Race & Ethnicity ch. 1-4
In 2013, the unemployment rate for whites was 6.4 percent. What was the unemployment rate for blacks?
13.2 percent
The term "white trash"—a derogatory term for rural, impoverished whites—began circulating in newspapers and books during what time period?
1850s
With roughly one in four votes cast by nonwhites, which presidential election was the most racially diverse in U.S. history?
2008
Federally mandated affirmative action rules apply only to companies that conduct a fair amount of business with the federal government, which is about what percentage of American firms?
3 percent
How many citizens do sociologists estimate have been disenfranchised because they have felony convictions?
5.3 million
Between 1615 and 1620, approximately what percentage of the indigenous population of Massachusetts died from the plague?
90 percent
Historically, racial oppression has been justified through explanations grounded in scientific language. Modern scientists tell us that we share _________ percent of the same genes with other humans and there is much greater genetic variation within traditionally defined racial groups than among them.
99.9
Split Labor Force
A labor market in which there are at least two groups of workers whose price of labor differs for the same work, or would differ if they did the same work. (page 154)
white affirmative action
A series of exceptions, put forth by the southern arm of the Democratic party, which precluded a large majority of nonwhites from benefiting from Roosevelt's New Deal by disqualifying certain jobs (those dominated by nonwhite workers) from the policy. (page 130)
Bobby makes fun of Ralph, whose family is American Indian, for being poor. According to Bobby, all American Indians should be "rich" from casino money. What is one thing that Bobby should know to reassess his assumption?
A small group of American Indian tribes profit from casinos.
Contemporary welfare programs tend to focus on changing individual behavior—teaching clients to be more responsible, productive workers—rather than on addressing systemic inequality. In what tradition do such programs follow?
Daniel Patrick Moynihan's report, The Negro Family
The 1875 Page Law, which intended to bar Chinese prostitutes from the United States, had what effect?
It barred virtually all Chinese women from American shores.
According to social scientific evidence, what has been the impact of affirmative action policies on white men?
It can help white men in cases where qualified white men are given more of a chance against candidates who would have landed a job through old-boy networks and cronyism.
Stephen Jay Gould argues that ________________ reappears, even when disproven, during eras of political retrenchment or during times when elites are fearful of changes to their status.
biological determinism
Two friends are arguing over the results of a recent NBA draft. Alex tells Jorge that his favorite team should have picked more black players because they naturally have more athletic skill and everyone knows "white men can't jump." Jorge calls Alex out for basing his argument on:
biological determinism
___________ is best described as the argument that social and economic differences between races are the result of immutable, inherited, and inborn distinctions.
biological determinism
Race is often described with reference to __________, but there is much more genetic variation within _______________ groups than between them.
biological markers; traditionally-defined racial groups
The fact that a person with both white ancestry and black ancestry will most likely be understood as __________ in the United States makes clear that we are still influenced by the legacies of the "one-drop rule."
black
White terrorism, as described in the film clip, along with literacy tests and "grandfather clauses," worked together to enforce
black disenfranchisement
Descriptions and terms that appeal to prejudiced ideas about a certain group without explicitly naming that group. (page 89)
coded language
The practice whereby a foreign power invades a territory and establishes systems of exploitation and domination over that territory's indigenous populations. (page 50)
colonialism
The process by which a foreign power invades a territory and establishes enduring systems of exploitation and domination over that territory's indigenous populations is called what?
colonization
How did plantation owners strive to convince poor whites to overlook how they were exploited by the slave economy?
convincing poor white families to take pride in their whiteness
What is the definition of "substantive representation"?
correspondence between the goals of nonwhite representatives and those of nonwhite citizens
Which of the following racial-ethnic groups is most likely to vote Republican?
cuban americans
For the Native Americans, the process of white colonialism brought inflictions on their bodies, their spirits, and their land. What is one example given in the textbook of how Native Americans experienced violence "on their spirits"?
cultural reeducation
César Chávez, one of the most important Mexican American activists, led the 1965 Delano grape strike. What was the purpose of this action?
