Sociology Final Exam
brown vs board
(1954) ruled that "separate but equal" was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. One year later (1955), the Supreme Court ruled that schools must be desegregated. However, because America's neighborhoods are segregated, and because where you live determines where you go to school, schools remain separate and unequal even though legalized segregation no longer exists.
racial terroism
A form of ethnic violence which continued in the United States even after the end of slavery, often in the form of lynch mobs.
minstrelsy
A form of popular entertainment that ruled the American stage between 1830 and 1910, in which whites performed in blackface and purported to represent authentic African-American life. Minstrel shows featured a collection of stock characters that portrayed blacks as lazy, ignorant, subservient, buffoonish, and childish
education gap
A gap in educational opportunities that separates whites and Asians, on the one hand, and African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans, on the other
narrowcasting
A kind of artistic segregation, in which television producers target specific racial or ethnic groups with programs supposedly designed to speak to those groups' unique needs and lifestyles, where "black programs" are pitched at black viewers, "Jewish programs" at Jewish viewers, "Hispanic programs" at Hispanic viewers, and so forth
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
white flight
A migratory process whereby many whites, fearing racial integration, sold their houses in the city and fled to the suburbs
single motherhood
A mother not living with a spouse or partner, who has most of the responsibilities in raising her child or children. At least since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, single mothers have been stereotyped as immoral delinquents who have more children in order to collect bigger welfare checks. But the truth is that single mothers are "a remarkably diverse group who have arrived at single parenthood through divergent, and often class-segregated paths."
stereotype threat
A negative stereotype about a racial group can make members of that group conscious of the fact that any of their actions that happen to align with that stereotype end up verifying the stereotype, making it more real in the eyes of others and, perhaps, even of themselves; being at risk of confirming, as self-characteristic, a negative stereotype about one's group.
eugenics
A program set forth in the nineteenth century by Francis Galton to ensure genetic purity by attempting to "solve" the "natural inferiority of the lower races" through such extreme measures as forced sterilization.
racial polarization
A relationship between the racial identity of a voter and the way in which the voter votes. For example, the American electorate is racially polarized: the majority of whites tilt toward the Republican Party while the majority of nonwhites support the Democratic Party.
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.
gerrymandering
A set of processes by which elected politicians redraw and manipulate the borders of political districts to secure political advantage
ethnicity
A shared lifestyle informed by cultural, historical, religious, and/or national affiliations.
color blindness
A society in which racial differences exist but no one pays them heed, a world in which race no longer serves as the basis for social stigmatization, discrimination, inequality, or injustice.
racial demography
A society's racial categories.
slavery
A system wherein workers are the property of their masters and are not paid for their labor.
combating educational inequality: affirmative action
Affirmative action has been effective in helping to minimize gender- and race-based exclusion.
Welfare and Affirmative action continued
Affirmative action is an umbrella term referring to a collection of policies designed to address past wrongs, institutional racism, and sexism. Affirmative action has increased the representation of white women and nonwhites in employment and there is no evidence to support that it hurts white men.
The Ordeal of Integration and the Rise of Ethnic Nationalism
After the fall of slavery, racial segregation arose as one of American society's central organizing principles, and associational life bent itself to accommodate America's newfound edict of racial segregation.
lowbrow art
Also known as "popular culture," comprises art forms that are considered more ordinary and associated with the tastes and lifestyles of "the masses," and which is more or less bereft of cultural capital.
civil society in a multicultural democracy
America has developed a diverse and active civil society. Whites, however, have higher rates of civil engagement, whereas people of color are less likely to join voluntary associations and to participate in community activities. Racialized economic inequality is the primary force behind most of the racial variation in associational life. Race-based homophily creates the strongest divides in our associational lives, and is maintained through softer forms of exclusion known as boundary work.
racial struggles over residence in 20th century America
America is more racially segregated today than at the conclusion of the Civil War. Segregation levels in major cities during the nineteenth century were less than half of what they are today. Neighborhoods based on close-knit ethnic affiliations gave way to urban divisions based on race and class.
I have a right to think: battles over education
American Indians were being forced to conform to white society at the beginning of the 20th century, and African Americans were being forcefully excluded from it.
fear
Americans' perceptions of crime do not match with statistics. For example, between 1990 and 1998, the murder rate fell by 20 percent but coverage of murder on network news increased by 600 percent. The media focuses on white women as victims even though young black men are more likely to be murdered. Immigrants are also a target of crime-based fear even though a portion of the crime drop in the 1990s is attributed to a larger immigrant population. Immigration policies have become more severe due to this fear that immigrants increase crime and terrorism.
antiracist aesthetics
An artistic approach that seeks somehow to throw a wrench in the grinding gears of racism, forcing its audience to confront American racial history honestly and courageously
double consciousness
An insider's vantage point, which suggests that nonwhites have a double vision as part of a racial survival strategy used to navigate white America.
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
pt 2
Analysts have demonstrated at least two of the social forces in which race plays a role in the weakening of civil society: (1) the suburbanization of America, which has contributed to the erosion of social capital, and (2) the observed reality that social capital and trust for fellow Americans are lower in more racially diverse communities. Identity politics refers to political action intended to address the unique interests and hardships of groups who historically have faced oppression and who continue to be excluded from mainstream society.
