Sociology chapter 11

African American- This latter term was intended to celebrate the multiple identities that a black person might hold, but the word choice is a poor one: it lumps together a large variety of ethnic groups under an umbrella term while excluding others who could accurately be described by the label but who do not meet the spirit of the term.

For example, actress Charlize Theron is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed "African American." She was born in South Africa and later became a U.S. citizen. Is her identity that of an "African American" as most of us understand the term?

The terms stereotype, prejudice, discrimination, and racism are often used interchangeably in

Oversimplified generalizations about groups of people

Prejudice refers to

the beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and attitudes someone holds about a group.

When considering skin color, for example, the social construction of race perspective recognizes that

the relative darkness or fairness of skin is an evolutionary adaptation to the available sunlight in different regions of the world.

Over time, the typology of race that developed during early racial science has fallen into disuse, and the social construction of race

is a more sociological way of understanding racial categories.

Institutional racism refers to

the way in which racism is embedded in the fabric of society. For example, the disproportionate number of black men arrested, charged, and convicted of crimes may reflect racial profiling, a form of institutional racism.

People with high levels of melanin may consider

themselves "white" if they enjoy a middle-class lifestyle.

Many states have enacted laws to disenfranchise immigrants;

these laws are popular because they let the dominant group scapegoat a subordinate group.

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."

Consider the case of the actress Rashida Jones. She is the daughter of a black man (Quincy Jones), and none of the characters she's played none of whom are black characters.

And as with race, individuals may be identified or self-identify with 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 "white" racial category.

In the United States, recent immigrants have frequently been the scapegoat for the

nation's—or an individual's—woes.

A prejudice is not based on experience; instead, it is a

prejudgment, originating outside actual experience.

Research in this school of thought suggests that race is not biologically identifiable and that previous racial categories were arbitrarily assigned based on

pseudoscience, and used to justify racist practices (Omi and Winant 1994; Graves 2003).

The Ku Klux Klan is an example of a

racist organization; its members' belief in white supremacy has encouraged over a century of hate crime and hate speech.

This culture might include -ethnicity-

shared language, religion, and traditions, among other commonalities.

Contemporary conceptions of race, therefore, which tend to be based on

socioeconomic assumptions, illuminate how far removed modern understanding of race is from biological qualities.

Note that being a numerical minority is not a characteristic of being a minority group;

sometimes larger groups can be considered minority groups due to their lack of power.

While prejudice is not necessarily specific to race, racism is a

stronger type of prejudice used to justify the belief that one racial category is somehow superior or inferior to others; it is also a set of practices used by a racial majority to disadvantage a racial minority.

The idea of race refers to

superficial physical differences that a particular society considers significant, while ethnicity describes shared culture.

Social science organizations including the American Association of Anthropologists, the American Sociological Association, and the American Psychological Association have all

taken an official position rejecting the biological explanations of race.

Scapegoat theory, developed initially from Dollard's (1939) Frustration-Aggression theory, suggests

that the dominant group will displace its unfocused aggression onto a subordinate group.

Ethnicity, like race, continues to be an identification method that individuals and institutions

use today—whether through the census, affirmative action initiatives, nondiscrimination laws, or simply in personal day-to-day relations.

Sociologist Louis Wirth (1945) defined a minority group as

"any 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."

According to Charles Wagley and Marvin Harris (1958), a minority group is distinguished by five characteristics:

(1) unequal treatment and less power over their lives (2) distinguishing physical or cultural traits like skin color or language (3) involuntary membership in the group (4) awareness of subordination, and (5) high rate of in-group marriage. Additional examples of minority groups might include the LBGT community, religious practitioners whose faith is not widely practiced where they live, and people with disabilities.

It is the lack of power that is the predominant characteristic of a minority, or subordinate group. For example, consider apartheid in South Africa, in which a numerical majority

(the black inhabitants of the country) were exploited and oppressed by the white minority.

History has shown us many examples of the scapegoating of a surbordinate group

An example from the last century is the way Adolf Hitler was able to blame The Jewish population for Germany's social and economic problems.

The social reflection of race is also reflected

In the way names for racial categories change with changing times.

Stereotypes can be based on

Race, ethnicity, gender, sexual characteristic- almost any characteristic

In some countries, such as Brazil, class is more important than skin color in determining

Racial categorization

In the past, theorists have posited categories of race

based on various geographic regions, ethnicities, skin colors, and more.

The term minority connotes discrimination, and in its sociological use. the term subordinate group can be used interchangeably with the term minority, the term dominant group is often substituted for the group that's in the majority.

These definitions correlate to the concept that the dominant group is that which holds the most power in a given society, while subordinate groups are those who lack power compared to the dominant group.

On the other hand, someone with low levels of melanin might be

assigned the identity of "black" if he or she has little education or money.

Where do stereotypes come from? In fact new stereotypes are rarely created; rather, they are recycled from subordinate groups that have

assimilated into society and are reused to describe newly subordinate groups. For example, many stereotypes that are currently used to characterize black people were used earlier in American history to characterize Irish and Eastern European immigrants.

They may be positive (usually about one's own group, such as when women suggest they are less likely to complain about physical pain)

but are often negative (usually toward other groups, such as when members of a dominant racial group suggest that a subordinate racial group is stupid or lazy). In either case, the stereotype is a generalization that doesn't take individual differences into account.

Conversely, the ethnic group British includes

citizens from a multiplicity of racial backgrounds: black, white, Asian, and more, plus a variety of race combinations. These examples illustrate the complexity and overlap of these identifying terms.

Their labels for racial groups have

connoted regions (Mongolia and the Caucus Mountains, for instance) or skin tones (black, white, yellow, and red, for example).

Historically, the concept of race has changed across

cultures and eras, and has eventually become less connected with ancestral and familial ties, and more concerned with superficial physical characteristics.

Ethnicity is a term that describes

culture—the practices, values, and beliefs of a group.

Minority groups

describe groups that are subordinate, or that lack power in society regardless of skin color or country of origin.

It's worth noting that race, in this sense, is also a system of labeling that provides a source of identity; specific labels fall in and out of favor during

different social eras. For example, the category "negroid," popular in the nineteenth century evolved into the term "negro" by the 1960s, and then this term fell from use and was replaced with "African American."

Like race, the term ethnicity is

difficult to describe and its meaning has changed over time.

Example of minority group

in modern U.S. history, the elderly might be considered a minority group due to a diminished status that results from popular prejudice and discrimination against them.

Colorism is another kind of prejudice,

in which someone believes one type of skin tone is superior or inferior to another within a racial group.