gaining better wages for grape workers
A set of processes by which the borders of political districts are redrawn and manipulated to secure political advantage. (page 113)
gerrymandering
According to the historian Mae Ngai, laws and policies that made ethnic or racial identity a determining factor in the opportunity to immigrate during the 1920s resulted in:
decreasing racial identification for white immigrants
Jarrod is a 48-year-old wealthy, African American CEO. Which political party is he most likely to vote for?
democrat
What is one thing that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed?
discrimination on the basis of race in restaurants
To deprive a group or an individual of certain privileges, such as voting. (page 119)
disenfranchisement
In the United States, whiteness is the _______________ racial category, that with which all other categories are compared and contrasted.
dominant
In the early twentieth century, American nativists and many scientists argued that the new European immigrants were "lower races of Europe." Their poverty and lower social status was understood as inheritable and immutable. Which of the following examples from the text relates most closely to this understanding of race?
There is a common understanding that African American are superior athletes.
Diverting the Gila River away from the Pima Indians in order to benefit white communities is best described as
economic racism
Which two countries are most responsible for the racial classification system we know today?
england and spain
A person's ___________________ is his or her family lineage, which often includes tribal, regional, or national affiliation.
ethnicity
What was the purpose of "grandfather clauses"?
They extended the right to vote to those whose relatives were enfranchised before the end of the Civil War, namely whites.
In the United States, __________ often creates distinctions and identities within _____________. For instance, four people may be considered white, yet they may each have ancestry and cultural traditions originating from different countries, including Poland, Ireland, England, and Norway.
ethnicity; racial groups
A program set forth in the nineteenth century by Francis Galton to ensure "genetic purity" often through such extreme measures as forced sterilization. (page 82)
eugenics
Juliana, whose parents are immigrants from the Dominican Republic, was the first person in her family to go to college. Her parents, who recently retired after years of work as domestic servants, like to tell their friends that the family is wealthy now that their daughter has graduated from medical school. Why is their boast about their family wealth not quite accurate?
They forget that most wealth is passed down through family generations and that having a high income is not the same thing as having wealth.
What do Emmett Till, Charlie Lang, Ernest Green, and Henry Bedford all have in common?
They were all victims of white terrorism.
In 2015, thirteen students were arrested at the University of Minnesota when they conducted a sit-in at the president's office in an attempt to protest the lack of diversity in the faculty. These protestors most clearly followed in the tradition of which group?
Third World Liberation Front
What was the name of the multiracial organization founded on the campuses of the University of California-Berkeley and San Francisco State College, which challenged these campuses' Eurocentric curricula?
Third World Liberation Front
From the end of the nineteenth century to the 1970s, thousands of Native Americans and African Americans, as well as people deemed mentally retarded or criminal, were sterilized against their will. This phenomenon was an example of what?
eugenics
Comparisons across ________________ reveal variation in racial categorization between countries, highlighting the importance of _______________ in making race.
families; place
One of the fundamental tenets of the _________________________ is that history does not structure our experiences and that these experiences can either compound as advantages—or privileges—or increase barriers to opportunities. What type of fallacy best describes such thinking?
ahistorical fallacy
The claim that racism and inequality in American history, including slavery and colonialism, do not matter today. (page 9)
ahistorical fallacy
While many people assume that "obvious physical differences" explain racial categories, this logic fails to appreciate:
all of these: that classificatory schemes are not rigidly linked to skin tones, physical traits vary enormously among those who are classified as the same race, classification schemes vary widely both historically and across national boundaries
Little Italy in New York City, where a number of Italian Americans have lived and owned businesses for generations, is an example of what?
an ethnic enclave
Boarding schools that attempted to strip Native Americans of their culture and tradition by requiring them to speak English can be considered an example of what type of infliction brought by colonialism?
an infliction of their spirits
Consider the following scenario: School board members are debating a policy change that would increase the police presence at the local high school. What course of action might a sociologist recommend before making a decision?
analyzing the factors that are of concern, including social and historical patterns
Which policy attempted to prevent people of different skin tones from marrying or having sexual intercourse?
antimiscegenation
In order to determine if and how discrimination affects hiring decisions, sociologists conduct studies in which they send paired actors to apply for real jobs. The actors are equal in every way aside from race. What are these studies called?