We who believe in freedom
Analysts refer to the 80/20 phenomenon as the common observation that roughly 80 percent of social change is brought about by 20 percent of the population. In other words, when a few impassioned citizens gather together around a single cause, the potential to move the world is in their hands.
fear of crime
Anxiety about becoming a victim of a crime as opposed to the actual probability of becoming a victim of a crime
environmental racism
Any environmental policy, practice, or directive that disproportionately disadvantages (intentionally or unintentionally) nonwhite communities.
identity politics
Arising in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement, identity politics refers to political action intended to address the unique interests and hardships of groups (such as nonwhites, women, and gays) who historically have faced oppression and who continue to be excluded from mainstream society
the invention of whiteness and blackness
As colonization pushed forward, indentured servitude steadily evolved into chattel slavery. Over time, white servants were given the opportunity to assimilate themselves as citizens, but black servants were not. Whiteness and blackness were new creations defined by and through slavery. Both "races" were formed from diverse groups that previously had little in common.
collective action
As history attests, bold reform and transformative social change also are brought about (perhaps most consequentially) through public protest: through strikes, sustained boycotts, public demonstrations, civil disobedience, and racial uprisings. To participate in collective political action—to employ the time-honored methods of public protest—is to engage as fully and completely as possible in civil society and to refuse to "become victims in a democratic society.
boarding schools
As part of the white agenda to Anglicize America's indigenous population at the beginning of the twentieth century, American Indian parents were forced to send their children to boarding schools run by Christian missionaries and, later on,by the federal government
America's racial Profile Today
As the United States grows more diverse, racial markers seem to be growing more porous and fluid. Race is not a biological entity; rather, it is a European invention, forged in the context of colonization and slavery.
main topic: Associations
Associations are the stuff of democracy; they are the lifeblood of civil society and the very embodiment of community. However, associational life has reflected racial segregation in America, revealing glaring inconsistencies between Americans' professed principles of citizenship and their deep-seated desire to exclude certain groups from the privileges of membership.
Main Point: race and ethnicity
Avoid common fallacies when thinking about racism. Institutional racism and interpersonal racism are separate types of racism. Racism intersects with other forms of social division. There is no biological foundation for race; it is instead a symbolic category. The reality of race in America leads to reasons to be optimistic, because of institutional integration, diversity and the open-mindedness of today's youth. There are also reasons to be concerned due to hate crimes, employment inequalities, incarceration disparities and poverty.
The self and Identity formation
Because whiteness is the dominant and "normal" racial category in all of society's fields of life, whites need not be reflexive about their whiteness to get ahead in the world. The same cannot be said for people of color. Interracial and intercultural communication requires vigilant reflexivity; it demands a display of humility and respect, which encourages us to enter the conversation with a desire to learn and understand.
authenticity
Being true to one's ethnic or racial heritage, including in that discussion the choice of some whites to reject whiteness for an alternative ethnic identity.
educational inequality
Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans are much more likely to drop out of high school than whites and Asians, and although college graduation rates are up across the board, race-based educational disparities have widened.
religious associations
By and large, religious associations do not overcome racial divides; in fact, the opposite is true. Religious life is racialized to a high degree. Certain religions, denominations within religions, and places of worship within denominations correspond to certain racial and ethnic groups.
out-of-wedlock Births
Children who are born to parents who are not married at the time of the birth. In 2011, out-of-wedlock births accounted for 41% of all births in the United States. Out-of-wedlock births have increased steadily over the last few decades. In fact, the number of American children living in single-parent homes nearly doubled between 1960 and 2010. In 1970, only 12% of all children lived with one parent; in 2000, 25% of children did. Today, a third of all American children are not being raised by two parents, the majority of whom live in single-mother households.
colonizations of there Americas
Colonialism occurs when a foreign power invades a territory and establishes enduring systems of exploitation and domination over its indigenous populations. It destroys indigenous ways of life and obliterates indigenous economies.
colonialism
Colonialism occurs when a foreign power invades a territory and establishes enduring systems of exploitation and domination over that territory's indigenous populations.
What are the goals
Color-blindness: Envisions a world in which race no longer serves as the basis for social stigmatization, discrimination, inequality, or injustice—a world in which race has disappeared. Color-blindness favors strictly race-neutral legal policies and more stringent enforcement of antidiscrimination laws. However, color-blindness fails to take into account many forms of racial discrimination, nor does it address the everyday forms of racism still pervasive in our society.
mass incarceration
Comparatively and historically high rates of imprisonment in the United States, predominantly of African-American men.
Main topic: Politics
Consider the strategies and tactics used by the African American Civil Rights Movement, the American Indian movement, and the Chicano movement to push for racial justice and the end of discrimination and segregation. American politics continues to be racially polarized. Nonwhites are underrepresented in the American electorate, race continues to play a role in voting patterns and voting turnout, and political campaigns have shifted from class-based appeals to race-based appeals.
cultural appropriation
Cultural appropriation occurs when members of one ethnic or racial group adopt a cultural product associated with another.
racist and anti racist cultural appropriation
Cultural appropriation occurs when members of one ethnic or racial group adopt a cultural product associated with another.
cultural and social capital
Cultural capital refers to the sum total of one's knowledge of established and exalted cultural activities and practices, while social capital includes all the resources one accrues by virtue of being connected to a network of people.
pt 4
Cultural dynamics also dictate educational privileges. The model minority myth allows racial attributes to take precedence over personhood, and stereotype threat puts students at risk of confirming a negative stereotype about one's group.
Main topics: Economy
Describe how antipoverty programs have failed to decrease economic division between whites and nonwhites, as well as the historical and contemporary racism that causes these divisions. Discuss why racial discrimination persists in today's job market. Discuss who benefits from the welfare system and affirmative action policies and whether they are successful.
Cyber Communities
Discussion of how race affects virtual associations must include who is excluded from these associations in the first place by virtue of the fact that they have no regular access to the Internet. That which separates those with regular unfettered home access to the Internet has been termed the "digital divide."
pt 2
Disparities are also prevalent within racial groups, not just between them. Economic inequality and educational inequality are wound tightly together. Students with highly educated and wealthy parents are advantaged in the educational realm, and because of racialized economic inequality, black and Hispanic parents have fewer resources to invest in their children's schooling.
voice from the underground
Dominated groups continued to make art, such as spirituals sung by slaves. When these forms of music became more popular and white artists began to appropriate the art of dominated groups, some saw it as whites divorcing the art from the condition of racial domination it was tied to.
How do we bring about change
Each set of means toward racial reconstruction is interdependent with the others, and effective change in one or another alone cannot being about the desired ends. Change at the Individual Level requires an attitude of openness toward experience. Individuals can deliberately put themselves in different settings conducive to growth, and they can also take part in deliberate reflection to reconsider one's previous modes of response to a situation.
