye shape, and other such easily noticed characteristics) of individuals whom they are attempting to apprehend. From the perspective of law enforcement officers, it is generally more important to arrive at a description that will readily suggest the general appearance of an individual than to make a scientifically valid categorization by DNA or other such means. Thus, in addition to assigning a wanted individual to a racial category, such a description will include: height, weight, eye color, scars, and other distinguishing characteristics.

British Police use a classification based on the ethnic background of British society, for example W1 (White-British), M1 (White and black Caribbean), and A1 (Asian-Indian). Some of the characteristics that constitute these groupings are biological and some are learned (cultural or linguistic) traits that are easy to notice.

In many countries, such as France, the state is legally banned from maintaining data based on race, so the police issue wanted notices to the public that include labels like “dark skin complexion. “

Racial Profiling

Racial profiling refers to the use of an individual’s race or ethnicity by law enforcement personnel as a key factor in deciding whether to engage in enforcement (e.g. make a traffic stop or arrest). The practice is controversial and is illegal in some nations.

In the United States, the practice of racial profiling has been ruled to be both unconstitutional and a violation of civil rights. There is active debate regarding the cause of a marked correlation between the recorded crimes, punishments meted out, and the country’s populations. Many consider de facto racial profiling an example of institutional racism in law enforcement. The history of misuse of racial categories to impact adversely one or more groups and to offer protection and advantage to another has a clear impact on the larger debate. This debate is concerned with the legitimacy of the government using known phenotypical or genotypical characteristics tied to the presumed race of both victims and perpetrators.

10.1.4: Social Definition of Race

Most social scientists and biologists believe race is a social construct affecting sociopolitical, legal, and economic contexts.

Learning Objective

Identify two ways, other than “race,” that social researchers conceptualize and analyze human variation

Key Points

A social construct refers to something that does not have a basis in the natural world but is an artificial distinction created by humans.
Some researchers now conceptualize and analyze human variation in terms of populations, dismissing racial classifications altogether.
Many social scientists have replaced the word “race” with the word “ethnicity” to refer to groups that self-identify based on shared religion, nationality, or culture.
Ethnicity refers to groups that self-identify based on shared beliefs, culture, ancestry, and history.

Key Terms

ethnicity: The identity of a group of people having common racial, national, religious, or cultural origins.
population: A count of the number of residents within a political or geographical boundary, such as a town, a nation, or the world or of the number of individuals belonging to a particular group.
social construct: Social constructs are generally understood to be the by-products of countless human choices rather than laws resulting from divine will or nature.

Debates continue in and among academic disciplines as to how race should be understood. Most social scientists and biologists believe race is a social construct, meaning it does not have a basis in the natural world but is simply an artificial distinction created by humans.

As a result of this understanding, some researchers have turned from conceptualizing and analyzing human variation by race to doing so in terms of populations, dismissing racial classifications altogether. In the face of the increasing rejection of race as a valid classification scheme, many social scientists have replaced the word race with the word “ethnicity” to refer to self-identifying groups based on shared religion, nationality, or culture.

History

Following the World War II, alongside empirical and conceptual problems with “race,” evolutionary and social scientists were acutely aware of how beliefs about race had been used to justify discrimination, apartheid, slavery, and genocide. This questioning gained momentum in the 1960s during the United States’ civil rights movement and the emergence of numerous anti-colonial movements worldwide. Many academics and researchers across disciplines, therefore, came to the conclusion that race itself is a social construct.

As anthropologists and other evolutionary scientists have shifted away from the language of race to the term “population” to talk about genetic differences, historians, cultural anthropologists and other social scientists have accordingly re-conceptualized the term “race” as exclusively a cultural category or social construct. Many social scientists have also replaced the word race with the word “ethnicity” to refer to self-identifying groups based on beliefs concerning shared culture, ancestry and history.

Race as a Social Construct

The social construction of race has developed within various legal, economic, and sociopolitical contexts, and may be the effect, rather than the cause of major race-related issues. While race is understood to be a social construct by many, most scholars agree that race has real, material effects in housing discrimination, in the legal process, in policing practices, in education, and many other domains of society.

Sociologists Omi and Winant’s theories of racial formation describe how “race is a concept which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodies. ” The meanings and implications of race are produced and invested in by social institutions, as well as through cultural representations.

Example of an early modern attempt at racial categorization

This map depicts the three great races, according to Meyers Konversationslexikon, of 1885-90. The subtypes of the Mongoloid race are shown in yellow and orange tones, those of the Europid race in light and medium grayish green-cyan tones, and those of the Negroid race in brown tones. Dravidians and Sinhalese are in olive green, and their classification is described as uncertain. The Mongoloid race sees the widest geographic distribution, including all of the Americas, North Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the entire inhabited Arctic.

10.1.5: Racism

Racism is the belief that different traits of racial groups are inherent and justify discrimination.

Learning Objective

Identify four scenarios which separately illustrate individual-level racism, structural racism, cultural racism, and historical racism

Key Points

Racism may be expressed individually and consciously, through explicit thoughts, feelings, or acts, or socially and unconsciously, through institutions that promote inequality between races.
Individual-level racism is seen in prejudice, bias, or discrimination displayed between two or more people.
Structural racism refers to inequalities built into an organization or system.
Historical economic or social disparity caused by racism can adversely affect present generations.
Historical economic or social disparity caused by racism can adversely affect present generations.
Racial profiling involves the singling out of individuals based upon their race for differential treatment, often in the form of increased surveillance or enforcement by the criminal justice system.
Color-blind racism involves the avoidance of racial language as a means to suggest that racism is no longer an issue when it actually is.
Genocide refers to the attempt to completely destroy a racial or ethnic group, usual perpetrated by a dominant racial group against a persecuted one.

Key Terms

Cultural Racism: A variation of structural racism that occurs when the assumption of the inferiority of one or more races is embraced by the culture of a given society.
Structural Racism: Unequal practices built into organizations or institutional systems that disproportionately benefit or disadvantage particular racial groups.
racism: prejudice or discrimination based upon race; the belief that one race is superior to all others

Example

Samuel George Morton, an American physician and natural scientist of the nineteenth century, measured the cranial capacity of the skulls of non-Caucasians as a way to ‘prove’ the inherent inferiority of non-white races.

Racism is the belief that different inherent traits in racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term “racism” is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature, which is often justified by recourse to racial stereotyping or pseudo-science.

Racism can refer to any or all of the following beliefs and behaviors:

Race is the primary determinant of human capacities (prejudice or bias).
A certain race is inherently superior or inferior to others (prejudice or bias).
Individuals should be treated differently according to their racial classification (prejudice or bias).

Racism is broadly recognized as an affront to basic human dignity and a violation of human rights. Racism is opposed by almost all mainstream voices in the United States. A number of international treaties have sought to end racism. The United Nations uses a definition of racist discrimination laid out in the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination adopted in 1965:

“…any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life. “

Expressions of Racism

Racism may be expressed individually and consciously, through explicit thoughts, feelings, or acts, or socially and unconsciously, through institutions that promote inequalities among races.

Individual-Level Racism

Individual-level racism is prejudice, bias, or discrimination displayed in an interaction between two or more people. An example of individual-level racism would be an employer firing someone because of his/her race, without regard to their skills or qualifications as an employee.

Children develop an awareness of race and racial stereotypes quite young (between the ages of 5 and 11), and these racial stereotypes affect behavior. For example, children who identify with a racial minority that is stereotyped as not doing well in school tend to perform worse academically when they learn about the stereotype associated with their race.

Structural Racism

Structural racism refers to inequalities built into an organization or system. An example of structural racism can be seen in recent research on workplace discrimination. There is widespread discrimination against job applicants whose names were merely perceived as “sounding black. ” These applicants were 50 percent less likely than candidates perceived as having “white-sounding names” to receive callbacks for interviews, no matter what their level of previous experience was. The researchers view these results as strong evidence of unconscious biases rooted in the country’s long history of discrimination. This is an example of structural racism as it shows a widespread established belief system that treats people differently based upon their race.

Additional examples of structural racism include apartheid in South Africa, the system of Jim Crow laws in the U.S., and the inequitable lending practices of banks (i.e., redlining).

Cultural Racism

Cultural racial discrimination, a variation of structural racism, occurs when the assumption of inferiority of one or more races is built into the a society’s cultural norms. Racism is an expression of culture, passed on through enculturation and socialization.

Historical Racism

Historical economic or social disparity caused by past racism affects the present generation of the victimized group. For example, racial deficits still exist in formal education, and unconscious racist attitudes still exist against certain members of the general population. This perspective seeks to explain how, for example, African Americans in the U.S. have had their opportunities in life adversely affected due to the enslavement of their ancestors. Disparities in wealth, net worth, and education lend credence to this idea.

One response to racial disparity in the U.S. has been affirmative action. Affirmative action is the practice of favoring or benefiting members of a particular race in areas such as college admissions and workplace advancement, in an attempt to create atmospheres of racial diversity and racial equality. Though lauded by many as a boon to society, giving the less privileged a chance at success and working to overcome historical social disparity, the practice is condemned as racially discriminatory by others.

Segregation as a Form of Racism

A “colored” drinking fountain from mid-20th century.

10.2: Ethnicity

10.2.1: Ethnicity

An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with one another through a common cultural heritage.

Learning Objective

Criticize the concept of ethnicity from the perspective of Max Weber’s and Ronald Cohen’s theories of social constructionism, referencing the approaches of primordialism, perennialism, and constructivism

Key Points

An ethnicity is a socially constructed category, the traits and parameters of which can change depending on the prevailing social and political context.
A situational ethnicity is an ethnic identity that is particular to a social setting or context.
The various approaches to understanding ethnicity include primordialism, essentialism, perennialism, constructivism, modernism and instrumentalism.
Ethnicity is distinct from race, because ethnicity is based on social traits, while race is based on the belief that a certain group of people share particular biological characteristics.
Ethnicity is distinct from race, because ethnicity is based on social traits, while race is based on the belief that a certain group of people share particular biological characteristics.
Ethnic nationalism is a political ideology which is the result of tying the concepts of cultural heritage and nationalism together.

Key Terms

modernism: A school of thought with regards to ethnicity that ties the emergence of ethnic groups to the emergence of modern nation-states.
instrumentalism: A perspective towards ethnicity that sees ethnic classification as a mechanism of social stratification or as the basis for a social hierarchy.

Example

The Bosnian War, which took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between April 1992 and December 1995, has been characterized as an ethnic conflict which primarily involved people of Bosniak, Serb and Croat ethnicities.