audit studies
Today white families are, on average, _____ times more wealthy than black and Hispanic families.
six
Before the _________ century, race as we know it today did not exist.
sixteenth
A system wherein workers are the property of their masters and are not paid for their labor. (page 57)
slavery
The authors of the textbook invite you to understand race and ethnicity through a sociological lens. C. Wright Mills coined the term "_________________," which means understanding and interpreting everyday life not only through one's own personal experience but also through the exploration of ________________ that structure and direct our social world.
sociological imagination; broader historical forces
Ella Baker referred to the nitty-gritty, tiresome, and unglamorous labor of chipping away at the white power structure day by day and door to door as what?
spadework
Who were the first group to colonize the Americas?
spaniards
President George H. W. Bush's nomination of Clarence Thomas, an African American who served on the U.S. Supreme Court and opposed many policies committed to racial equality, is an example of what?
superficial representation
The text offers some recommendations for how to address poverty on Native American reservations. Based on those recommendations, what would be the most effective way to address the problems of the Pima Indians?
supporting tribal sovereignty by restoring the Gila River to its original state
Race, ethnicity, and nationality are mutually overlapping _____________ that are mutually reinforcing and cannot be understood in isolation from one another.
symbolic categories
The _____________________ of race organizes people into bounded groupings based on their phenotype, ______________, or both.
symbolic category; ancestry
Prejudice surrounds us, and people of color may internalize negative attitudes aimed at their own racial group. Psychologists describe this as "internalized oppression," while sociologist Pierre Bourdieu labels it:
symbolic violence
While blacks were granted the right of citizenship in 1870 as part of the Reconstruction Amendments after the Civil War, other nonwhites were denied citizenship until:
the 1940s
The collection of organizations and people who carried out political acts aimed at abolishing racial segregation, nonwhite disenfranchisement, and economic exploitation is called what?
the Civil Rights Movement
Following World War II, suburban America exploded due in large part to homebuilding funded by which legislation?
the GI Bill
What served as the institutional hub of the Civil Rights Movement?
the church
The collection of organizations and people who carried out political acts aimed at abolishing racial segregation, nonwhite disenfranchisement, and racial economic exploitation. (page 89)
the civil rights movement
While numerous groups such as Black Girls Code have tried to encourage women of color to enter industries traditionally dominated by white males, such women continue to be underrepresented in top levels of employment in these industries. What term do sociologists use to describe this phenomenon?
the glass ceiling
Unlike serfs from European countries such as Germany, France, and England, when African slaves were emancipated they _____________.
were denied definite rights in the land
Raul is an African American, but he has many other social identities in addition to his racial identity. He is also a young, middle-class college student who identifies as bisexual. Rather than thinking of any particular racial group as a monolithic category, scholars who take an intersectional approach pay attention to:
how multiple dimensions in individual lives intersect
According to the film, the assignment of mixed race children to the race that is considered subordinate or inferior is called __________. For black Americans in the United States, this process was also known as __________.
hypodescent; the one-drop rule
According to the textbook, Mexican immigrants who work in Nebraskan meatpacking plants primarily contend for jobs with:
immigrants from Somalia
The process of establishing permanent residence in a place other than one's country of origin. (page 75)
immigration
Those who argue that employment disparities can be improved by simply providing people of color with better work training promote their belief in:
impersonal market forces
The H-2A guest worker program brings tens of thousands of people to the United States to work in manual labor sectors. But because these workers are bound to the companies that request them, some critics have called this practice an example of modern-day _________.
indentured servitude
The assumption that racism is only the collection of prejudiced ideas and attitudes that "racist individuals" have about other groups. (page 7)
individualistic fallacy
Which of the following best summarizes the process by which systemic white domination of people of color occurs?
insitutional racism
Systemic white domination of people of color, embedded and operating in corporations, universities, legal systems, political bodies, cultural life, and other social collectives. (page 11)
institutional racism
According to the textbook, what are two key forms of racial domination?