Main topic: Education
Education policies of the 20th century attempted to force ethnic groups to assimilate into Anglo-American culture, or to systematically exclude them from white society through segregation. Whiteness often pervades the curriculum and college life. In recent years, the racial gap has shrunk at the secondary level and increased at the postsecondary level. Affirmative action operates in higher education in an effort to reduce the racial disparities in America's current education system.
whiteness in education
Eurocentric historical accounts consider the stories and experiences of Americans of European descent to be central to American history, while marginalizing the stories of how non-Europeans contributed to the development of the United States. Whiteness is normalized in American literature, anthropology, and intellectual movements. College campuses are also predominantly white. Nonwhite students often feel isolated and unwelcome on their campuses, sometimes receiving differential treatment and given lower marks by instructors.
africans enslaved laws
Eventually, legal steps were made to end slavery (the Emancipation Proclamation [1863] and the Thirteenth Amendment [1865]) and extend citizenship rights to blacks (the Fourteenth Amendment [1868] and the Fifteenth Amendment [1870]). However, statutes like Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and Williams v. Mississippi (1898) were created to keep blacks in an inferior position.
interpersonal racism
Everyday interactions and practices; either overt, as in old-fashioned bigotry, wherein people act out their prejudices and give direct expression to their negative attitudes guided by demeaning stereotypes of others, or covert, wherein it is found in the habitual, commonsensical, and ordinary practices of our lives.
Main topics: Aesthetics and Sports
Examine the ways that whiteness has dominated images of beauty, genius, and art for most of American history. Discuss how art represents racial groups and how artists can challenge racial stereotypes. Describe the ways that whiteness guides what is classified as "art" and what isn't. Explain how artistic divisions can be racialized and learn to recognize when racist and antiracist cultural appropriation occurs.
pt 3
Family dynamics create educational inequality by the amount of cultural capital and social capital they are able to provide. An abundance of cultural capital encourages academic success, as do higher amounts resources one accrues by virtue of being connected to a network of people (i.e. social capital).
rural America
Farming areas, small towns and Indian reservations are just as racially segregated as urban areas. Environmental racism is any environmental policy, practice, or directive that disproportionately affects nonwhite communities. Black and Latino neighborhoods are far more likely to have environmental hazards than white ones. As the United States grows more diverse, racial markers seem to be growing more porous and fluid. Race is not a biological entity; rather, it is a European invention, forged in the context of colonization and slavery.
pt 2
Fear of black male sexuality underscored antimiscegenation laws, which rendered interracial unions illegal. However, the Great Depression and World War II helped reorganize America's gender regime, which in turn helped reinvent "the family." As a result, the Civil Rights Movement and the sexual revolution unfolded, and rates of both interracial and same-sex unions have grown.
pt 2
Four useful techniques can be deployed to invoke Change at the Interactional Level: (1) listening to people and taking their prejudices seriously, (2) posing authentic questions to invite respectful discussion in pursuit of the truth, (3) researching better alternatives to the prejudices people hold, and (4) by seeking a rational discussion rather than a debate you intend to win. Change at the Institutional Level includes domain-transcending means of effecting change, such as antidiscrimination laws; affirmative action; targeting racial groups for state aid under the aegis of nonracialist policies; and efforts to change the ways in which race is inscribed in institutions. Change at the Level of Collective Action involves participating in the time-honored methods of public protest in hopes of inventing a new kind of racial justice movement for the new times in which we live.
welfare
Government provisions intended to help disadvantaged people, including those who are poor, elderly, war veterans, unemployed, and disabled.
highbrow and lowbrow culture
Highbrow culture, the collection of art forms associated with upper-class taste and lifestyle, is rich in cultural capital, while lowbrow (or popular) art forms are not. Highbrow and lowbrow culture correspond to the distinction between traditionally white and traditionally nonwhite art forms. Race-based audience segmentation is rooted in race-based social divisions. People are educated to like certain things associated with either highbrow culture or lowbrow culture and to dislike what they either consider for other people. Many prejudiced people dislike things associated with another racial group and use coded language to stereotype that racial group by talking about art and music associated with them.
The case of hip hop
Hip-hop, a controversial and influential art, can be both politically progressive and problematic. Many white-controlled labels and corporate executives pressure hip-hop artists to avoid social commentary. Hip-hop is often unfairly singled out for criticism that applies to the broader music industry because it is considered black.
Income and Wealth Disparities
Historical circumstances contribute to wealth disparities. Present-day institutional racism also plays a part. Banks impede nonwhites' access to homeownership through three mechanisms: by disproportionally denying loans to nonwhite applicants; by charging nonwhites higher interests rates; and by devaluing homes in nonwhite neighborhoods.
Stefensmeier et al: Intersectionality of Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Age on Criminal Punishment
How does age shape the sentencing of black and Hispanic males as compared with white males? Do racial/ ethnic disparities in sentencing for males and females vary depending on the age of defendants? Do these statuses interact to deepen punishment for some race-gender-age subgroups while softening it for others? results show that intersectionality plays a large role in imprisonment for some people: Harsher sentences concentrate among young black males and Hispanic males of all ages, while the youngest females (regardless of race/ethnicity) and some older defendants receive leniency. The focal concerns model of sentencing that frames the study has strong affinity with intersectionality perspectives and can serve as a main template for research examining the ways social statuses shape inequality.
marriage and divorce
If the U.S. has a fairly high marriage rate, it has an enormously high divorce rate, ranking second only to Aruba in the number of divorces per 1,000 people. Divorce rates have risen since the 1970s, but like marriage rates, they fluctuate widely across race.
racial aesthetics
If the white aesthetic seeks to normalize whiteness, the racist aesthetic seeks to depict people of color in negative ways. If the white aesthetic ignores people of color, the racist aesthetic represents them—but never in their full humanity. Rather, it distorts and stereotypes; it infantilizes and demonizes.
white aesthetics
Images of whiteness often are understated and subtle. They rely on an unspoken edict that treats the white body and the white experience as normal, an edict that, for some of us, connects with our innermost presuppositions about the world.
continued of poverty
Immigrants are disproportionally affected by poverty. Immigrants are absorbed into different segments of the American landscape; some assimilate into the upper classes, some into the lower classes. Often, immigrant groups form enclave economies. The race that immigrants are labeled as when they arrive in America impacts not only their level of poverty, but their grandchildren's. In one study, third-generation black immigrants tend to be poorer than their grandparents, who immigrated from Haiti, the West Indies, or South Africa.