Ethnicity is a term that describes shared culture—the practices, values, and beliefs of a group. This might include shared language, religion, and traditions, among other commonalities. An ethnic group is a collection of people whose members identify with each other through a common heritage, consisting of a common culture which may also include a shared language or dialect. The group’s ethos or ideology may also stress common ancestry, religion, or race. The process that results in the emergence of an ethnicity is known as ethnogenesis.

Conceptual History of Ethnicity

Ethnicity is a constructed category, the characteristics and boundaries of which have been renegotiated and redefined over the years to suit different contexts and objectives.

Sociologist Max Weber asserted that ethnic groups were künstlich (artificial, i.e. a social construct) for three reasons. Firstly, they were based on a subjective believe in shared Gemeinschaft (community). Secondly, this belief in shared Gemeinschaft did not create the group; rather, the group created the belief. Thirdly, group formation resulted from the drive to monopolize power and status.

In 1978, Anthropologist Ronald Cohen claimed that the identification of “ethnic groups” in the usage of social scientists often reflected inaccurate labels more than indigenous realities:

… the named ethnic identities we accept, often unthinkingly, as basic givens in the literature are often arbitrarily, or even worse inaccurately, imposed.

In this way, he pointed to the fact that identification of an ethnic group by outsiders, e.g. anthropologists, may not coincide with the self-identification of the members of that group. Cohen also suggested that claims concerning “ethnic” identity (like earlier claims concerning “tribal” identity) are often colonialist practices and effects of the relations between colonized peoples and nation-states.

Therefore, the socio-cultural and behavioral differences between peoples of different ethnicities do not necessarily stem from inherited traits and tendencies derived from common descent; rather, the identification of an ethnic groups is often socially and politically motivated.

“Ethnies” or Ethnic Categories

The following categories – “ethnic categories,” “ethnic networks,” “ethnies” or “ethnic communities,” and “situational ethnicity” – were developed in order to distinguish the instances when ethnic classification is the labeling of others and when it is a case of self-identification.

An “ethnic category” is a category set up by those who are outside of the category. The members of an ethnic category are categorized by outsiders as being distinguished by attributes of a common name or emblem, a shared cultural element and a connection to a specific territory.
At the level of “ethnic networks”, the group begins to have a sense of collectiveness; at this level, common myths of origin and shared cultural and biological heritage begin to emerge, at least among the elites of that group.
At the level of “ethnies” or “ethnic communities”, the members themselves have clear conceptions of being “a named human population with myths of common ancestry, shared historical memories, and one or more common elements of culture, including an association with a homeland, and some degree of solidarity, at least among the elites”. In other words, an ethnie is self-defined as a group.
A “situational ethnicity” is an ethnic identity that is chosen for the moment based on the social setting or situation.

Approaches to Understanding Ethnicity

Different approaches have been used by different social scientists to attempt to understand the nature of ethnicity as a factor in human life and society. Examples of such approaches include primordialism, perennialism, constructivism, modernism, and instrumentalism.

Primordialism holds that ethnicity has existed at all times of human history and that modern ethnic groups have historical roots far into the past. According to this framework, the idea of ethnicity is closely linked to the idea of nations and is rooted in the pre-Weber understanding of humanity as being divided into primordially existing groups rooted by kinship and biological heritage.
Perennialism holds that ethnicity is ever changing, and that while the concept of ethnicity has existed at all times, ethnic groups are generally short lived before the ethnic boundaries realign in new patterns.
Constructivism sees both primordialist and perennialist views as basically flawed, and holds that ethnic groups are only products of human social interaction, maintained only in so far as they are maintained as valid social constructs in societies.
Modernism
Instrumentalism

Ethnicity and Race

Ethnicity, while related to race, refers not to physical characteristics but social traits that are shared by a human population. Some of the social traits often used for ethnic classification include nationality, religious faith and a shared language and culture.

Like race, the term ethnicity is difficult to describe and its meaning has changed over time. And like race, individuals may be identified or self-identify to ethnicities in complex, even contradictory, ways. For example, ethnic groups such as Irish, Italian American, Russian, Jewish, and Serbian might all be groups whose members are predominantly included in the racial category “white. ” Conversely, the ethnic group British includes citizens from a multiplicity of racial backgrounds: black, white, Asian, and more, plus a variety of racial combinations. These examples illustrate the complexity and overlap of these identifying terms. Ethnicity, like race, continues to be an identification method that individuals and institutions use today—whether through the census, affirmative action initiatives, non-discrimination laws, or simply in personal day-to-day relations.

Modern meets Traditional

The women above are wearing an interesting fusion of modern and ethnic clothing.

10.3: Minorities

10.3.1: Minority Groups

The term “minority” is applied to various groups who hold few or no positions of power in a given society.

Learning Objective

Define a minority group

Key Points

The term minority doesn’t necessarily refer to a numeric minority. Women, for example, make up roughly half the population but are often considered a minority group.
Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors, such as race, religion, sexual orientation, or national origin into account in order to benefit an underrepresented group.

Key Terms

affirmative action: A policy or program providing advantages for people of a minority group who are seen to have traditionally been discriminated against, with the aim of creating a more egalitarian society through preferential access to education, employment, health care, social welfare, etc.
minority group: a sociological category that is differentiated, defined, and often discriminated against by those who hold the majority of positions of social power
minority: Categories of persons who hold few or no positions of social power in a given society.

Example

The system of apartheid in South Africa exemplifies the complexities of the use of the word “minority. ” Apartheid was a system of racial segregation established by National Party governments, which were in power from 1948-1994. Apartheid granted enormous power and privileges to the numeric minority Afrikaner population at the expense of the rights and freedoms of the majority black population. In fact, apartheid legislation identified four racial categories: white, black, colored and Asian. Of these, the whites were the most entitled legally, politically, and economically.

In the social sciences, “minority” does not just refer to a statistical measure and can instead refer to categories of persons who hold few or no positions of social power in a given society.

Sociologist Louis Wirth defined a minority group as “a group of people who, because of their physical or cultural characteristics, are singled out from the others in the society in which they live for differential and unequal treatment, and who therefore regard themselves as objects of collective discrimination. ” This definition includes both objective and subjective criteria: membership of a minority group is objectively ascribed by society, based on an individual’s physical or behavioral characteristics, such as ethnicity and race or gender and sexuality. It is also subjectively applied by its members, who may use their status as the basis of group identity or solidarity.

Minority group status is also categorical in nature: an individual who exhibits the physical or behavioral characteristics of a given minority group will be accorded the status of that group and be subject to the same treatment as other members of that minority group.

Racial or Ethnic Minorities

Every large society contains ethnic minorities: subgroups that share a common heritage, which often consists of a shared language, culture (often including a religion), or ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy. In this case, while minority status can be conditioned by a clear numerical difference, more significantly it refers to issues of political power. In some places, subordinate ethnic groups may constitute a numerical majority, such as blacks in South Africa under apartheid.

In addition to long-established ethnic minority populations in various nation-states, ethnic minorities may consist of more recent migrant, indigenous, or landless nomadic communities residing within, or between, a particular national territory.

Gender and Sexuality Minorities

Recognition of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people as a minority group or groups has gained prominence in the Western world since the nineteenth century. The abbreviation “LGBT” is currently used to group these identities together. The term queer is sometimes understood as an umbrella term for all non-normative sexualities and gender expressions but does not always signify a minority; rather, as with many gay rights activists of the 1960s and 1970s, it sometimes represents an attempt to highlight sexual diversity in everyone.

While in most societies the numbers of men and women are roughly equal, the status of women as a oppressed group has led some, such as feminists and other participants in women’s rights movements, to identify them as a minority group.

Religious Minorities

Persons belonging to religious minorities have a faith which is different from that held by the majority population or the population group that is in power. It is now accepted in many multicultural societies around the world that people should have the freedom to choose their own religion, including not having any religion (atheism or agnosticism), and including the right to convert from one religion to another. However in some countries this freedom is still either formally restricted or subject to cultural bias from the majority population.

People with Disabilities

The disability rights movement has contributed to an understanding of people with disabilities as a minority or a coalition of minorities who are disadvantaged by society, not just as people who are disadvantaged by their impairments.

Advocates of disability rights emphasize differences in physical or psychological functioning, rather than inferiority: for example, some people with autism argue for acceptance of neuro-diversity, in the same way in which opponents of racism argue for acceptance of ethnic diversity. The deaf community is often regarded as a linguistic and cultural minority rather than a group with disabilities, and some deaf people do not see themselves as having a disability at all. Rather, they are disadvantaged by technologies and social institutions that are designed to cater to the dominant, hearing-unimpaired group.

Affirmative Action

Affirmative action is a controversial issue, which refers to policies that take factors including race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or national origin into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group. This is usually justified as countering the effects of a history of discrimination . Affirmative action can, for example, take the form of a government program to provide immigrant or minority groups who primarily speak a marginalized language with extra teaching in the majority language, so that they are better able to compete for places at university or for jobs.

Members of the Long-horn Tribe

This tribe is a small branch of ethnic Miao in the western part of Guizhou Province, China. In addition to their small numbers and distinctive ethnicity from the larger Han Chinese majority, they are considered a minority given their relative lack of power in China’s larger political structure.

10.4: Prejudice and Discrimination

10.4.1: Prejudice

Prejudice refers to a positive or negative evaluation of another person based on their perceived group membership (e.g., race, class, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and ability).

Learning Objective

Apply the concepts of in-group favoritism and prejudice to a real-life situation

Key Points

When we meet strangers we automatically process several pieces of information about them, including the social categories of race, gender, age, sexual orientation, and ability.
First impressions are often based on stereotypes. For example, we may have different expectations of strangers depending on their race, gender, age, sexual orientation, and ability.
Prejudice is a negative attitude and feeling toward an individual based solely on one’s membership in a particular social group.
Prejudice often begins in the form of a stereotype—that is, a specific belief or assumption about individuals based solely on their membership in a group, regardless of their individual characteristics. Stereotypes become overgeneralized and applied to all members of a group.

Key Terms

stereotype: A conventional, formulaic, and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image of a group of people or things.
prejudice: A positive or negative evaluation of another person based on their perceived group membership (e.g., race, class, or gender).

When we meet strangers we automatically process three pieces of information about them: their race, gender, and age. Why are these aspects of an unfamiliar person so important? Why don’t we instead notice whether their eyes are friendly, whether they are smiling, their height, the type of clothes they are wearing? Although these secondary characteristics are important in forming a first impression of a stranger, the social categories of race, gender, and age provide a wealth of information about an individual. This information, however, often is based on stereotypes. We may have different expectations of strangers depending on their race, gender, and age.