institutional racism and interpersonal racism
Miscegenation, which helped blur the racial categories after Spain's conquest of the Aztec empire, can be defined as:
intermarriage and sexual intercourse between people with different skin tones
Spanish colonizers of the Americas encouraged miscegenation, while the United States government outlawed the practice for many years. What is miscegenation?
intermarriage between people with different skin tones
Racial domination manifested in everyday interactions and practices. (page 11)
interpersonal racism
The overlapping system of advantages and disadvantages, wherein racism intersects with other forms of domination, such as those based on gender, class, sexuality, religion, nationhood, ability, and so forth. (page 16)
intersectionality
Maryland's 1904 law that required all railroad companies to provide separate train cars for black and white passengers is an example of what?
jim crow laws
In the film clip from Race: The Power of an Illusion, Historian James Horton states, "You give me the power, I can make you any race I want you to be." In the history of race in the United States, who has played the largest role in dictating racial categories, as we understand them today?
judges
The assumption that abolishing racist laws automatically leads to the abolition of racism in everyday life. (page 8)
legalistic fallacy
In 1960, what percentage of Mississippi's black adults was registered to vote?
less than 2 percent
When contemporary public policy attempts to address the social problems faced by Native Americans, in what way is it engaging in the process of homogenization?
lumping together all indigenous people—with different histories and needs—under a single rubric
The nineteenth-century belief that it was God's will that the United States conquer the American continent. (page 69)
manifest destiny
Belonging to two or more races. (page 59)
multiethnic heritage
Which of the following is an example of a homogenizing heading?
native american
The film clip from Race: The Power of an Illusion explains that when an influx of eastern and southern European immigrants arrived in the United States at the start of the twentieth century, they were generally considered __________. According to the text, the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 changed their classification to _________
not white; white
A person's ___________________ is his or her physical appearance, including skeletal structure, height, hair texture, eye color, and skin tone.
phenotype
The film clip from Race: The Power of an Illusion shows that racial classifications are based in part on the way we look (skin color, eye shape and color, hair texture and color, etc.). Which of the following terms from the text refers to these physical differences?
phenotype
The activity of integrating citizen perspectives and concerns in the public-policy-making process. (page 112)
political representation
Thousands of blacks were lynched during Reconstruction and throughout the mid-twentieth century. These acts of violence can be described as ________________.
preplanned events that drew large crowds of onlookers
Banks that are more likely to lend money to whites than to nonwhites and banks that charge higher mortgage rates to nonwhites are examples of
present-day institutional racism
The discrepancy between the acceptance of racial inclusion in principle and the rejection of any policy measures designed to carry this out. (page 118)
principle-implementation
The idea, as put forth by James Baldwin, that race is not a biological reality, but rather a political reality, or a social construction. (page 32)
race is a social reality
In an attempt to resist stigma, some people of color, especially new immigrants, may highlight their ethnicity and resist American _________________.
racial categories
A society's racial categories. (page 79)
racial demography
A _____________________ is a social and symbolic hierarchical system of classification and social division that organizes people into rigid groups.
racial hierarchy
The process whereby a population is divided along racial lines. For example, by different voting tendencies along racial lines. (page 108)
racial polarization
Aside from the structure of the economy, the class privileges (or lack thereof) of immigrants, and ethnic enclaves, what else does the textbook say impacts how well immigrants fare in America?
racial privileges
The current _______________ in the United States delineates five major groups.
racial taxonomy
Well into the mid-twentieth century, white planters gave blacks a small piece of land on which to grow crops and live (often in squalid shacks). In return, blacks gave white planters a portion of their crops. This process was called what?
sharecropping
From where did the term "Jim Crow" originate?
a song called "Jump Jim Crow" by a white man who popularized minstrel shows
A national homebuilder developing a new home community needs to hire framers, plumbers, painters, electricians, and other construction workers. There are plenty of qualified, unionized, nonimmigrant job applicants, but the builder chooses to hire mostly Mexican immigrants. According to sociologist Edna Bonacich, this choice reflects the existence of:
a split labor market
What proportion of all Americans collects means-tested public assistance during some point in their lives?
two in three
What were the two goals of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's (SNCC's) 1964 Freedom Summer?
voter registration and quality education
Over the entire span of U.S. history, 1,895 people have been elected to the Senate. Of these senators, only what percent were nonwhite?