Brave new families
In 1967, the Supreme Court ruled antimiscegenation laws unconstitutional in Loving v. Virginia, marking a significant civil rights victory. Today the United States is home to over 4.8 million interracially married couples; that's one in twelve.
The Causes of Poverty
In black ghettos and poor black neighborhoods, poverty is more concentrated and these areas lack establishments such as grocery stores, childcare centers, and pharmacies. Residents are isolated and cut off from social networks of people who could tell them about employment opportunities. There have been significant advances in black affluence, but inequalities remain rampant, and whites still have more wealth to rely on during hard times.
racial democracy
In the abstract, racial justice means that persons of all racial groups draw returns on societal resources commensurate with the value they themselves have added to them; moreover, all are recognized in their full humanity as contributors to the social whole.
Minstrelsy
In the past century, white artists controlled the image of both whites and nonwhites. Whiteness was equated with beauty and attractiveness. Nonwhites were portrayed as unattractive, negative stereotypes. Minstrel shows were the height of the image of blackness under white control. Minstrel shows featured white actors in blackface playing stock characters that portrayed blacks as lazy, ignorant, subservient, buffoonish, and childish.
voting
In the post-Civil Rights Era, class-based voting has decreased, whereas race-based voting has increased. Both whites and nonwhites rush to the polls in larger numbers if the ticket is racially mixed. Laws are still adopted toward intimidating and suppressing the nonwhite vote, even after the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment.
pt 2
In the wake of racial segregation, movements toward integration also began to take shape within associational life. However, some nonwhites thought racial integration did not lead to liberation, but only to more oppression, creating a movement that has come to be known as "ethnic nationalism." Proponents of ethnic nationalism resist cultural and social assimilation, instead championing self-determination, race pride, separatism, and, in some cases, the creation of an independent nation based on racial identity.
coded language
Indirect allusions to physical appearance, class upbringing, or sexual attractiveness; code words that give voice to dormant racialized dispositions (such as "welfare queen," "urban unrest," "illegal immigrants," "Islamic terrorists" ).
Punishment
Institutional racism leads to heightened surveillance and police repression in poor nonwhite urban neighborhoods.
Plant and Devine: The Antecedents & Implications of Interracial Anxiety
Intergroup anxiety involves feelings of tension and distress that result when interacting with a person from a different social group. This anxiety is presented in heightened hostility toward outgroup members and a desire to avoid interacting with outgroup members. The results of two studies were consistent with the relationships outlined in the proposed model. The model suggests that negative outcome expectancies about the course of interracial interactions results in anxiety regarding interracial interactions. According to the model, this anxiety leads to hostility toward outgroup members and avoidance of interactions with outgroup members.
cultural labor
Interracial relationships require each person to engage in a fair amount of cultural labor, which involves learning the history and culture of one another's racial and ethnic identities. Cultural labor requires broadening your cultural competence, stepping out of your comfort zone, and trying as much as possible to adopt another perspective on the world.
pt 2
Interracial relationships require each person to engage in a fair amount of cultural labor—the work involved in broadening your cultural competence, stepping out of your comfort zone, and trying to adopt another perspective of the world. Cultural labor is a principle that applies to any meaningful relationship that traverses racial boundaries.
changing institutions
It is difficult to imagine changing patterns of racial interaction in any far-reaching way without also reconstructing the institutional frameworks within which they unfold.
homophily
Literally meaning "love of the same," homophily refers to the practice of associating with people like you
pt 2
Lynching spread inequality by upholding white supremacy and white patriarchy. White women's bodies and the pretext of rape prevention were used as an excuse for targeting black men.
Eurocentric curriculum
Many educators favor Eurocentric knowledge and cultural styles over non-Eurocentric ones, even if the latter are not avowedly anti-intellectual
the city
Many immigrants live in ethnic enclaves—this may be because they are a starting point on the way to economic and cultural assimilation, or because they offer a community, or due to ethnic and racial discrimination.
The family since coloninasm and slavery
Many of our ideas about family are quite new in the American context. In colonial times, the family—certainly the white family—functioned quite differently. The models of the "ideal family," both past and present, are neither natural nor timeless; on the contrary, they took a considerable amount of social engineering to perfect. Slavery all but completely abolished familial roles for most enslaved black men, women, and children. White domination of the black body and black family was total during these times, making it impossible for slaves to love their spouses and children unreservedly and without hesitation. Even after emancipation and continuing through the twentieth century, white control of the black family was maintained in our society.
Things are not what they seem
Many things that we believe to be threatening actually make us safer (i.e., immigration) and many things that we believe protect us actually increase our risk of harm (e.g., the growth of prisons). Racialized fears about crime erode the hope of a multicultural democracy.
interracial unions
Marriages between individuals of different racial or ethnic groups. Racism can shape-shift and adjust to demographic changes. It can make—and has made—room in its wide enterprise for degrading multiracial people. Some parents, white and nonwhite alike, actively discourage their children from interracial dating, many times cloaking their own prejudices or ethnic chauvinism in a concern over mixed-race children or "other people's" racism.
racial struggles pt 2
Mexicans who had moved north for agricultural and manufacturing jobs were blamed for Depression Era unemployment. By the end of the 1930s, 2 million had been repatriated to Mexico. More than half were U. S. citizens and over one-third of all U. S. Mexicans were repatriated. Many Native American tribes were terminated between 1953 and 1973. More than 60 percent had been relocated to cities by 1990. As a result of the great migration from the rural South to the urban North, over 4.5 million black people arrived in the North where they were cordoned off to restricted urban districts.
racial segregation
Most Americans live in racially segregated neighborhoods. This can be caused by economic factors as well as housing discrimination. The consequences of segregation can be economic, political, symbolic, emotional and educational.