Prejudice is a negative attitude and feeling toward an individual based solely on one’s membership in a particular social group (Allport, 1954; Brown, 2010). Prejudice is common against people who are members of an unfamiliar cultural group. Thus, certain types of education, contact, interactions, and building relationships with members of different cultural groups can reduce the tendency toward prejudice. In fact, simply imagining interacting with members of different cultural groups might affect prejudice. Indeed, when experimental participants were asked to imagine themselves positively interacting with someone from a different group, this led to an increased positive attitude toward the other group and an increase in positive traits associated with the other group.

Prejudice often begins in the form of a stereotype—that is, a specific belief or assumption about individuals based solely on their membership in a group, regardless of their individual characteristics. Stereotypes become overgeneralized and applied to all members of a group. For example, as Hodge, Burden, Robinson, and Bennett (2008) point out, black male athletes are often believed to be more athletic, yet less intelligent, than their white male counterparts. These beliefs persist despite a number of high profile examples to the contrary. Sadly, such beliefs often influence how these athletes are treated by others and how they view themselves and their own capabilities. Whether or not you agree with a stereotype, stereotypes are generally well-known within in a given culture.

10.4.2: Discrimination Against Individuals

Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on his or her membership (or perceived membership) in a certain group.

Learning Objective

Give an example of discrimination and reverse discrimination using examples of religious, gender, or racial prejudice

Key Points

A common type of discrimination is the exclusion or restriction of members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group.
Racial, religious, and gender discrimination are common types of this phenomenon.
Controversial attempts have been made to mitigate and rectify the negative effects of discrimination. These attempts in turn, however, have sometimes been called reverse discrimination.
Reverse discrimination is a term referring to discrimination against members of a dominant or majority group, including the city or state, or in favor of members of a minority or historically disadvantaged group.

Key Terms

reverse discrimination: Discrimination against members of a dominant or majority group, including the city or state, or in favor of members of a minority or historically disadvantaged group.
discrimination: The prejudicial treatment of an individual based on his or her membership, or perceived membership, in a certain group or category.

Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on his/her membership (or perceived membership) in a certain group or category, and involves actual actions taken towards that individual. A common example of discrimination is the exclusion or restriction of members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group, such as access to public facilities like bathrooms and water fountains.

Controversial attempts have been made to redress negative effects of discrimination. One example is the implementation of racial quotas, that is, establishing numerical requirements for hiring, promoting, admitting and/or graduating members of a particular racial group. These attempts in turn, however, have sometimes been called reverse discrimination (see below).

Racial and Ethnic Discrimination

Racial discrimination results in unequal treatment between individuals on the basis of real and perceived racial differences. It may manifest on every level of social life, from minor disregard or intense hostility in interpersonal interactions to much larger instantiations in public institutions (also called structural or institutional discrimination), such as the segregatory practices prominent in the Jim Crow era of the Unites States (1870s-1960s).

Sex, Gender and Gender Identity Discrimination

Though what constitutes sex discrimination varies between countries, it essentially refers to an adverse action taken against a person based on their perceived sex, gender, and/or gender identity. Historically, sexual differences have been used to justify different social roles for men and women. Unfair discrimination usually follows the gender stereotypes held by a society.

Religious Discrimination

Religious discrimination is prejudicial treatment of a person or group differently based on their spiritual or religious beliefs (or lack thereof).

In a 1979 consultation on the issue, the United States commission on civil rights defined religious discrimination in relation to the civil rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which deals with due process and equal fairness of all citizens under the law. According to the commission, religious discrimination occurs when someone is denied ” the equal protection of the laws, equality of status under the law, equal treatment in the administration of justice, and equality of opportunity and access to employment, education, housing, public services and facilities, and public accommodation because of their exercise of their right to religious freedom. “

Reverse Discrimination

Reverse discrimination is a term referring to discrimination against members of a dominant or majority group, including the city or state, or in favor of members of a minority or historically disadvantaged group. Groups may be defined in terms of race, gender, ethnicity, or other factors. This discrimination may seek to redress social inequalities where minority groups have been denied access to the same privileges of the majority group. In such cases it is intended to remove discrimination that minority groups may already face.

Reverse discrimination may also be used to highlight the discrimination inherent in affirmative action programs.

Legislation in some nations, such as the UK, assert that identical treatment may sometimes act to preserve inequality rather than eliminate it, and therefore this so-called reverse discrimination is justified.

An Example of Discrimination

An African-American child at a segregated drinking fountain on a courthouse lawn, North Carolina, 1938

10.4.3: Institutional Prejudice or Discrimination

Institutionalized discrimination refers to discrimination embedded in the procedures, policies or objectives of large organizations.

Learning Objective

Examine the legal cases that had an impact on institutional discrimination

Key Points

Usually institutional bias targets specific, easily stereotyped and generalizable attributes of individuals, such as race and gender.
Institutionalized discrimination often exists within governments, though it can also occur in any other type of social institution including religion, education and marriage.
The achievement gap in education is an example of institutionalized discrimination.
Many countries around the world practice some form of institutionalized discrimination. For example, in some countries women cannot vote, drive or work certain jobs.

Key Terms

institutionalized discrimination: The unfair, indirect methods of treatment of individuals that are embedded in the operating procedures, policies, laws or objectives of large organizations.
achievement gap: The observed and persistent disparity between the performance of groups of students defined by gender, race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status, based on a number of educational measures.

Example

Housing in the United States is valued differently based on the racial makeup of the neighborhood. There can be two identical houses, by factors like amenities and size, but the assessed value of each house can depend on the racial makeup of the people within the community. Homeowners therefore have an incentive to prevent minorities from moving into white neighborhoods. Institutionalized discrimination within the housing market also includes practices like redlining and mortgage discrimination.

Institutionalized discrimination refers to the unfair, indirect treatment of certain members within a group. These practices are embedded in the operating procedures, policies, laws, or objectives of large organizations, such as governments and corporations, financial institutions, public institutions and other large entities.

Usually the bias targets specific, easily stereotyped and generalizable attributes, such as race, gender, nationality, sexual orientation and age. Though direct discrimination is illegal by United States law, many academics, activists, and advocacy organizations assert that indirect discrimination is still pervasive in many social institutions and daily social practices.

Examples

Examples of institutionalized discrimination include laws and decisions that reflect racism, such as the 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson U.S. Supreme Court case, which ruled in favor of “separate but equal” public facilities between African Americans and non African Americans. This ruling was later rescinded in 1954 by the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision.

Institutionalized discrimination often exists within governments, though it can also occur in any other type of social institution, including religion, education and marriage. For example, residential segregation is a product of discrimination that exists in the private real estate market. Housing in the United States can be valued differently based on the racial makeup of the neighborhood. There can be two identical houses, in terms of factors like amenities and size, but the value of each house can depend on the racial makeup of the people within the community. Homeowners would therefore have an incentive to prevent minorities from moving into white neighborhoods. Institutionalized discrimination within the housing market also includes practices like redlining and mortgage discrimination.

The achievement gap in education is another example of institutionalized discrimination. The achievement gap refers to the observed disparity in educational measures between the performance of groups of students, especially groups defined by gender, race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status. This disparity include standardized test scores, grade point average, dropout rates and college enrollment and/or completion rates.

International Examples

Many countries around the world exhibit some form of institutionalized discrimination, such as Saudi Arabia where women and other oppressed groups cannot participate in some religious activities, and can neither vote nor work in government.

Trends in reading scores divided by race.

These figures show a long-term disparity in reading scores.

10.4.4: Assimilation

Assimilation describes the process of social, cultural, and political integration of a minority into a dominant culture and society.

Learning Objective

Give a real life example for each of the four benchmarks of immigrant assimilation

Key Points

Immigrant assimilation is one of the most common forms of assimilation, and is a very complex process.
Social scientists rely on four primary benchmarks to assess immigrant assimilation: socioeconomic status, geographic distribution, second language attainment, and intermarriage.
Socioeconomic status is defined by educational attainment, occupation, and income. Spatial concentration is defined by geography or residential patterns.
Language attainment refers to the ability to speak English and the loss of the individual’s mother tongue. Intermarriage involves marriage across racial, ethnic, or, occasionally, generational lines.
Segmented assimilation states that there are three main paths of assimilation for second generation immigrants: some assimilate smoothly, others experience downward assimilation, and others experience rapid economic success while preserving the values of their immigrant community.
Intermarriage involves marriage across racial, ethnic, or, occasionally, generational lines.

Key Terms

socioeconomic status: One’s social position as determined by income, wealth, occupational prestige, and educational attainment.
spatial concentration: A measure of how densely particular ethnic groups are situated in a geographic location.
intermarriage: a marriage between people belonging to different groups, ethnic, religious or otherwise.

Assimilation describes the process by which a minority integrates socially, culturally, and/or politically into a larger, dominant culture and society. The term assimilation is often used in reference to immigrants and ethnic groups settling in a new land. Immigrants acquire new customs and attitudes through contact and communication with a new society, while they also introduce some of their own cultural traits to that society.

Assimilation usually involves a gradual change of varying degree. Full assimilation occurs when new members of a society become indistinguishable from native members.

Any group (such as a state, immigrant population, or ethnicity) may choose to adopt a different culture for a variety of reasons such as political relevance or perceived advantage. However, a group may also be forced or feel compelled to do so as a result of imperialistic conquest, immigration, or drastic changes in population.

Assimilation of Immigrants

Immigrant assimilation is one of the most common forms of assimilation. It is a complex process through which an immigrant integrates themselves into a new country. Geography professor and human migration specialist William A. V. Clark says that immigrant assimilation is “a way of understanding the social dynamics of American society” and defines it as “the process that occurs spontaneously and often unintended in the course of interaction between majority and minority groups. “

Social scientists rely on four benchmarks, initially formulated when studying European immigrants in the U.S., to assess immigrant assimilation:

Socioeconomic status is defined by educational attainment, occupation, and income. By measuring socioeconomic status, researchers seek to determine whether immigrants eventually catch up to native-born people in matters of capital.
Spatial concentration is defined by geography or residential patterns. The spatial residential model states that increasing socioeconomic attainment, longer residence in the U.S, and higher generational status lead to decreasing residential concentration for a particular ethnic group.
Language attainment is defined as the ability to speak English and the loss of the individual’s mother tongue. The three-generation model of language assimilation states that the first generation makes some progress in language assimilation but retains primary fluency in their native tongue, while the second generation is bilingual and the third generation speaks only English.
Intermarriage refers to marriage across racial, ethnic, or, occasionally, generational lines. High rates of intermarriage are considered to be an indication of social integration, as they suggest intimate and profound relations between people of different groups. Intermarriage reduces the ability of families to pass on to their children a consistent ethnic culture and thus is an agent of assimilation.