1
What was one outcome of the New Deal?
Because many jobs and industries that predominantly employed people of color were excluded from its programs, the benefits of the New Deal were disproportionately applied to whites.
According to the textbook, in 2013, if black women were paid as much as white men with similar credentials they would earn an average of how much more per year?
$7000
What is an "ethnic enclave"?
a semiautonomous economy, large or small, that is owned, operated, and managed by members of the same immigrant or ethnic community
Which of the following groups of workers might company executives refer to as "strike insurance"?
African American workers who replace striking workers
Nonwhite Affirmative Action
An umbrella term referring to a collection of policies and practices designed to address past wrongs, institutional racism, and sexism by offering people of color and women both employment and educational opportunities. (page 160)
In the film clip from Race: The Power of an Illusion, Sociologist Melvin Oliver argues that "the things that we identify as the racial markers mean nothing unless they are given social meaning and unless there is public policy and private action that act upon those characteristics." Which of the following examples from the text best illustrates his argument?
Arabs and Indian Americans have been classified as "white" at some points in time and "not white" at other points.
What does the concept "homosocial reproduction" mean?
Authorities tend to fill positions of power with people like themselves.
______ women are more likely to return to welfare than white women for many reasons, including the fact that ____________.
Black and Hispanic; women of color face more obstacles in the labor market
According to the text and the clip, which of the following statements best describes the majority of American Indian Reservations in the United States, including the Pima tribe in Arizona?
By and large, American Indian reservations are plagued by dire poverty, joblessness, and poor living conditions.
According to the film clip and text, how were people of both black and white heritage classified in the slavery era?
By and large, people of white and black descent were considered black
The film clip discusses how white supremacists designed a targeted campaign to inspire white resentment and fear of black men by claiming that they were a danger to white women. Who would ultimately be one of the most well-known victims of this legacy of propaganda many years later?
Emmett Till
Welfare
Government provisions intended to help disadvantaged people, including those who are poor, elderly, war veterans, unemployed, and disabled. (page 157)
Johann Blumenbach published a typology of humanity that divided humans into five groups that correspond to different geographical areas—Caucasians, Mongolians, Ethiopians, Americans, and Malays. Why was his research fundamentally flawed?
He did not gather data to support his research.
Which statement best describes the racial order of the Aztec empire following Spanish colonization?
High rates of miscegenation resulted in racial categories becoming blurry and numerous.
The assumption that the presence of people of color in influential positions is evidence of the complete eradication of racial obstacles. (page 8)
tokenistic fallacy
What is one factor that might complicate the assumption that the percentage of Hispanic voters will grow in direct proportion to their population growth?
Hispanics may increasingly consider themselves white, which would increase the percentage of white voters
According to the film clip, in the postslavery era, when some newly freed slaves were beginning to gain some political power, white supremacists were determined to end black political power. Which of the following examples from the text most clearly signifies white supremacists' success in stifling the political power of black Americans at this time?
In 1960, fewer than 2 percent of Mississippi's black adults were registered to vote.
President Barack Obama is often referred to as the nation's first black president, not as the nation's first biracial president. What does this tell us about racial categories in the United States?
In the eyes of many, blackness remains a totalizing racial category.
What was one of the outcomes of the Montgomery Bus Boycott?
It organized the black clergy as a political force.
According to the film clip, which of the following is true about Jim Crow laws in the American South?
Jim Crow laws emerged as a backlash to the increasing political power of some African American communities.
Following the recent economic recession that began in 2008, many Tea Party Republican politicians proposed cutting taxes for the wealthy as a way to boost the economy. In doing so, which tradition are they following?
Reaganomics
By the end of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's (SNCC's) 1964 Freedom Summer, many volunteers had been violently attacked, arrested, and even killed, indicating what?
Mississippi was still a very dangerous place for black Americans in 1964
Which dominant black protest organization, which preceded the modern Civil Rights Movement and was founded in 1909 by black and white intellectuals, primarily battled racial domination in the courts?
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
Which group proved most influential in solidifying racial taxonomies?