multiculturalism
Much like color blindness, multiculturalism aspires to a world in which all persons' inherent dignity as human beings is recognized. But in contrast to color blindness, which hopes to abolish race as a relevant criterion in law, public policy, and everyday social practices, multiculturalism envisions a society in which racial diversity is taken fully into account and valued for its own sake
pt 2
Multiculturalism and Cosmopolitanism: Envisions a world in which racial diversity is fully accounted for and valued, recognizing the inherent dignity of all people. It encourages the acknowledgment and respect of racial differences as potentials sources of wisdom, good, and the hope of complete inclusion. However, while multiculturalism recognizes others' diversity, it fails to account for becoming aware of one another's problems and responding to them with just remedies.
white-collar crime
Nonviolent and often financially motivated crimes committed by more privileged members of society, such as computer hacking, fraud, identity theft, environmental law violations, tax evasion, bribery, counterfeiting, money laundering, and embezzling.
the rise of multiculturalism
Nonwhite artists began to move from the margin to the center. Nonwhite artists from black writers to Spanish radio stars gained admiration and a wider audience, but whites still controlled much of artistic production.
The Civil rights movement
One hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation, freedom still had not come to African Americans. The Civil Rights Movement used several forms of nonviolent resistance in order to achieve African American freedoms from the legal segregation they experienced in society (e.g. Jim Crow laws, sharecropping, poll taxes, literacy tests). The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the most important legislative effort to eradicate discrimination. It applies to all racial and ethnic minority groups, as well as women.
The problem with Identity
One's position in the racial order conditions one's perceptions, but an insider's vantage point in and of itself does not lead to scientific discoveries unavailable to the outsider. Scientific insights come by way of rigorous reflexivity and research; it is not the inevitable result of one's position in society.
continue of poverty
Poverty is also pervasive in many rural communities, such as American Indian reservations, although others have accrued wealth. The best way to overcome reservation poverty, according to some, is to support tribal sovereignty.
pt 3
Prison labor camps were a result of vagabond laws that criminalized poverty. States grew rich from convict labor and convict leasing, which became a form of neoslavery. The prison boom, a vast increase in the number of prisons and prisoners, was largely driven by changes in sentencing policy as politicians instituted severe sentencing guidelines and increased spending on drug control. These laws targeted nonwhite communities especially hard.
Lowe et al: Frequent Interracial Dining Experiences as a Predictor of Students' Racial Climate Perceptions
Race and race relations can be very unpredictable for students of color attending a PWI This study investigates a small undergraduate liberal arts university in the South. Miccroagression and institutional climate this study shows that students of color, students who perceive that the university curriculum does not adequately address race, and those who experience frequent racial microaggressions have a more negative view of the campus racial climate than comparison groups
pt 3
Racial Democracy: Envisions a world in which persons of all racial groups draw returns on societal resources commensurate with the value they themselves have added to them, recognizing the full humanity of all as contributors to the social whole. It proposes that we must begin by addressing racial inequality from actual experience, where racial injustice is rampant, and not from an imaginary, idealized world outside experience. A society marked by racial democracy would foster self-realization, flourishing, and growth by enabling people to develop their potentials and capacities. The goals for individual transformation must include racial intelligence, which can promote a social climate where people desire—and need—to know the best and latest on the pressing problems of the day, and it can lead to successful resolution of those problems.
elections and implicit racial appeals
Racial appeals are still highly effective and widely used in support of election campaigns.
Main Topics: Family and Race and Marriage
Racial dynamics inform our everyday interactions, from the way we greet one another, to the many misunderstandings and frustrations we face with one another on a daily basis. Race is both marked through America's racial taxonomy and made through hundreds and thousands of everyday practices. A person's identity is made up of multiple intersecting features, including race, gender, religion, sexuality, and class. Self-evaluation and rigorous reflexivity can provide some limited but real power over the forces that would control our imaginations and actions, allowing us to rationally assess and perhaps even alter how those forces affect our thinking and behavior.
pt 2
Racial profiling is police-initiated action that disproportionately affects minorities. Sentencing for repeat drug offences and death-penalty sentencing unjustly target minorities and the poor.
individualistic fallacy
Racism assumed to belong to the realm of ideas and attitudes; racism is only the collection of nasty thoughts a "racist individual" has about another group.
pt 2
Racist appropriation denies nonwhite groups the ability to profit from and control their creations; representation of a certain group can be taken out of their hands by racist cultural appropriation. Racist appropriation co-opts art without acknowledging the suffering that created it ("everything but the burden"). However, there are respectful, antiracist ways to appropriate another group's culture. When nonwhite groups appropriate white culture, it does not bring about the same negative consequences.
hate groups
Racist hate groups present a threat to a multiracial democratic society and are often closely tied with white nationalist organizations, which believe whites to be superior to African Americans and Hispanics and vie for a separate, exclusively white country
police state
Refers to the heightened surveillance and police repression, such as curfews, found in nonwhite metropolitan areas
religious associations
Religious intolerance is another force that tears at the fabric of civil society. Accounting for the many complex ways in which religious conviction drives social action is fundamental to accurately interpreting the social world. Religious life is racialized to a high degree. Religious associations in America are marked by high levels of racial and ethnic segregation. However, some congregations are quite multiracial and exist as a powerful force of integration.
pt 5
School dynamics comprise powerful institutions that aid the continuation of educational inequality. Disproportionately, Asians and whites are assigned higher educational tracts, while blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans are assigned to lower tracts.
partisanship and representation
Since the 1970s, most white voters have supported the Republican Party, and most nonwhite voters remain loyal to the Democratic Party. Superficial representation refers to the process of appointing to political positions nonwhites who are disconnected from the needs and problems of most nonwhite citizens. Substantive representation refers to the correspondence between the goals of nonwhite representatives and those of nonwhite citizens. In either case, it is still important to avoid the tokenistic fallacy, which assumes that the presence of people of color in influential positions is evidence that racism no longer exists.