Naturalization and Immigrant Assimilation

Other than marriage, citizenship is one of the most significant factors in assimilation. Thus, immigration debates focus not only on the number of immigrants that should be admitted into a country and the processes of incorporation, but also on how citizenship should be extended and to whom. Proponents of immigration often argue that new residents will help to build and enrich American democracy, while opponents counter that the identity and legitimacy of the nation may be challenged and perhaps even threatened by immigrants. Questions of citizenship in relation to illegal immigration is a particularly controversial issue and a common source of political tension.

New Immigrant Gateways and Immigrant Assimilation

The majority of immigrants have tended to settle in traditional gateway states such as Florida, New York, California, Illinois, Texas, and Massachusetts, where immigrants find large existing populations of foreign-born people. Recently, however, immigrants have increasingly been settling in areas outside these gateway states. Sociologists Mary Waters and Tomas R. Jimenez have suggested that these geographical shifts may change the way researchers assess immigrant assimilation, as immigrants settling in new areas may encounter different experiences than immigrants settling in more traditional gateways. Specifically, Waters and Jimenez identify three distinguishing characteristics in more recent, less traditional, immigration patterns: less established social hierarchies, smaller immigrant population size, and different institutional arrangements.

Segmented Assimilation

The theory of segmented assimilation for second generation immigrants is highly researched in the sociological arena. Segmented assimilation, researched by Min Zhou and Alejandro Portes, focuses on the notion that people take different paths in how they adapt to life in the United States. This theory states that there are three main different paths of assimilation for second generation immigrants. Some immigrants assimilate smoothly into the white middle class of America, others experience downward assimilation, and others experience rapid economic success while preserving the values of their immigrant community.

This theory also includes the concept of modes of incorporation, which are the external factors within the host community that affect assimilation. These factors are created by the underlying policies of the government, the strength of prejudice in the society, and the makeup of coethnic communities within the society. These modes of incorporation affect how a child will assimilate into U.S. society, and determine how vulnerable the child will be towards downward assimilation. Factors that enhance such vulnerability include racial discrimination, location, and changes in the economy that have made it harder for intergenerational mobility.

In addition, differing modes of incorporation make available certain resources that second generation immigrants can use to overcome challenges to the process of assimilation. If the child belongs to a group that has been exempt from the prejudice experienced by most immigrants, such as European immigrants, they will experience a smoother process of assimilation. A second generation immigrant can also make use of established networks in the coethnic community. These networks provide these children with additional resources beyond those offered by the government, such as gateways into well paying jobs in businesses established by the ethnic community. Children of middle class immigrants have a greater likelihood of moving up the social ladder and joining American mainstream society than children of lower class immigrants, as they have access to both the resources provided by their parents and to the educational opportunities afforded to the middle class in the U.S.

Assimilation of Native Americans

A collage of Native Americans dressed in European attire

10.4.5: Pluralism

Multiculturalism is an ideology that promotes the institutionalization of communities containing multiple cultures.

Learning Objective

Reconstruct the crux of the debate about multiculturalism, including its different forms and opposition to it

Key Points

Multiculturalism is seen by its supporters as a fairer system that allows people to truly express who they are within a society, that is more tolerant, and that adapts better to social issues.
Critics of multiculturalism often debate whether the multicultural ideal of benignly co-existing cultures that interrelate and influence one another, and yet remain distinct, is sustainable, paradoxical, or even desirable.
Multiculturalism is often contrasted with the concepts of assimilationism and has been described as a “salad bowl” or “cultural mosaic” rather than an assimilationist “melting pot”.

Key Term

multiculturalism: A characteristic of a society that has many different ethnic or national cultures mingling freely. It can also refer to political or social policies which support or encourage such a coexistence. Important in this is the idea that cultural practices, no matter how unusual, should be tolerated as a measure of respect.

Example

The French government has a melting-pot or assimilationist view of cultural coexistence, believing that the identity of being French should take precedence over all other forms of identification, including, religion, gender, ethnicity, etc. On the other hand, Canada is more closely associated with the “salad bowl,” or multicultural, perspective, as they believe in preserving the distinct identity of various cultural groups within their nation.

Multiculturalism is an ideology that promotes the institutionalization of communities containing multiple cultures. It is generally applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level (e.g., schools, businesses, neighborhoods, cities, or nations).

In a political context, the term is used for a wide variety of meanings. These can range from the advocacy of equal respect for the various cultures in a society, to a policy of promoting the maintenance of cultural diversity, to policies in which people of various ethnic and religious groups are addressed by the authorities according to the definition of the group to which they belong. A common aspect of many such policies is that they avoid presenting any specific ethnic, religious, or cultural community values as central.

Multiculturalism is often contrasted with the concepts of assimilationism and has been described as a “salad bowl” or “cultural mosaic,” rather than an assimilationist “melting pot.”

Definition

There is no single, agreed-upon definition for multiculturalism and different countries approach the issue in a variety of manners. However two main different and seemingly inconsistent strategies have developed through varied government policies and strategies.

The first focuses on interaction and communication between different cultures. By encouraging different cultures to interact, hopefully, cultural differences can be recognized and accepted rather than suppressed or ignored, thus promoting a sense of multiculturalism.
The second centers on diversity and cultural uniqueness. Cultural isolation can protect the uniqueness of the local culture of a nation or area and also contribute to global cultural diversity.

Political scholar Andrew Heywood distinguishes between two forms of multiculturalism: descriptive and normative:

As a descriptive term, it refers to general cultural diversity.
As a normative term, multiculturalism “implies a positive endorsement, even celebration, of communal diversity, typically based on either the right of different groups to respect and recognition, or to the alleged benefits to the larger society of moral and cultural diversity”.

Multiculturalism as Government Policy

Multiculturalism has been an official policy in several Western nations since the 1970s, for reasons that vary from country to country, including the fact that many of the great cities of the Western world are increasingly made of a mosaic of cultures. The Canadian government has often been described as the instigator of multicultural ideology because of its public emphasis on the social importance of immigration. The Canadian Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism is often refered to as the origins of modern political awareness of multiculturalism.

Support for Multiculturalism

Multiculturalism is seen by its supporters as a fairer system that allows people to truly express who they are within a society, that is more tolerant, and adapts better to social issues. They argue that culture is not one definable thing based on one race or religion, but rather the result of multiple factors that change as the world changes.

Multiculturalism in Western countries was seen as a useful set of strategies to combat racism, protect minority communities of all types, and to undo policies that had prevented minorities from having full access to the opportunities for freedom and equality promised by the liberalism that have been the hallmark of Western societies since the Age of Enlightenment.

Opposition to Multiculturalism

Critics of multiculturalism often debate whether or not the multicultural ideal of benignly co-existing cultures that interrelate and influence one another, and yet remain distinct, is sustainable, paradoxical, or even desirable. It is argued that nation states, which would previously have been synonymous with a distinctive cultural identity of their own, lose out to enforced multiculturalism and that this ultimately erodes the host nations’ distinct culture.

Harvard professor of political science Robert D. Putnam conducted a nearly decade-long study of how multiculturalism affects social trust. He surveyed 26,200 people in 40 American communities, finding that when the data were adjusted for class, income, and other factors, the more racially diverse a community is, the greater the loss of trust. People in diverse communities “don’t trust the local mayor, they don’t trust the local paper, they don’t trust other people and they don’t trust institutions,” writes Putnam.

Multiculturalism

“Monument to Multiculturalism” by Francesco Pirelli, in front of Union Station, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

10.4.6: Segregation

Segregation is the division of human beings into separate groups based on any number of criteria, such as race, ethnicity, or nationality.

Learning Objective

Identify at least three key moments in the history of racial segregation in the U.S.

Key Points

Racial segregation is one of the most common forms of segregation. Although it is illegal in many societies, it may still exist through social norms even when there is no strong individual preference for it.
After the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in America, racial discrimination became regulated by the so called Jim Crow laws, which mandated strict segregation of the races.
By 1968 all forms of segregation had been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, and by 1970 support for formal legal segregation had dissolved.

Key Terms

segregation: People separating geographically, residentially, racially, religiously or by sex based on legal codes, happenstance, voluntary choice or cultural attitudes.
Racial Segregation: The separation of humans into racial groups throughout aspects of daily life, sometimes enforced by law.

Example

The French term banlieue (suburb) has since the 1970s been increasingly used as a way of describing low-income housing projects on the outskirts of Paris in particular, as well as some other large French cities. These banlieues typically are home to French people of foreign descent or foreign immigrants.

Segregation is the social division of human beings based on any number of factors, including race, ethnicity, or nationality. It may apply to various situations of daily life, such as eating in a restaurant, using a public restroom, attending school, or going to the movies

Racial segregation is one of the most common forms of segregation and is generally outlawed, but can still exist through social norms even when there is no strong individual preference for it.

Segregation often involves spatial separation of races and/or mandatory use of institutions, such as schools and hospitals, by people of different races—an exception being allowing for close contact in hierarchical situations, i.e., a person of one race working as a servant for a person of another race.

Racial segregation has appeared in all parts of the world where there are multiracial communities. Even where racial mixing has occurred on a large scale, as in Hawaii and Brazil, various forms of social discrimination have persisted despite the absence of official segregationist laws.

History of Racial Segregation

After the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in America, racial discrimination became regulated by the so-called Jim Crow laws—strict mandates on segregation of the races. Though such laws were instituted shortly after the war ended, in many cases they were not formalized until the end of Republican-enforced Reconstruction in the 1870s and 80s. This legalized form of segregation into the mid 1960s.

As an official practice, institutionalized racial segregation ended in large part due to the work of civil rights activists (Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr., Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr., among others) primarily during the period from the end of World War II through the passage of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as supported by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Their efforts focused on acts of non-violent civil disobedience aimed at disrupting the enforcement of racial segregation rules and laws. Examples are holding sit-ins at all-white diners, or the widely publicized refusal of Rosa Parks to give up her seat on a bus to a white person.

By 1968 all forms of segregation had been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, and by 1970 support for formal legal segregation dissolved. The Fair Housing Act of 1968, administered and enforced by the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, prohibited discrimination in the sale and rental of housing on the basis of race, color, nationality, religion, sex, familial status and disability. The civil rights movement gained the public’s support, and formal racial discrimination and segregation became illegal in schools, businesses, the military, and other civil and government services.

In the years since, African Americans have played a significant role throughout society, as leaders, public officials and heads of state. On the national level, they have worked in the Supreme Court, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and held top Presidential cabinet positions. In 2008, the United States elected its first African American President.

Contemporary Forms of Segregation

Columbia University economist Rajiv Sethi has observed that black-white segregation is declining fairly consistently in most metropolitan areas of the U.S. Despite these overall patterns, changes in individual areas remain small. Racial segregation or separation can lead to social, economic and political tensions.

