Anthropology Chapter 13 Race and Ethnicity

Humans vary biologically in their genetic attributes BUT

because of extensive gene flow and interbreeding there are no sharp breaks between human population of the sort we might associate with discrete subspecies or races

Compared to the United States and Japan, Brazil-

(as well as the rest of Latin America) has less exclusionary categories which permit individuals to change their racial classification

Multiculturalism seeks ways for people to understand and interact that don't depend on sameness but rather on respect for difference

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The actual ethnic makeup of various countries varies regionally with Europe being the most homogeneous, African countries tending to not have any majority ethnic group and countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Middle East having ethnic majorities and minorities

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Japanese culture regards certain ethnic groups, such as the burakumin as having a biological basis even when there is no evidence that they do

1. Burakumin are descendants of a historically low status class 2. Despite the fact that burakumin are physically and genetically indistinguishable from the dominant population, they are stigmatized as a separate inferior race

Race, like ethnicity, is a cultural category rather than a biological reality

1. Ethnic groups, including "races" derive from contrasts perceived and perpetuated in particular societies, rather than from scientific classifications based on common genes 2. Only cultural constructions of human race are possible , even though the average person conceptualizes "race" in biological terms

Chips in the mosaic

1. In NA, there is ethnic competition and conflict between newer arrivals and longer established ethnic groups 2. In the 1992 Los Angeles riot following the Rodney Kind verdict, much of the violence played out along ethnic lines: AAs attacked whites, Koreans and Latinos 3. This violence expressed frustration by AAs about their prospects in an increasingly multicultural society

The so-called three great races identified in the late 19th and 20th centuries are more a reflection of European colonial politics than an accurate representation of human biological diversity

True

True/ False: Members of ethic groups share certain beliefs values customs and norms because of a common background

True

True/False: Today, cultural adaptations allow the movement of people of all skin colors around the world.

True

Variation in skin color is determined-

by the amount and size of melanin in the skin cells, which is in turn genetically determined

Hypodescent: race in the United States

1. In the United States, race is most commonly ascribed to people at birth, although not necessarily on the basis of heredity or genotype 2. Rules of descent assign social identity on the basis of ancestry 3. In the United States, children of a union between members of different groups are automatically placed in minority group; this rule of descent, known as hypodescent is rare outside of the contemporary US

Plural Society

1. Interethnic contact does not inevitably lead to assimilation 2. Fredrik Barth defines plural society as a society combining ethnic contrasts, ecological specialization (ie use of different environmental resources by each ethnic group) and the economic interdependence of those groups

Prejudice and Discrimination

1. Prejudice is the devaluation of a group because of its assumed behavior, values, capabilities,or attributes 2. People are prejudiced when they hold stereotypes( fixed, often unfavorable ideas about what the members of a group are like) about groups and apply them to individuals 3. Discrimination refers to policies and practices that harm a group and its members -de facto discrimination is practiced but not legally sanctioned -de jure discrimination is part of the law

Historically, scientists have approached the study of human biological diversity in two ways:

1. Racial classification( now largely abandoned) 2. Current explanatory approach, which focuses on understanding specific differences

Race in the census

1. The U.S. Census Bureau has gathered data on race since 1790 2. Attempts to add a multiracial category on the census form have been opposed by minority groups 3. In the US, there is a growing number of interracial, biracial, or multiracial individuals who do not identify only with one racial identity 4. The Canadian census asks specifically about visible minority status instead of race

Changing Demographics

A. The ethnic makeup of the US has changed greatly in the last 40 years. The percent of white non-Hispanics has fallen has fallen from 83% to 63.7% of the population B. In 2011, for the first time in American History, minorities accounted for more than half of all the births in the Us C. The gray and the brown, basically there is an increasing between the elderly (80%)and the young (56%), the gray/older population tends to oppose taxes and public spending while younger supports and lastly many older white have lived their entire lives in relative isolation from minorities while younger Americans are growing up in an increasingly diverse society.

Anthropology Today: AAA Statement on Race a. Human populations are not unambiguous, clearly demarcated, biologically distinct groups b.Physical variations in a given trait tend to occur gradually over geographic areas and are inherited independently. These facts render any attempt to establish lines of division among biological populations both arbitrary and subjective.

Anthropology Today: AAA Statement on Race c. In colonial America, race was an ideology of inequality devised to rationalize European attitudes and treatment of enslaved and conquered peoples d. Eventually, the concept of race spread across the world and was even taken up by Europeans in the late 19th century to justify social, economic and political inequalities within their own societies e. All normal human beings have the capacity to learn any cultural behavior. present day inequalities between so called racial groups are not consequences of biology but products of social economic educational and political circumstances.

Assimilation occurs when a minority group adopts the patterns and norms of a dominant host culture to such an extent that it no longer exists as a separate cultural unit.

Assassination may be forced depending on historical circumstances

Populations grouped into one race based upon phenotypic similarity may be generally distinct.

Because of changes in the environment that affect individuals during growth and developement, the range of phenotypes characteristic of population may change without genetic change.

Nation and nation state now refer to an autonomous, centrally organized political entity

Because of migration, conquest and colonialism, most nation states are not ethnically homogenous

Skin color is determined by natural selection creating a balance act between getting enough UV but not too much in each environment.