principle-implementation gap
Since the Civil Rights Movement, opinion polls have shown that most white Americans consistently have accepted the principle of racial inclusion while rejecting any of policy measures designed to carry this out
labor markets continued
Sociologists look to homosocial reproduction as an explanation for racial inequality in the labor market. Put simply, authorities tend to fill positions of power with people like themselves.
political correctness
Some commentators have suggested that American civil society is now guided by an ethic of "political correctness," which discourages free thought and honest debate, because people are afraid to offend their fellow citizens or, worst of all, to be labeled as "racists." In its most recent incarnation, political correctness usually refers to discourse that, while designed to minimize offense to marginalized groups, ends up censoring certain speech or attitudes deemed off-limits.
civil society
Some critics believe identity politics is responsible for splintering civil society, but in post-Civil Rights America, civil society has widened to include a cacophony of voices and opinions
Main topic: Americans racial future
Students of race want to know if we still live in a racist society, and what our racial order ought to look like. It is important to confront the basic assumptions we hold and the evaluative ideals according to which we assess our racial problems or even consider them to be "racial" to begin with. Our visions of what racial order "ought" to be tend to inform our ideas of what racial order "is." We can test our visions of the ideal racial order by putting them to practice, or at least by reasoning them through to their likely consequences.
digital divide
Studies have shown that nonwhite citizens disproportionately are less likely to own computers and to have regular access to the Internet than their white peers, which results in many nonwhites being excluded from virtual associations, on account of them not having regular access to the Internet.
institutional racism
Systemic white domination of people of color, embedded and operating in corporations, universities, legal systems, political bodies, cultural life, and other social collectives.
the civil rights movement
That collection of organizations and people who carried out political acts aimed at abolishing racial segregation, nonwhite disenfranchisement, and racial economic exploitation.
American Promise
The American associational field continues to be marred by profound racial divisions. But even in the midst of some of the deepest obstacles to the realization of a racially just society, there, too, can be found some if its greatest promise.
Africans Enslaved
The Atlantic Slave Trade brought kidnapped Africans from their homeland to the Americas. Slaves were denied basic rights and branded like cattle. It was even illegal to teach a slave to read or write.
backlash
The Civil Rights Movement was not the end of discrimination. The subsequent backlash from whites included the Southern Strategy, which led to the rise of the Republican Party in the South, and the strategic use of coded language and racial cues (such as "states' rights").
pt 4
The United States incarcerates more citizens than any other nation on earth even though it does not have higher crime rates than other industrialized countries. The likelihood of incarceration increases at a disproportionately high rate for people of color.
political representation
The activity of integrating citizen perspectives and concerns in the public policy making process. Very few nonwhites are elected at the national, state, and local levels, resulting in the underrepresentation of nonwhite perspectives and concerns.
deterrent effect
The argument that prisons discourage would-be criminals from committing crimes
legalistic fallacy
The assumption that abolishing racist laws (racism in principle) automatically leads to the abolition of racism in everyday life (racism in practice).
fixed fallacy
The assumption that racism is fixed, that it is immutable, constant across time and space, and that it does not develop in any way, often defining racism only by its most heinous forms, such as racial violence.
tokenistic fallacy
The assumption that the presence of people of color in influential positions is evidence of the complete eradication of racial obstacles
Saperstein and Penner: racial fluidity and inequality
The authors hope to find reason behind how a person's race changes due to social position and how social position can be closely connected to both self-identification and classification by others. Their findings can aid in why there is a breach within the successfulness amongst the white, while other people of color are trailing behind, often noted as low status, especially in the black community theorized that racial identification was divided into two ways: 1) a personal statement of community membership for either political/economic gain or 2) a categorical label in order to better classify individuals linked to physical characteristics and stereotypes. In the end, their results provided that racial classification and identification changes over time due to social patterned ways.
ahistorical fallacy
The bold claim that most United States history, including the legacies of slavery and colonialism, is inconsequential today.
separate is not equal
The case put forth by Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP in 1954 that racially segregated schools were separate but anything but equal; the Supreme Court ruled on behalf of the NAACP, dismantling the legal basis of racial segregation.
multiethnic heritage
The category by which many Americans identify, claiming heritages from two or more ethnicities or races.
highbrow art
The collection of art forms associated with an upper-class taste and lifestyle, which is rich in cultural capital.
underground economy
The combined forms of enterprise classified as criminal under current law, as well as any other economic activity that is unrecorded and untaxed by the government
racial disparities 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
reflexivity
The defensive reaction many privileged whites have to being confronted with societal racism.
the racial structures of the asethic sphere
The divisions separating different styles of dance, food, art, television, or music, can be mapped onto racial divisions; for example, country music is associated with whiteness and rap with blackness. However, art is also multicultural and multiethnic. Artists of all backgrounds participate in a wide variety of art forms.
whiteness
The dominant racial category which normalizes racial domination and reproduces many cultural, political, economic, and social advantages and privileges for white people and withholds such advantages and privileges from nonwhite people.
interaction order
The face-to-face domain of social life, the mezzanine level between large-scale structure and individual psychology.
Tuch and Hughes: the principle policy gap within the white population
The findings in this study suggest that whites who fail to support government-sponsored intervention polices do so because they do not believe that blacks face a significant degree of discrimination or are particularly burdened by the legacy of past discrimination due to the belief that they attribute racial inequality to perceived lack of effort or ability on the apart of blacks. the article emphasizes how African Americans of past and in many instances, present discrimination and racism in nearly all institutions in America society is currently still being ignored, while white Americans racial belief systems progress slowly for change.
race is a social reality
The idea, as put forth by James Baldwin, that race is not a biological reality, but rather a political reality, or what we might call a social construction.
the rise of American prison
The inception of American law took place under conditions of colonialism and slavery and permitted the brutalization and murder of nonwhites. The American justice system was formed in this contradiction between the exaltation of freedom for most at the expense of the dehumanization of some.
pt 3
The many costs of mass incarceration include psychological effects on prisoners and devastation in their families, along with dramatically reduced chances of employment and stability upon release. America spends over $60 billion a year on mass incarceration. Prisons have abandoned their original mission to rehabilitate those who have committed crimes, and there is good reason to believe that prisons actually produce more crime.