In many areas, the United States remains a residentially segregated society. Blacks, whites, Hispanics and other racial groups inhabit different neighborhoods of vastly different quality.

10.4.7: Population Transfer

Population transfer is the movement of a large group of people from one region to another by state policy or international authority.

Learning Objective

Analyze why population transfers went from being an acceptable solution to problems of ethnic conflict to being unacceptable

Key Points

Often the affected population is transferred by force to a distant, unfamiliar region, resulting in substantial harm to the population in question.
Population exchange is the transfer of two populations in opposite directions at about the same time.
Population transfer was considered an acceptable solution to the problems of ethnic conflict, up until around World War II. This attitude underwent substantial revision with the Charter of the Nuremberg Trials of Germany.
Today, forced population transfers and exchanges are considered a violation of international law.

Key Terms

Population Exchange: The transfer of two populations in opposite directions at about the same time.
population transfer: The movement of a large group of people from one region to another by state policy or international authority, most frequently on the basis of ethnicity or religion.

Example

The migration of large numbers of Hindus and Muslims between India and Pakistan after Partition occurred in 1947 is a significant historical example of a population exchange.

Population transfer is the movement of a large group of people from one region to another by state policy or international authority, most frequently on the basis of ethnicity or religion. Often the affected population is transferred by force to a distant region, perhaps not suited to their way of life, causing them substantial personal and bodily harm and resulting in significant damage and loss of property.

Population exchange is the transfer of two populations in opposite directions at about the same time. These exchanges have taken place several times in the 20^th century, such as during the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan .

1947 Partition of India

Figure showing the movement of refugees following the decision by colonial Britain to partition India based on religious demographics.

Issues Arising from Population Transfer

According to political scientist Norman Finkelstein, population transfer was considered as an acceptable solution to the problems of ethnic conflict up until around World War II and even a little afterward in certain cases. It was considered a drastic but “often necessary” means to end an ethnic conflict or ethnic civil war. The feasibility of population transfers was hugely increased by the creation of railroad networks in the mid-19^th century.

Population transfer differs from individually motivated migration in more than just a technical sense, though at times of war the act of fleeing from danger or famine often blurs the differences.

Changing Status in International Law

The view of international law on population transfer underwent considerable evolution during the 20^th century. Prior to World War II, a number of major population transfers were the result of bilateral treaties with the support of international bodies such as the League of Nations.

The tide started to turn when the Charter of the Nuremberg Trials of German Nazi leaders declared that forced deportation of civilian populations was both a war crime and a crime against humanity.This opinion was progressively adopted and extended through the remainder of the century. Underlying the change was the trend to assign rights to individuals, limiting the rights of states to make agreements which adversely affect them.

There is now little debate about the general legal status of involuntary population transfers, as forced population transfers are now considered violations of international law. No legal distinction is made between one-way and two-transfers, since the rights of each individual are regarded as independent of the experience of others.

Adopted in 1949 and now part of customary international law, Article 49 of Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits mass movement of people out of or into of occupied territory under what it calls “belligerent military occupation”:

Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive. … The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.

10.4.8: Genocide

Genocide is “the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group”.

Learning Objective

Match at least 4 of the 8 stages of genocide (according to Gregory Stanton) with a real life example

Key Points

While some scholars claim that genocide develops identifiable stages and therefore action can be taken to stop them before they happen, critics of this approach assert that this is unrealistic.
In 1996, Gregory Stanton presented a briefing paper called “The 8 Stages of Genocide” at the United States Department of State, in which he suggested that genocide develops in eight stages that are “predictable but not inexorable”.
Other authors have focused on the structural conditions leading up to genocide and the psychological and social processes that create an evolution toward genocide.

Key Terms

symbolization: The act of symbolizing; the use of symbols to represent things, or the investing of things with a symbolic meaning
genocide: The systematic killing of substantial numbers of people on the basis of ethnicity, religion, political opinion, social status, or other particularity.
extermination: The act of exterminating; total destruction; eradication; excision; as, the extermination of inhabitants or tribes, of error or vice, or of weeds from a field.

Example

The Rwandan Genocide of 1994 was the result of a longstanding ethnic conflict between the Tusti minority, who had been in power for centuries, and the majority Hutu population.

Genocide is defined by the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) as “the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group,” though what constitutes enough of a “part” to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars. While a precise definition varies among genocide scholars, a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations CPPCG, which specifies that genocide entails:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The preamble to the CPPCG states that instances of genocide have taken place throughout history, but it was not until Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin coined the term during World War II and the prosecution of perpetrators of the Holocaust at the Nuremberg trials that the United Nations agreed to the CPPCG, which defined the crime of genocide under international law.

The Stages of Genocide

Genocide scholars such as Gregory Stanton have postulated various conditions and acts that often occur before, during, and after genocide.

In 1996, Stanton presented a briefing paper called “The 8 Stages of Genocide” at the United States Department of State. In it, he suggested that genocide develops in eight stages that are “predictable but not inexorable. ” The stages are:

Classification:People are divided into “us and them. ” “The main preventive measure at this early stage is to develop universalistic institutions that transcend… divisions. “
Symbolization:”When combined with hatred, symbols may be forced upon unwilling members of pariah groups…””To combat symbolization, hate symbols can be legally forbidden as can hate speech”.
Dehumanization:”One group denies the humanity of the other group. Members of it are equated with animals, vermin, insects, or diseases. “”Local and international leaders should condemn the use of hate speech and make it culturally unacceptable. Leaders who incite genocide should be banned from international travel and have their foreign finances frozen. “
Organization:”Genocide is always organized… Special army units or militias are often trained and armed…””The U.N. should impose arms embargoes on governments and citizens of countries involved in genocidal massacres, and create commissions to investigate violations”
Polarization:”Hate groups broadcast polarizing propaganda…””Prevention may mean security protection for moderate leaders or assistance to human rights groups…Coups d’tat by extremists should be opposed by international sanctions. “
Preparation:”Victims are identified and separated out because of their ethnic or religious identity…””At this stage, a Genocide Emergency must be declared. …”
Extermination:”It is ‘extermination’ to the killers because they do not believe their victims to be fully human”. “At this stage, only rapid and overwhelming armed intervention can stop genocide. Real safe areas or refugee escape corridors should be established with heavily armed international protection. “
Denial:”The perpetrators… deny that they committed any crimes…””The response to denial is punishment by an international tribunal or national courts”

While scholars, such as Stanton, claim that these stages can be identified, and actions can be taken to stop genocides before they happen, critics of this approach, such as Australian historian, Dirk Moses, assert that this is unrealistic.

Other authors have focused on the structural conditions leading up to genocide and the psychological and social processes that create an evolution toward genocide. Helen Fein showed that pre-existing anti-Semitism and systems that maintained anti-Semitic policies was related to the number of Jews killed in different European countries during the Holocaust.

Buchenwald Slave Laborers

These are slave laborers in the Buchenwald concentration camp, a German Nazi concentration camp established on the Ettersberg (Etter Mountain) near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps on German soil. Many prisoners had died from malnutrition when U.S. troops of the 80th Division entered the camp. The photograph was taken five days after the camp’s liberation.

10.5: Sociological Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity

10.5.1: The Functionalist Perspective

According to the functionalist perspective, race and ethnicity are two of the various parts of a cohesive society.

Learning Objective

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of a functionalist approach to race

Key Points

Classical functionalist theory did not develop specific analyses of race and ethnicity; it viewed them as constituent elements of society that contributed to its relatively smooth functioning.
Functionalism emphasizes social unity and equilibrium and has been criticized for being unable to account for social conflict and systematic inequalities such as race, gender, and class.
Since structural functionalism generally stresses the unifying role of culture, it is ill-equipped to understand divisive forces like discrimination.

Key Term

structural functionalism: A sociological approach that looks at society through a macro-level orientation, which is a broad focus on the social structures that shape society as a whole.

Functionalism addresses society as a whole in terms of the function of its constituent elements; namely norms, customs, traditions, and institutions. In the 1960s, functionalism was criticized for being unable to account for social change, or for structural contradictions and conflict (and thus was often called “consensus theory”), and for ignoring systematic inequalities including race, gender, and class, which cause tension and conflict. As noted sociologist Michael Omi observes, “The structural-functionalist framework generally stressed the unifying role of culture, and particularly American values, in regulating and resolving conflicts. This approach was notably in evidence in respect to the sociology of race” (Coulhan 2007, Sociology in America, p.559). From this perspective, societies are seen as coherent, bounded, and fundamentally relational constructs that function like organisms, with their various parts (such as race) working together in an unconscious, quasi-automatic fashion toward achieving an overall social equilibrium.

Given this emphasis on equilibrium and harmony, the functionalist perspective easily allows for specific macro-analyses of more contentious power imbalances, such as race-related issues. It also allows for the micro-analyses that much of modern sociology is oriented around, such as identity formation and the socially constructed nature of race. It is less well-adapted to understanding individual discrimination because it ignores the inequalities that cause tension and conflict.

During the turbulent 1960s, functionalism was often called “consensus theory,” criticized for being unable to account for social change or structural contradictions and conflict, including inequalities related to race, gender, class, and other social factors that are a source of oppression and conflict.

Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer was an English philosopher and social theorist.

10.5.2: The Conflict Perspective

For Karl Marx, class conflict was most prominent; other theorists saw racial and ethnic conflict as more significant.

Learning Objective

Explain race and ethnicity from the perspective of different conflict theorists

Key Points

The feminist theory of intersectionality suggests that different biological, social, and cultural categories, such as race, ethnicity, and gender, interact and intersect to form a system of oppression.
Since the social, political, and cultural upheavals of the 1960s, there has been a wellspring of conflict theory-inspired analyses of race and ethnicity.
W. E. B. Du Bois theorized that the intersectional paradigms of race, class, and nation might explain certain aspects of Black political economy.

Key Term

Intersectionality: The idea that various biological, social, and cultural categories– including gender, race, class, and ethnicity– interact and contribute towards systematic social inequality.

The classical conflict perspective pioneered by Karl Marx saw all forms of inequality subsumed under class conflict. For Marx, issues related to race and ethnicity are secondary to class struggle.

Other early conflict theorists saw racial and ethnic conflict as more central. Sociologist Ludwig Gumplowicz, in Grundriss der Soziologie (Outlines of Sociology, 1884), described how civilization has been shaped by conflict between cultures and ethnic groups, theorizing that large complex human societies evolved from war and conquest.

Since the social, political, and cultural upheavals of the 1960s, there has been a wellspring of conflict theory-inspired analyses of race and ethnicity, many of which eventually developed into an overlapping focus on the intersectional nature of various forms of conflict and oppression.