Common ancestry is only one small determinant of skin color

Define themselves as different because of language, religion, historical experience, geographic isolation, kinship or "race"

Ethnic groups

Identification with, and feeling park of, an ethnic group and exclusion from certain other groups because of this affiliation

Ethnicity

Shifting Status 1

Some statuses, particularly ascribed one, are mutually exclusive, while others are contextual

Nationalities are ethnic groups that once had or wish to have or regain autonomous political status (their own country)

Nationalities are imaged communities since most of their members, though they feel comradeship will never meet

The process by which the forms most fit to survive and reproduce in a given environment do so in greater numbers than others in the same population

Natural selection

Adjusting or switching one's status in different social contexts is called

Situational Negotiation of Social Identity

Races are not biologically distinct

Skin color-based race models that include more than three categories do not accurately represent the wide range of skin color diversity among human populations

Races are culturally, socially, constructed.

They are not valid biological categories.

Most Americans fail to distinguish between ethnicity and race

True

Such traits as skin color, stature, skull form and facial feature don't go together as a unit and the amount that heredity( versus environment) contributes to such phenotypical traits is often unclear

True

Certain groups, called minority groups, are subordinate. They have inferior power and less secure access to resources than do majority groups.

Under Minority Groups and Stratification

In many societies, a racial ethnic or caste status is associated with a position in the social-political hierarchy

Under Minority Groups and Stratification

In the 18th century, language and printed media played crucial role in the growth of European imagined communities Political upheavals, wars and migration have divided many imagined national communities( eg Germany Korea, the Kurds)

While colonialism often erected boundaries that corresponded poorly with preexisting cultural divisions, it also helped create new " imagined communities" beyond nations ( eg the idea of negritude in West Africa)

Markers of an ethnic group may include

a collective name, belief in common descent, a sense of solidarity and an association with a specific territory which the group may or may not hold

In biological terms, a race is

a geographically isolated subdivision of a species that is capable of reproducing with individuals from other subspecies of the same species, but does not because of its geographic isolation

A number of factor have led the US to move away from assimilationist model and toward multiculturalism

a. Large scale migration- driven by globalization as well as population growth and lack of economic opportunity in less developed countries- is introducing unparalled ethnic variety to host nations, particularly the developed countries of North America and Europe b. Ethnic identities are used increasingly to form self help organizations focused on enhancing groups' economic and political competitiveness and combating discrimination

Brazilian racial classification recognizes and attempts to describe the physcial( phenotypical) variation that exist in the population.

a. More than 500 distinct racial labels were once reported b. In Brazil, racial classification is flexible; individuals racial labels change along with their phenotypical characteristics because of environmental factors c. The racial labels that people use to describe themselves or other can vary from day to day

In many societies racial, ethnic or caste status is associated with a position in the social-political hierarchy

a. So called minority groups have less power and less secure access to resources than do majority groups b. Ethnic groups are often minorities

Aftermaths of oppression

a. a dominant group may try to destroy the cultures of certain ethnic groups(ethnocide) , deliberately eliminate a group (genocide) or force them to adopt to the dominant culture( forced assimilation) b. Ethnic expulsions aims at removing groups that are culturally different from a country c. Expulsion may create refugees, or people who have been forced( involuntary refugees) or who have chosen (voluntary refugees) to flee a country, to escape persecution or war d. Cultural colonialism refers to internal domination- by one group and its culture/ideology over others eg the domination over the former soviet empire by russian people, language, and culture and by communist ideology

Multiculturalism is opposed to

assimilation which expects minorities to abandon their cultural traditions and values, replacing them with those of the majority population

There are thousands of evident physical traits, ranging from skin color, and hair form to blood type and enzyme production, and there is no logical hierarchy of phenotypic features. HOWEVER

early European and American scientists gave priority to the readily apparent feature of skin color in determining race,the characteristic that had been assigned arbitrary cultural value for purposes of discrimination.

Selective advantages and disadvantages: Light skin in the tropics is selected against because it burns more easily, thus subjecting light-skinned indiviuals to a greater likelihood of infection and disease

i. Sunburn impairs the body's ability to withstand heat by reducing the skin's ability to sweat ii. Light skin is more susceptible to skin cancer

Given the lack of precise distinction between race and ethnicity-

it is probably better to use the term ethnic group instead of race to describe any social group

UV absorbed throught he skin stimulates the production of vitamin D, which aids in the absorption of calcium. THEREFORE

light skin would have been selected for, and dark skin selected against in low sunlight environments

With their increasing incorporation into the world system and growing importance of international identity politics, -

more Brazilians are claiming indigenous identity and identifying with the African diaspora

Prior to the 16th century-

most of the world's darkest skinned populations lived closest to the equator, and a gradient of average skin color could be observed moving north from the region of the tropics in Africa, for example. This does not hold true in the Americas, which were settled in the relatively recent past ( no more than 20,000 years ago) by Asian ancestors of Native Americans

Although Brazil and the United States both have histories of slavery and "racial" mixing-

no hypodescent rule developed in Brazil to ensure that whites and black and other races remain separate

Folate is essential for

pregnant women to prevent birth defects and in mean for the production of sperm but folate is destroyed by UV. Therefore dark skin would be selected for and light skin selected against in tropical environments.

When ethnic group is assumed to have a biological basis it is called

race

Race is supposed describe genetic variation BUT

racial categories have been based on phenotype

Discrimination against such a group is called

racism

Race in japan: Despite the presence of a substantial (10%) minority population, -

the dominant racial ideology in Japan portrays the country as racially and ethnically homogeneous

What are phenotypes?

the product of genetic, developmental and environmental factors

Because of changes in the environment-

the range of phenotypes characteristic of a population may change without any genetic change whatsoever

Multiculturalism is

the view of cultural diversity in a country as something good and desirable

The (majority) Japanese define themselves by oppositions to others-

whether minority groups in their own nation or outsiders- anyone who is "not us"