Anthropology Chapter 5
Biologically, we can categorize humans based on skin color and hair texture, both of which are common "markers" of what we also call "race" or "racial difference." But the biological basis for comparison can include some real surprises, including that of
earwax type
individual racism
hate crimes, acting on racial stereotypes
racial ideology
A set of popular ideas about race that allows the discriminatory behaviors of individuals and institutions to seem reasonable, rational, and normal
eugenics
A pseudoscience attempting to scientifically prove the existence of separate human races to improve the population's genetic composition by favoring some races over others
What percentage of DNA do all humans share in common?
99.9 percent
whiteness
A culturally constructed concept originating in 1691 Virginia designed to establish clear boundaries of who is white and who is not, a process central to the formation of U.S. racial stratification
miscegenation
A demeaning historical term for interracial marriage
race
A flawed system of classification, with no biological basis, that uses certain physical characteristics to divide the human population into supposedly discrete groups
intersectionality
An analytic framework for assessing how factors such as race, gender, and class interact to shape individual life chances and societal patterns of stratification
racism
Individual thoughts and actions and institutional patterns and policies that create unequal access to power, privilege, resources, and opportunities based on imagined differences among groups
Laws implemented to legally enforce racial segregation in the American South after the Civil War were known as _____________.
Jim Crow laws
Jim Crow
Laws implemented after the U.S. Civil War to legally enforce segregation, particularly in the South, after the end of slavery
Which particular institutional laws seek to prevent interracial marriage?
Miscegenation
institutional racism
Patterns by which racial inequality is structured through key cultural institutions, policies, and systems
individual racism
Personal prejudiced beliefs and discriminatory actions based on race
Since there is no biological basis for race, we can argue which of the following?
Race must be based on ideas and observations separate from biology.
hypodescent
Sometimes called the "one drop of blood rule"; the assignment of children of racially "mixed" unions to the subordinate group
white supremacy
The belief that whites are biologically different from and superior to people of other races
nativism
The favoring of certain long-term inhabitants over new immigrants
genotype
The inherited genetic factors that provide the framework for an organism's physical form
colonialism
The practice by which a nation-state extends political, economic, and military power beyond its own borders over an extended period of time to secure access to raw materials, cheap labor, and markets in other countries or regions
racialization
The process of categorizing, differentiating, and attributing a particular racial character to a person or group of people
phenotype
The way genes are expressed in an organism's physical form as a result of genotype interaction with environmental factors.
The "invisible knapsack" refers to
a set of unearned advantages that white people retain in contemporary society
Which of the following racial terms might be used to describe individuals from Brazil?
cinnamon
When we extend our "family tree" of humanness back about one hundred thousand years, which archaeologists suggest is about the time that has elapsed since the small bands of humans migrated out of Africa, we can see that the exchange of genetic material has occurred billions of times. This deep gene pool suggests that
clear and absolute genetic lines that distinguish us as racial populations do not exist.
The city of Anytown has proposed to locate a new town dump close to a neighborhood with a high percentage of minority residents. The residents are upset by this, and wish to stop the dump. One common way that they might accomplish their goal would be to complain to the local government and write letters and make phone calls. The other approach that can be as effective would be
create a community group to express their concerns to decision-makers
president Barack Obama has a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya. His race is commonly described as African American, or black. This is most closely an example of which term from the text?
hypodescent
Whiteness is privileged in the United States in a number of places, including employment and employment rates, sentencing of criminals and college enrollments. Each of these provides visible, and often very tangible evidence of how racism pervades life in the United States. We might be more surprised to discover that whiteness is also privileged through
infant mortality
Jim Crow laws, unequal educational access for certain racial groups
institutional racism
The primary danger in suggesting that the biological concept for races does not exist is that
it may lead us to the mistaken conclusion that race does not exist when in fact race has very real consequences.
The basis of much of racist attitude involves the characteristics of others that can be seen by the naked eye. What we can see includes the _______ of the individual.
phenotype
Race is not always a simple matter of skin color. In the nineteenth century, violence and riots were directed at Irish immigrants, as those rioting practiced what we now call nativism. Such efforts are directed toward policies that
provide more social services to native-born citizens than to immigrants
Early European settlers to North America believed themselves to be intellectually superior to Native Americans, and thus destined to rule them. This is an example of
racial ideology
popular belief in the idea that one race is meant to rule another, belief that all members of one race are better athletes than others
racial ideology
"Middle Easterners" is a categorization that arose in popular American discourse after 9/11/2001. The creation of this categorization, while a reaction to the actions of the terrorists and means of many people to cope with the magnitude of the attack and the subsequent losses, is also a form of
racialization
Which of the following refers broadly to actions and policies that use imagined differences between human groups to justify unequal access to power, resources, and opportunities?
racism
Examples of institutional racism can be found in housing, health, employment, education and law. We can also define institutional racism as _________ within a society.
structural racism
Eugenics is a pseudoscience that arose in the late 1800s and maintained popularity in the early 1900s. It was an attempt to "measure" attributes such as intelligence in a way that proved the superiority of some races over others. What event was an outcome of eugenic practice?
the Holocaust
The spread of colonialism brought with it suffering and a wide range of how we categorize and misunderstand those who are different from us. Racism, while not created from colonialism, was afforded a huge "toehold" in the lives of those who gained from colonialism directly. However, colonialism also brought into play
the control of one country over another.
The belief that whites are genetically different from, and intellectually superior to, other races is known as
white supremacy