Intersectionality

Intersectionality is a feminist sociological theory first highlighted by leading critical theorist thinker Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989). The theory proposes that different biological, social, and cultural factors, such as as gender, race, and class, do not operate in isolation of one antoher. Rather, they are interrlated, forming a system of oppression that consists of different forms of discrimination. This theory will be further discussed under the feminist perspective of gender stratification in the chapter, “Understanding Gender Stratification and Inequality”.

W. E. B. Du Bois theorized that the intersectional paradigms of race, class, and nation might explain certain aspects of Black political economy. Sociologist Patricia Hill Collins writes “Du Bois saw race, class, and nation not primarily as personal identity categories but as social hierarchies that shaped African American access to status, poverty, and power” (2000 Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment, 42).

10.5.3: The Interactionist Perspective

Race and ethnicity affect the meaning we attach to each other’s actions.

Learning Objective

Describe how the interactionalist perspective views race and ethnicity

Key Points

Robert Park, one of the most influential symbolic interactionist theorists on race and ethnic relations, formed his view on race and ethnicity—”human ecology,” he called it—by drawing on natural ecology.
Park’s theory of the race relation cycle includes four stages: contact, conflict, accommodation, and assimilation.
Park declared that race relations entail “a cycle of events which tends everywhere to repeat itself,” also be seen in other social processes.

Key Terms

Human Ecology: Urban sociologist Robert Park’s model of urban life, which borrowed concepts from symbiosis, invasion, succession, and dominance from the science of natural ecology.
Race Relation Cycle: A model of urban race relations consisting of a cycle with four stages: contact, conflict, accommodation, and assimilation.
Robert Park: An urban sociologist from the Chicago School of Sociology who was one of the most influential symbolic interactionist theorists on race and ethnic relations.

Following founding symbolic interactionist George Herbert Mead, Herbert Blumer claimed that people interact with each other by attaching meaning to each other’s actions instead of merely reacting to them. Human interaction is mediated by the use of symbols and signification, by interpretation, or by ascertaining the meaning of one another’s actions.

George Herbert Mead

George Herbert Mead (1863–1931) was an American philosopher, sociologist, and psychologist, primarily affiliated with the University of Chicago, where he was one of several distinguished pragmatists. He is regarded as one of the founders of social psychology and the American sociological tradition in general.

One of the most influential symbolic interactionist theorists on race and ethnic relations was Robert Park. Evolving out of the mid-20^th century “Chicago School” of urban sociology, Park created the term human ecology, which borrowed the concepts of symbiosis, invasion, succession, and dominance from the science of natural ecology.

Using the city of Chicago as an example, he proposed that cities were environments like those found in nature. Park and fellow sociologist Ernest Burgess suggested that cities were governed by many of the same forces of Darwinian evolution evident in ecosystems. They felt the most significant force was competition. Competition was created by groups fighting for urban resources, like land, which led to a division of urban space into ecological niches. Within these niches people shared similar social characteristics because they were subject to the same ecological pressure.

This theory served as a foundation for his influential theory of racial assimilation known as the “race relation cycle”. The cycle has four stages: contact, conflict, accommodation, and assimilation. The first step is contact, followed by competition. Then, after some time, a hierarchical arrangement can prevail—one of accommodation—in which one race is dominant and others dominated. In the end assimilation occurs. Park declared that it is “a cycle of events which tends everywhere to repeat itself,” also seen in other social processes.

10.5.4: The Psychological Perspective

One crucial psychological finding is that members of stereotyped groups internalize those stereotypes and may suffer as a result.

Learning Objective

Describe how the psychological perspective views race and ethnicity

Key Points

Stereotype Threat is the experience of anxiety or concern in a situation where a person has the potential to confirm a negative stereotype about their social group.
If negative stereotypes are present regarding a specific group, they are likely to become anxious about their performance which may hinder their ability to perform at their maximum level.
Stereotype Threat is a potential contributing factor to long-standing racial and gender gaps in academic performance.
Advocates of Stereotype Threat explanation have been criticized for exaggerating the importance of stereotype threat and for misrepresenting evidence as more conclusive than it is.

Key Terms

internalize: To make something internal; to incorporate it in oneself.
stereotype threat: The anxiety or stress a person experiences when they find themselves in a situation in which they could potentially confirm a negative stereotype about their social group.

Example

An experiment conducted by Michael Lovaglia et al. (1998) revealed that Stereotype Threat could be induced in left-handed people by leading them to believe that they are the disadvantaged group for the test they are taking. This study thus demonstrated that stereotype threats can be created on the spot.

One of the most important social psychological findings concerning race relations is that members of stereotyped groups internalize those stereotypes and thus suffer a wide range of harmful consequences.

Stereotype Threat is the experience of anxiety or concern in a situation where a person has the potential to confirm a negative stereotype about their social group. Since its introduction into the academic literature in 1995, Stereotype Threat has become one of the most widely studied topics in the field of social psychology. First described by social psychologist, Claude Steele and his colleagues, Stereotype Threat has been shown to reduce the performance of individuals who belong to negatively stereotyped groups. If negative stereotypes are present regarding a specific group, they are likely to become anxious about their performance, which in turn may hinder their ability to perform at their maximum level.

Stereotype Threat is a potential contributing factor to long-standing racial and gender gaps in academic performance. However, it may occur whenever an individual’s performance might confirm a negative stereotype. This is because Stereotype Threat is thought to arise from the particular situation rather than from an individual’s personality traits or characteristics. Since most people have at least one social identity which is negatively stereotyped, most people are vulnerable to Stereotype Threat if they encounter a situation in which the stereotype is relevant.

Situational factors that increase Stereotype Threat can include the difficulty of the task, the belief that the task measures their abilities, and the relevance of the negative stereotype to the task. Individuals show higher degrees of Stereotype Threat on tasks they wish to perform well on and when they identify strongly with the stereotyped group. These effects are also increased when they expect discrimination due to their identification with negatively stereotyped group. Repeated experiences of Stereotype Threat can lead to a vicious circle of diminished confidence, poor performance, and loss of interest in the relevant area of achievement.

The opposite of Stereotype Threat is known as Stereotype Enhancement, which entails an individual’s potential to confirm a positive stereotype about their social group, and a subsequent increase in performance ability in the related task as compared to their ability prior to their exposure to the stereotype.

Advocates of Stereotype Threat explanation have been criticized for exaggerating it and for misrepresenting evidence as more conclusive than it is.

A Racist Campaign Poster

A racist political campaign poster from the 1866 Pennsylvania gubernatorial election. Psychological perspectives examine the effects of these kinds of propagated stereotypes.

10.6: Race and Ethnicity in the U.S.

10.6.1: Race and Ethnicity in the U.S.

The U.S. has a diverse society, and its history is marked by attempts to concentrate power, wealth, and privilege into the hands of whites.

Learning Objective

Describe the history and current situation of at least three minorities in the U.S.

Key Points

The emphasis on racial distinctions often results in the failure to acknowledge the ethnic and national diversity that various racial groups encompass.
The negative effects of unequal race relations can be seen to this day, albeit to different degrees, amongst all non-European American groups.
A model minority is a stereotype of a minority group that is considered to have achieved educational, professional, and socioeconomic success without threatening the status quo.

Key Terms

Model Minority: A minority group that is seen as reaching significant educational, professional, and socioeconomic levels without challenging the existing establishment.
Multi-Racial: When a person’s heritage comes from a variety of different races.

Example

As both legal and illegal immigrants with high population numbers, Hispanic Americans are often the target of stereotyping, racism, and discrimination. The immigration law in Arizona, SB 1070, for example, requires that Arizona police officers verify the immigration status of anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally in the event of a lawful stop, detention, or arrest. The law makes it a crime for individuals to fail to have documents confirming their legal status, and is believed by critics to encourage racial profiling.

The United States is a very diverse, multi-racial and multi-ethnic country; people from around the world have been immigrating to the United States for several hundred years. While the first wave of immigrants came from Western Europe, the bulk of people entering North America were from Northern Europe, then Eastern Europe, followed by Latin America and Asia. There was also the forced immigration of African slaves. Native Americans, who did not immigrate but rather inhabited the land prior to immigration, experienced displacement as a result. Most of these groups also suffered a period of disenfranchisement and prejudice as they went through the process of assimilation.

Since its early history, Native Americans, African Americans, and European Americans were considered as different races in the United States. The differences attributed to each group, however, especially the differences used to designate European Americans as the superior race, had little to do with biology. Instead, these racial designations were a means to concentrate power, wealth, land, and privilege in the hands of the European Americans. Moreover, the emphasis on racial distinctions often led to the lack of acknowledgement or over-simplification of the great ethnic diversity of the country’s population. For example, the racial category of “white” or European American fails to reflect that members of this group hail from very different countries. Similarly, the racial category of “black” does not distinguish people from the Caribbean from those who were brought to North America from various parts of Africa.

Today, the U.S. continues to see a significant influx of immigrants from all over the world. Race relations in the U.S. remain problematic, marked by discrimination, persecution, violence, and an ongoing struggle for power and equality.

Native Americans

The brutal confrontation between the European colonists and the Native Americans, which resulted in the decimation of the latter’s population, is well known as an historical tragedy. Even after the establishment of the United States government, discrimination against Native Americans was codified and formalized in a series of laws intended to subjugate them and keep them from gaining any power. The eradication of Native American culture continued until the 1960s, when Native Americans were able to participate in, and benefit from, the civil rights movement. Native Americans still suffer the effects of centuries of degradation. Long-term poverty, inadequate education, cultural dislocation, and high rates of unemployment contribute to Native American populations falling to the bottom of the economic spectrum.

African Americans

African Americans arrived in North America under duress as slaves, and there is no starker illustration of the dominant-subordinate group relationship than that of slavery. Slaves were stripped of all their rights and privileges, and were at the absolute mercy of their owners. For African Americans, the civil rights movement was an indication that a subordinate group would no longer willingly submit to domination. The major blow to America’s formally institutionalized racism was the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This Act, which is still followed today, banned discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Some sociologists, however, would argue that institutionalized racism persists, especially since African Americans still fair poorly in terms of employment, insurance coverage, and incarceration, as well as in the areas of economics, health, and education.

Asian Americans

Asian Americans come from a diversity of cultures, including Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese. They, too, have been subjected to racial prejudice. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, for example, which was motivated by white workers blaming Chinese migrants for taking their jobs, resulted in the abrupt end of Chinese immigration and the segregation of Chinese already in America; this segregation resulted in the Chinatowns found in large cities. Nevertheless, despite a difficult history, Asian Americans have earned the positive stereotype of the model minority. The model minority stereotype is applied to a minority group that is seen as reaching significant educational, professional, and socioeconomic levels without challenging the existing establishment.