Main Points: Colonization
The modern concept of "race" emerged amid the revolutionary transformations of modernity as a new way of viewing and ordering the world. Immigration patterns in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries led to the creation of new racial categories and redefinitions of whiteness. New racial discourses rose to prominence and helped form classification systems riveted in white supremacy.
mainfest destiny
The nineteenth century belief that it was God's will that the United States conquer the American continent.
hate groups
The organized racism cultivated by hate groups is more intensified and demanding. It is ordered by a unifying racist philosophy that demonizes specific "enemies" and advances certain goals aimed at promoting the white race. Hate groups draw from all regions of society, and they thrive off the erroneous idea that nonwhite advancement always results in white loss.
intersectionality
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
immigration
The process of entering and establishing permanent residence in a place other than one's country of origin; during the mid-nineteenth century, immigrants flocked to America by the millions.
racial discourses of Modernity
The racial discourses of modernity treated social classifications as scientific truths. Racial classifications justified racial inequality by suggesting that such inequality was a natural ordering of the world. Racism did not naturally flow from systems of racial classification; rather, systems of racial classification flowed from racism.
Bertrand and Mullainathan
The researchers wanted to evaluate how employers will react to white-sounding and black-sounding names, and how the names play a role in receiving a call back from employers. discovered that applicants with white names need to send around 10 resumes to get one call back, on the other hand, African-American names need to send about 15 resumes. They also found out that whites with a more prestigious resume receive nearly 30 percent more callbacks than white with a lower-quality resume
radicalization of neighborhoods
The rise of industrialism, which facilitated the rise of cities, attracted thousands of people—immigrants, blacks, Mexicans, whites, Asians—to roiling metropolises. As they poured into cities, some ethnic groups tended to cluster together in neighborhoods, many living in crowded, dilapidated slums
modernity rising
The rise of nations and national states led to the rise of nationalism. Nationalism catalyzed social divisions between religion and locality, resulting in the socially constructed distinction between the "civilized" (those who shared national identities) and the "uncivilized" (those of other national identities).
advanced marginality
The severe spatial and social segregation of the ghetto's residents, marked by their amputation from America's economic prosperity, national security, collective imagination and memory, and state services
is race a biological reality
There is more genetic variation within racial groups than between racial groups. Racial difference does not exist on the genetic level.
the suburbs
These communities are home to 8 million Americans. They are neither all affluent nor all white. The number of suburban poor has been on the rise and they are isolated from employment and social services.
pt 2
Those privileged enough to have regular Internet access are admitted into a parallel universe teeming with virtual associations and cyber communities. Since one's racial identity is oftentimes unknown online, many internet users have come to regard whiteness as the virtual norm, and several studies have documented the prevalence of racism in cyber communities.
race and family today
Though interracial marriage has increased over the years, it still accounts for only a small fraction of U.S. marriages. Both marriage and divorce rates fluctuate widely across racial groups, and observed dating patterns indicate that race is an important determinant of romantic preferences.
causes and consequences of segregation
Throughout the nineteenth century, whites and nonwhites lived relatively close together, interacting with one another on a daily basis, but the rise of industrialism brought thousands to live in crowded, dilapidated slums. As the twentieth century marched forward, prosperous European immigrant families were able to move out of the slums and assimilate into the white American mainstream. Meanwhile, those who wore the badge of otherness—the "racial uniform," in the words of American sociologist Robert Park—were forbidden by law and custom to live anywhere else.
disenfranchisement
To deprive a group or an individual of certain privileges. Practices, which often mirror, in a softer and shrewder form, techniques deployed by southern whites during the mid-twentieth century to deter voters and revoke voting rights among racial minorities, such as voter ID laws.
toward a rational assessment of crime
To think critically about crime and find effective ways of addressing it, it is important to: resist common assumptions and beliefs about issues of illegal behavior and punishment; rethink the essence of crime and evaluate why only some things that cause harm are outlawed; and evaluate and denaturalize the way crime is fought.
pt 2
Violent crime thrives in neighborhoods plagued by compounding structural disadvantages. Years of research have yielded the firm conclusion that social problems related to homicide are rooted in enduring systems of inequality.
Welfare and Affirmative Action
Welfare refers to government provisions intended to help disadvantaged people, including those who are poor, elderly, war veterans, unemployed, and disabled. America spends very little on welfare programs despite the fact that most Americans have benefited from welfare during some point in their lives. There are many unfounded stereotypes about welfare in the United States.
ethnic nationalism
When racial integration did not lead to liberation but only to more oppression for many nonwhites, racial segregation and complete independence from whites was the only answer. Ambassadors of ethnic nationalism resist cultural and social assimilation and instead champion self-determination, race pride, separatism, and, in some cases, the creation of an independent nation based on racial identity
labor market dynamics continued
When white workers went on strike, some companies found black workers to take over. This dynamic relies on a split labor market. In the split labor market, the business elite can employ racial division on behalf of worker exploitation.
Immigration from Asia and Europe
While encouraging immigration of laborers from China and other parts of Asia, the United States was denying them the right to naturalize. Defining citizenship eligibility led courts to construct Asians as "not white," resulting in the invention of the Asian American. Ethnicity emerged as a new concept. Social and cultural differences were seen as not fixed, while racial differences between whites, blacks, Mexicans, and Asians were seen as fixed.
The benefits of a multicultural learning environment
White and nonwhite students alike thrive in multicultural learning environments. Such environments prepare students to be engaged citizens and productive workers in a multicultural world.
labor market dynamics
White employment is double that of nonwhites. Social scientists have amassed data showing that qualified Hispanics and blacks seeking jobs are passed over for white applicants. Devah Pager found that whites convicted of selling drugs were more likely to land a job than were blacks with no criminal history.