Natural historians, precursors to modern-day biologists
When it comes to poverty in America:
Nearly one third of American "breadwinners" are among the nation's working poor.
Which of the following statements about institutional racism and interpersonal racism is accurate?
Neither institutional nor interpersonal racism is necessarily overt; both forms of racism often operate in the habitual commonsense and largely unconscious practices of daily life.
Without the ability to grow crops and provide for themselves, the Pima began to depend on aid from the U.S. government. What was one major result from this dependence?
Overall levels of health decreased.
According to social scientists, what is one result of affirmative action?
People hired through affirmative action policies do just as well as those not hired through affirmative action policies.
When George Wallace, Democratic governor of Alabama, stood in 1963 on the steps of the University of Alabama to block the entrance of two black students to the all-white university, he taught politicians two strategic lessons. The first was that politicians who opposed racial justice could garner great support from white voters. What was the second?
Politicians can support white supremacy as long as they do not do so explicitly.
Author Michelle Alexander recently coined the term "the new Jim Crow" to discuss the rapid rise of mass incarceration among the black population in the United States. What might Jim Crow and mass incarceration have in common?
Prisons and Jim Crow laws are both dramatic examples of segregation.
Which of the following was a catalyst for Europe's emerging racial worldview?
trade routes
What was the famous march in which activists walked along a stretch of land in which no black people were registered to vote?
Selma-to-Montgomery March
Why did Harriet Jacobs, author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, say that slavery "is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women"?
Since slave children increased a master's wealth, slave women were often the victims of rape.
What is a result of cases like Shaw v. Reno (1993) and Miller v. Johnson (1995), which outlaw only race-based gerrymandering?
The Court fails to recognize white majority districts as white districts, and whiteness is rendered invisible.
What was one result of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 and the 1980 Refugee Act?
Tens of thousands of Vietnamese refugees relocated to the United States in the mid-1970s.
Racial Disparities in Income and Wealth
The concept that, due to historical and current circumstances, certain racial groups have more income and wealth than others as a result of their race. On average, a white worker will make more than a black or Hispanic worker, even if all these people work exactly the same hours, possess exactly the same work experience, and hold exactly the same educational credentials. (page 134)
The NAACP was banned in several Southern states after refusing to release the contact information of its members. What was the effect of the weakening of the NAACP?
The movement grew to include people like sharecroppers, teachers, students, and even children.
What was the problem with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which promised U.S. citizenship rights to Mexicans in ceded lands?
The promise was never fulfilled.
The textbook authors point out that asking "Why did Africans sell fellow Africans into slavery?" is an inaccurate question. Why?
The question assumes there were such things as "Africa" and "Africans" during the slave trade.
In the fifteenth century, Spain began to create an "imagined community" by binding people together inside artificially created borders. What else might constitute an "imagined community"?
a political party
What conclusion is shown in the figure below, "2009 Median Household Income by Race"?
Whites make more money than other racial/ethnic groups, even when they work the same hours.
Which mindset came to greatly influence how the English would come to view indigenous people in the Americas?
the perception of the Irish as savages in need of correction
As it relates to racial domination, symbolic power is best described as:
the power to define and classify groups as normal or aberrant
Most white Americans consistently have accepted the principle of racial inclusion while rejecting many of the policy measures designed to carry it out. What is this phenomenon called?
the principle-implementation gap
What part of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was Ella Baker critical of?
the style of charismatic (masculine) leadership
How did the United States acquire the land that today is New Mexico, California, Utah, Nevada, parts of Arizona, and disputed areas of Texas?
the treaty of guadalupe hidalgo
Between 1984 and 2009, what happened to the wealth gap between white and black families?
the wealth gap nearly tripled
Sometimes speakers invoke examples of individuals—say, Madame C. J. Walker, Oprah Winfrey, or Barack Obama—to suggest that if these individuals were able to triumph over racial barriers, the path is clear for everyone. What type of fallacy best describes such thinking?
tokenistic fallacy
Which group prospered most following World War II?
white Americans
__________ is the collection of unearned cultural, political, economic, and social advantages and privileges possessed by people of Anglo-European descent or those who pass as such.
white privilege