Hispanic Americans

Hispanic Americans come from a wide range of backgrounds and nationalities. Mexican Americans form the largest Hispanic subgroup, and also the oldest. Mexican Americans, especially those who are here illegally, are at the center of a national debate about immigration. Mexican immigrants experience relatively low rates of economic and civil assimilation, which is most likely compounded by the fact that many of them are illegally in the country. By contrast, Cuban Americans are often seen as a model minority group within the larger Hispanic group. As with Asian Americans, however, being a model minority can mask the issue of powerlessness that these minority groups face in U.S. society.

Hispanic Population Distribution in the US

This map shows data gathered in the 2010 US Census of Spanish-speaking populations around the US.

10.6.2: Racial Groups

The United States is a diverse country, racially and ethnically.

Learning Objective

Explain what definitions of race are deployed by the U.S. census

Key Points

The United States Census Bureau also classifies Americans as “Hispanic or Latino” and “Not Hispanic or Latino. ” Hispanic and Latino Americans are a racially diverse ethnicity that composes the largest minority group in the nation.
The one drop rule, a historical colloquial term, stated that any one considered to have even a drop of black blood was to be classified as being black. This was an effort to restore white supremacy during the post Civil War Reconstruction era.
The Blood Quantum, or Indian Blood, Laws refers to legislation in the United States to establish a person’s membership in Native American tribes or nations.

Key Terms

Other Pacific Islander: A United States Census category referring to individuals from the Pacific Islands but not Hawaii.
One Drop Rule: A historical colloquial term in the United States for the social classification as black of individuals with any African ancestry; meaning any person with “one drop of black blood” was considered black.
ethnicity: The identity of a group of people having common racial, national, religious, or cultural origins.

The United States is a diverse country, racially and ethnically. Six races are officially recognized: white, American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian, black or African American, Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander, and people of two or more races. A race called, “Some other race,” is also used in the census and other surveys but is not official.

The United States Census Bureau also classifies Americans as “Hispanic or Latino” and “Not Hispanic or Latino,” which identifies Hispanic and Latino Americans as a racially diverse ethnicity that composes the largest minority group in the nation.

History

The immigrants to the New World of the Americas came largely from ethnically diverse regions of the European Old World. In the Americas, the immigrant populations began to mix among themselves and with the indigenous inhabitants of the continent, as well as the enslaved Africans.

From the beginning of U.S. history, Native Americans, African Americans, and European Americans were classified as belonging to different races. For nearly three centuries, the criteria for membership in these groups were similar, comprising a person’s appearance, their fraction of known non-European ancestry and their social circle. This changed in the late nineteenth century.

Throughout the post-Civil War Reconstruction era, in an effort to restore white supremacy in the South after the emancipation of slaves, the ruling white majority began to classify anyone considered to have “one drop” of “black blood,” or any known African ancestry, to be “black.” In most southern states, this definition was not put into law until the twentieth century. Many local governments established racial segregation of facilities during what came to be known as the Jim Crow era, which began in the late 1800s.

In the twentieth century, efforts to sort the increasingly mixed population of the United States into discrete categories generated many difficulties for the U.S. government (Spickard, 1992). By the standards used in past censuses, many millions of mixed-race children born in the United States have been classified as of a different race than one of their biological parents. Efforts to track mixing between groups led to a proliferation of categories (such as “mulatto” and “octoroon”) and so-called “blood quantum” distinctions, which refers to the degree of ancestry for an individual of a specific racial or ethnic group (e.g., saying someone is “1/4 Omaha tribe”).

These various distinctions became increasingly untethered from self-reported ancestry. Further complicating this fact is that a person’s racial identity can change over time, and self-ascribed race can differ from assigned race (Kressin et al., 2003).

Current Official Definitions of Race and Ethnicity

Aside from their varied social, culture, and political connotations, the idea of racial groups have been used in U.S. censuses as self-identification data items in which residents choose the race or, starting with the 2000 US Census, races with which they most closely identify. Respondents also indicate whether or not they are of Hispanic or Latino origin, which the census considers separately from race. While many see race and ethnicity as the same thing, ethnicity generally refers to a group of people whose members identify with each other through a common heritage and culture, as opposed to the implication of shared biological traits associated with the term “race.”

The American Public by Ancestry, 2000

Especially in the southwest United States, people of Latino origin make up a significant proportion of United States residents.

These categories, therefore, represent a social-political construct for the race or races that respondents consider themselves to be and “generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country. ” The concept of race, as outlined for the U.S. Census, has been described as not “scientific or anthropological” and takes into account “social and cultural characteristics as well as ancestry,” using “appropriate scientific methodologies” that are not “primarily biological or genetic in reference. ” The race categories include both racial and national-origin groups.

10.6.3: Ethnic Groups

An ethnic group is a group of people who share a common heritage, culture, and/or language; in the U.S., ethnicity often refers to race.

Learning Objective

Explain why ethnic and racial categories tend to overlap in the U.S.

Key Points

In the United States of America, the term “ethnic” carries a different meaning from how it is commonly used in some other countries, due to the historical and ongoing significance of racial distinctions that categorize together what might otherwise have been viewed as ethnic groups.
Ethnicity in U.S. therefore usually refers to collectives of related groups, having more to do with physical appearance, specifically skin color, rather than political boundaries.
The formal and informal inscription of racialized groupings into law and social stratification schemes has bestowed upon race a fundamental social identification role in the United States.

Key Terms

ethnic group: A group of people who identify with one another, especially on the basis of racial, cultural, or religious grounds.
social stratification: The hierarchical arrangement of social classes, or castes, within a society.

An ethnic group is a group of people who identify with each other through a common heritage, which generally consists of a common culture and shared language or dialect. The group’s ethos or ideology may also stress common ancestry, religion, or race.

In the United States of America, the term “ethnic” carries a different meaning from how it is commonly used in some other countries. This is due to the historical and ongoing significance of racial distinctions that categorize together what might otherwise have been viewed as ethnic groups. For example, various ethnic, “national,” or linguistic groups from Africa, Asia and the Pacific Islands, Latin America, and Indigenous America have long been combined together as racial minority groups (currently designated as African American, Asian, Latino and Native American or American Indian, respectively).

While a sense of ethnic identity may coexist with racial identity (Chinese Americans among Asian or Irish American among European or White, for example), the long history of the United States as a settler, conqueror, and slave society, and the formal and informal inscription of racialized groupings into law and social stratification schemes has bestowed upon race a fundamental social identification role in the United States.

Examples of Overlapping Racial and Ethnic Categories in the U.S.

Ethnicity in U.S. therefore usually refers to collectives of related groups, having more to do with physical appearance, specifically skin color, rather than political boundaries. The word “nationality” is more commonly used for this purpose (e.g. Italian, Mexican, French, Russian, Japanese). Most prominently in the U.S., Latin American descended populations are grouped in a “Hispanic” or “Latino” ethnicity. The many previously designated “Oriental” ethnic groups are now classified as the “Asian” racial group for the census.

The terms “Black” and “African American,” while different, are both used as ethnic categories in the U.S. In the late 1980s, the term “African American” came into prominence as the most appropriate and politically correct race designation. While it was intended as a shift away from the racial injustices of America’s past often associated with the historical views of the “Black” race, it largely became a simple replacement for the terms Black, Colored, Negro and similar terms, referring to any individual of dark skin color regardless of geographical descent.

The term Caucasian generally describes some or all people whose ancestry can be traced to Europe, the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, North Africa, Central Asia, and South Asia. This includes European-colonized countries in the Americas, Australasia, and South Africa, among others. All the aforementioned are categorized as part of the “White” racial group, as per U.S. Census categorization. This category has been split into two groups: Hispanics and non-Hispanics (e.g. White non-Hispanic and White Hispanic. )

Fifteen Largest Ancestries in the 2000 Census

Top ancestries recorded in 2000.

10.6.4: Immigration and Illegal Immigration

Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence.

Learning Objective

Discuss the history and status of immigration (both legal and illegal) and the workforce in the United States

Key Points

Immigration to the United States has been a major source of population growth and cultural change. Different historical periods have brought distinct national groups, races and ethnicities to the United States.
In recent years, immigration has increased substantially.
American attitudes toward immigration are markedly ambivalent. In general, Americans have more positive attitudes toward groups that have been visible for a century or more, and much more negative attitude toward recent arrivals.
An illegal immigrant in the United States is an alien (non-citizen) who has entered the United States without government permission and in violation of United States Nationality Law, or stayed beyond the termination date of a visa, also in violation of the law.

Key Terms

illegal immigration: When a person enters the United States without governmental permission and in violation of the United States Nationality Law, or stayed beyond the termination date of a visa, also in violation of the law.
immigration: The act of immigrating; the passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence.

Example

In June 2012, President Obama put an end to the deportation of the children of illegal immigrants below the age of 30 and with no prior criminal record. He argued that these people, who are for all intents and purposes American, should be put on the path to citizenship as productive members of American society.

Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence. Immigration occurs for many reasons, including economic, political, family re-unification, natural disasters, or poverty. Many immigrants came to America to escape religious persecution or dire economic conditions. Most hoped coming to America would provide freedom and opportunity.

History

Immigration to the United States has been a major source of population growth and cultural change. Different historical periods have brought distinct national groups, races and ethnicities to the United States. During the 17^th century, approximately 175,000 Englishmen migrated to Colonial America. Over half of all European immigrants to Colonial America during the 17^th and 18^th centuries arrived as indentured servants. The mid-nineteenth century saw mainly an influx from northern Europe; the early twentieth-century mainly from Southern and Eastern Europe; post-1965 mostly from Latin America and Asia.

Contemporary Immigration

In recent years, immigration has increased substantially. In 1965, ethnic quotas were removed; these quotas had restricted the number of immigrants allowed from different parts of the world. Immigration doubled between 1965 and 1970, and again between 1970 and 1990. Between 2000 and 2005, nearly 8 million immigrants entered the United States, more than in any other five-year period in the nation’s history. In 2006, the United States accepted more legal immigrants as permanent residents than all other countries in the world combined.

Recent Immigration Demographics

Until the 1930s most legal immigrants were male. By the 1990s, women accounted for just over half of all legal immigrants. Contemporary immigrants tend to be younger than the native population of the United States, with people between the ages of 15 and 34 substantially over-represented Immigrants are also more likely to be married and less likely to be divorced than native-born Americans of the same age.

Immigrants come from all over the world, but a significant number come from Latin America. In 1900, when the U.S. population was 76 million, there were an estimated 500,000 Hispanics. The Census Bureau projects that by 2050, one-quarter of the population will be of Hispanic descent. This demographic shift is largely fueled by immigration from Latin America.