Crime
White-collar crime is a category that includes hacking, fraud, tax evasion, and embezzlement. White-collar crime grosses about $300-660 billion each year in the United States. Violence against women is one of our nation's most pervasive crimes. Domestic abuse is one of America's most common forms of violence and one in five women are sexually assaulted in their lives. Poor women, women of color, and immigrant women are victimized at disproportionally high rates.
the power of the white gaze
Whites wield significant control over the arts; the majority of owners, curators, producers, directors, and scriptwriters are white. Therefore, whiteness guides both artists and critics as they decide what should be classified as "art" and what should not; nonwhite creations are often "discovered" by white critics who consider them art due to their perceived "exotic" characteristics.
pt 2
Your racial identity coincides with other aspects of yourself to produce a full, complex, intersectional identity. Race is marked through America's racial taxonomy, and made through hundreds of and thousands of everyday practices. Consequently, race is a performance predicated by our actions and beliefs. Racial transgression—when it does not merely rely on a shallow collection of stereotypes—can destabilize racial categories and unveil their social and performative essence, revealing the underlying truth that none of us are 100 percent anything.
Massey and Lundy: Use of Black English and Racial Discrimination in Urban Housing Markets
argue that racial discrimination in the housing market is still prominent today, especially amongst the black community due to vernacular In conclusion of their data, first, blacks experienced less access than whites do for units of rental housing; second, females in general experience less access than males; third, lower-class blacks (those speaking BEV) have less access than the middle-class blacks (those speaking BAE); and finally, race, gender, and class combined show a correlation in a nonadditive way for rental outcomes
The racist aesthetic
depicts people of color in negative ways. This includes cultural appropriation, mocking the vernacular of some black communities, or depicting nonwhites in stereotypical ways. It misrepresents racial domination as natural, easily fixed by a "white savior", or not existing at all.
Lin and Linquidst:Mate Selection in Cyberspace: The Intersection of Race, Gender, and Education
discovered that racial homophily dominates finding a potential mate for both men and women. A racial hierarchy emerges in the reciprocating process. Women respond only to men of similar or more dominant racial status, while non-black men respond to all but their own kind. Significantly, the authors discovered that being educated does not mediate the observed racial preferences among white men and white women the study finds that the racial hierarchy pattern does not manifest itself as a difference in desirability but as a difference in exclusivity in the dating market.
Eastman and Billings: Biased Voices of Sports: Racial & Gender Stereotyping in College Basketball Announcing: Reading Response
discuss how race and gender are affected by the press and how they contribute to stereotypes within the sports industry found that traditional prejudices about Black players and concomitant flattering of White players persist, despite changing times and an increased number of minority and women announcers. Also, gross exaggeration favors one or the other racial group are very rare and probably are outdated reflections of earlier times or are overstated in the literature. There were also findings about women basketball players and how they are treated as well (or as badly) by sports announcers as men basketball players. Surprisingly, hiring minority announcers somewhat helps diminish the impact of racially loaded speech coming from White announcers; no favoritism in race annoucning
model minority
ever since the nineteenth century, white America has regarded its Asian inhabitants as constituting a "model minority." That is, "more obedient and industrious" than other minorities.
1968 fair housing act
he last of the four great Civil Rights Acts but was weakly enforced. Some whites began to move out to the suburbs beginning in the 1950s. This "white flight" was encouraged with federal programs and increased with deindustrialization and with the Civil Rights Movement.
urban unrest
increased as racial segregation and degradation continued. Racial uprisings directly resulted in policies aimed at improving contitions in the ghetto and also resulted in increased police repression in the black community.
Interpersonal racism
racial domination manifest in our dispositions, interactions, and practices.
The antiracist aesthetic
seeks to confront American racial history honestly and address racial domination in life and in other art forms. It represents nonwhites as complex human beings, rather than a homogenous or stereotypical group.
the ghetto
set of neighborhoods that are exclusively inhabited by members of one group and a defining characteristic is advanced marginality and segregation of residents. In the United States, housing shortages and restrictions on loans for nonwhites led to the formation of ghettoes. These ghettoes reinforced racial inequality.
Loverman and Muniz: How Puerto Rico Became White: Boundary Dynamics and Intercensus Racial Reclassification
strive to find a solution to why the Puerto Rican population was growing increasingly whiter, specifically in the early 1900's suggest that Puerto Ricans became whiter due to the favoritism white people received, in order to receive those same benefits Puerto Ricans engaged in a social aspect called boundary crossing to properly assimilate themselves into the white population by adapting features that propelled them into white society. In the end, Loverman and Muniz found out that Puerto Rico whitened rapidly due to the shift in social definition of whiteness itself. Also, the area whitened within that time frame due to the precipitous rise in the perceived and actual costs of being seen by Americans as nonwhite.
Institutional racism
systemic white domination of people of color, embedded and operating in corporations, legal systems, political bodies, and other social collectives.
racial domination
the arrangement of racial life so that it serves to benefit certain racial groups at the expense of others. In our society, the dominants in the racial order are predominately whites, while the dominated in the racial order are predominately nonwhites.
intersectionality
the overlapping systems of advantages and disadvantages that affect people differently positioned in society. racial domination intersects with gender, class, sexuality, religion, and nation
Manifest Destiny
the prevalent attitude that the American expansion of the United States was destined to extend from coast to coast. The resulting movement toward western settlement led to the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) and the forced removal of Native Americans to acquire valuable tribal land.
symbolic violence
the process of people of color unknowingly accepting and supporting the terms of their own domination
Main topic: Neighborhoods
the rise of racialized neighborhoods was due to urbanization, housing shortages, the migration of whites to the suburbs, and urban unrest. Most Americans continue to live in racially segregated neighborhoods. Poverty levels, unemployment rates, and demographic changes have transformed the suburbs since the 1990s. Environmental racism disadvantages nonwhite rural communities, particularly those on American Indian reservations.
The white aesthetic
treats the white body and white experience as normal. Nonwhite people and communities are not included, whether as characters on television shows or models on the runway. The white aesthetic enforces the idea that nonwhites are less attractive. As a result, many nonwhite children have a preference for white skin and cosmetic surgery to make nonwhite people look white is common. Art that fails to include nonwhites does not acknowledge the problems facing nonwhite communities and individuals.