Immigrants are likely to move to and live in areas populated by people with similar backgrounds. This phenomenon has held true throughout the history of immigration to the United States.

Public Opinion Toward Immigrants

American attitudes toward immigration are markedly ambivalent. American history is rife with examples of anti-immigrant opinion. Benjamin Franklin opposed German immigration, warning Germans would not assimilate. In the 1850s, the nativist Know Nothing movement opposed Irish immigration, promulgating fears that the country was being overwhelmed by Irish Catholic immigrants.

In general, Americans have more positive attitudes toward groups that have been visible for a century or more, and much more negative attitude toward recent arrivals.According to a 1982 national poll by the Roper Center at the University of Connecticut, “By high margins, Americans are telling pollsters it was a very good thing that Poles, Italians, and Jews emigrated to America. Once again, it’s the newcomers who are viewed with suspicion. This time, it’s the Mexicans, the Filipinos, and the people from the Caribbean who make Americans nervous. “

One of the most important factors regarding public opinion about immigration is the level of unemployment; anti-immigrant sentiment is highest where unemployment is highest, and vice versa. In fact, in the United States, only 0.16 percent of the workforce are legal immigrants.

Illegal Immigration to the United States

An illegal immigrant in the United States is an alien (non-citizen) who has entered the United States without government permission and in violation of United States Nationality Law, or stayed beyond the termination date of a visa, also in violation of the law. Illegal immigrants continue to outpace the number of legal immigrants—a trend that’s held steady since the 1990s. The illegal immigrant population is estimated to be between 7 and 20 million. More than 50% of illegal immigrants are from Mexico.

While the majority of illegal immigrants continue to concentrate in places with existing large Hispanic communities, illegal immigrants are increasingly settling throughout the rest of the country. A percentage of illegal immigrants do not remain indefinitely but do return to their country of origin; they are often referred to as “sojourners” , for “they come to the United States for several years but eventually return to their home country. “

The continuing practice of hiring unauthorized workers has been referred to as the magnet for illegal immigration. As a significant percentage of employers are willing to hire illegal immigrants for higher pay than they would typically receive in their former country, illegal immigrants have prime motivation to cross borders. But migration is expensive, and dangerous for those who enter illegally. Participants in debates on immigration in the early twenty-first century have called for increasing enforcement of existing laws governing illegal immigration to the United States, building a barrier along some or all of the 2,000-mile (3,200 km) U.S.-Mexico border, or creating a new guest worker program.

10.6.5: Affirmative Action

Affirmative action refers refers to policies that take factors such as race, gender, sexual orientation, and religion into consideration.

Learning Objective

Discuss arguments for and against affirmative action

Key Points

Affirmative action measures are intended to prevent discrimination against employees or applicants for employment, on the basis of “color, religion, sex, or national origin”.
The controversy surrounding affirmative action’s effectiveness is often based on the idea of class inequality.
Other opponents of affirmative action call it reverse discrimination, saying affirmative action requires the very discrimination it is seeking to eliminate.

Key Term

affirmative action: A policy or program providing advantages for people of a minority group who are seen to have traditionally been discriminated against, with the aim of creating a more egalitarian society through preferential access to education, employment, health care, social welfare, etc.

In the United States, affirmative action refers to equal opportunity employment measures that Federal contractors and subcontractors such as public universities and government agencies are legally required to adopt. These measures are intended to prevent discrimination against employees or applicants for employment on the basis of “color, religion, sex, or national origin”. Examples of affirmative action offered by the United States Department of Labor include outreach campaigns, targeted recruitment, employee and management development, and employee support programs.

The impetus towards affirmative action is to redress the disadvantages associated with overt historical discrimination. Further impetus is a desire to ensure that public institutions, such as universities, hospitals, and police forces, are more representative of the populations they serve.

Affirmative action is a subject of controversy. Some policies adopted as affirmative action, such as racial quotas or gender quotas for collegiate admission, have been criticized as a form of reverse discrimination, an implementation ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003, though the Court also upheld affirmative action as a practice in a court case held simultaneously that year.

History of the Term

Affirmative action in the United States began as a tool to address the persisting inequalities for African Americans in the 1960s. This specific term was first used to describe US government policy in 1961. Directed to all government contracting agencies, President John F. Kennedy’s Executive Order 10925 mandated “affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin. “

Four years later, President Lyndon B. Johnson outlined the basic social science view that supports such policies:

“Men and women of all races are born with the same range of abilities. But ability is not just the product of birth. Ability is stretched or stunted by the family that you live with, and the neighborhood you live in—by the school you go to and the poverty or the richness of your surroundings. It is the product of a hundred unseen forces playing upon the little infant, the child, and finally the man.”

Arguments Against Affirmative Action

The controversy surrounding affirmative action’s effectiveness is often based on the idea of class inequality. Opponents of racial affirmative action argue that the program actually benefits middle- and upper-class African Americans and Hispanic Americans at the expense of lower class European Americans and Asian Americans. This argument supports the idea of solely class-based affirmative action. America’s poor is disproportionately made up of people of color, so class-based affirmative action would disproportionately help people of color. This would eliminate the need for race-based affirmative action as well as reducing any disproportionate benefits for middle and upper class people of color.

Other opponents of affirmative action call it reverse discrimination, saying affirmative action requires the very discrimination it is seeking to eliminate. According to these opponents, this contradiction makes affirmative action counter-productive. Other opponents say affirmative action causes unprepared applicants to be accepted in highly demanding educational institutions or jobs which result in eventual failure. Other opponents say that affirmative action lowers the bar, and so denies those who strive for excellence on their own merit and the sense of real achievement.

Some opponents further claim that affirmative action has undesirable side-effects and that it fails to achieve its goals. They argue that it hinders reconciliation, replaces old wrongs with new wrongs, undermines the achievements of minorities, and encourages groups to identify themselves as disadvantaged even if they are not. It may increase racial tension and benefit the more privileged people within minority groups at the expense of the disenfranchised within majority groups (such as lower-class whites). Some opponents believe, among other things, that affirmative action devalues the accomplishments of people who belong to a group it is supposed to help, therefore making affirmative action counter-productive.

Implementation in Universities

In the US, a prominent form of affirmative action centers on access to education, particularly admission to universities and other forms of higher education. Race, ethnicity, native language, social class, geographical origin, parental attendance of the university in question (legacy admissions), and/or gender are sometimes taken into account when assessing the meaning of an applicant’s grades and test scores. Individuals can also be awarded scholarships and have fees paid on the basis of criteria listed above. In 1978, the Supreme Court ruled in Bakke v. Regents that public universities (and other government institutions) could not set specific numerical targets based on race for admissions or employment. The Court said that “goals” and “timetables” for diversity could be set instead.

John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States, who established the concept of affirmative action by mandating that projects financed with federal funds “take affirmative action” to ensure that hiring and employment practices are free of racial bias.

10.6.6: A Multicultural Society

Multiculturalism is an ideology that promotes the institutionalization of communities containing multiple cultures.

Learning Objective

Describe how multiculturalism is addressed in the U.S.

Key Points

Multiculturalism is generally applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, e.g. schools, businesses, neighborhoods, cities, or nations.
In the United States, continuous mass immigration has been a feature of economy and society since the first half of the 19th century.
The absorption of the stream of immigrants in itself became a prominent feature of America’s national myth, inspiring its own narrative about its past that is centered around multiculturalism and the embrace of newcomers from many different backgrounds.

Key Terms

multiculturalism: A characteristic of a society that has many different ethnic or national cultures mingling freely. It can also refer to political or social policies which support or encourage such a coexistence. Important in this is the idea that cultural practices, no matter how unusual, should be tolerated as a measure of respect.
national myth: An inspiring narrative or anecdote about a nation’s past that serves as an important national symbol and affirms a set of national values.

Multiculturalism is an ideology that promotes the institutionalization of communities containing multiple cultures. It is generally applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g. schools, businesses, neighborhoods, cities, or nations.

In a political context the term is used for a wide variety of meanings, ranging from the advocacy of equal respect for the various cultures in a society, to a policy of promoting the maintenance of cultural diversity, to policies in which people of various ethnic and religious groups are addressed by the authorities as defined by the group they belong to.

In the United States, multiculturalism is not clearly established in policy at the federal level. Instead, it has been addressed primarily through the school system with the rise of ethnic studies programs in higher education and attempts to make the grade school curricula more inclusive of the history and contributions of non-white peoples.

Multiculturalism and the National Myth

In the United States, continuous mass immigration has been a feature of economy and society since the first half of the 19^th century. The absorption of the stream of immigrants in itself became a prominent feature of America’s national myth, inspiring its own narrative about its past.

This found particular expression in America as a “Melting Pot,” a metaphor that implies that all the immigrant cultures are mixed and amalgamated without state intervention. This metaphor also suggests that each individual immigrant, and each group of immigrants, assimilated into American society at their own pace. The Melting Pot tradition co-exists with a belief in national unity, dating from the American founding fathers:

“Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people—a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs… This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence, that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a band of brethren, united to each other by the strongest ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties. ” —John Jay, First American Supreme Court Chief Justice, Federalist Paper No. 2

Multiculturalism as a Philosophy

As a philosophy, multiculturalism began as part of the pragmatism movement at the end of the nineteenth century in Europe and the United States, then as political and cultural pluralism at the turn of the twentieth. It was partly in response to a new wave of European imperialism in sub-Saharan Africa and the massive immigration of Southern and Eastern Europeans to the United States and Latin America.

Philosophers, psychologists, historians, and early sociologists such as Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, George Santayana, Horace Kallen, John Dewey, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Alain Locke developed concepts of cultural pluralism, from which emerged what we understand today as multiculturalism. In Pluralistic Universe (1909), William James espoused the idea of a “plural society” and saw pluralism as “crucial to the formation of philosophical and social humanism to help build a better, more egalitarian society. “

Multiculturalism in Education

The educational approach to multiculturalism has recently spread to the grade school system, as school systems try to rework their curricula to introduce students to diversity at an earlier age. This is often on the grounds that it is important for minority students to see themselves represented in the classroom. Studies estimate that the 46.3 million Americans ages 14 to 24 are the most diverse generation in American society.

Controversy over Multiculturalism

Multiculturalism is a highly disputed topic in the United States. For example, in 2009 and 2010, controversy erupted in Texas as the state’s curriculum committee made several changes to the state’s school cirriculum requirements, often at the expense of minorities: juxtaposing Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural address with that of Confederate president Jefferson Davis; debating removing Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and labor-leader César Chávez; and rejecting calls to include more Hispanic figures, in spite of the high Hispanic population in the state.

New York City Circa 1900

Mulberry Street, along which Manhattan’s Little Italy is centered. Lower East Side, New York City, United States, circa 1900.