Race and Ethnicity Chapter 1 Terms

Individual Discrimination

Discriminatory actions taken by individuals against a member or members of a subordinate group. Not hiring people because they are black is an example of this.

Color Consciousness

Recognition of race and difference rather than the pretense that we don't see them; this allows us to celebrate difference without implying difference is equivalent to inferiority.

Prejudice

A belief that is not based upon evidence but instead upon preconceived notions and stereotypes that are not subject to change even when confronted with contrary evidence.

Sociological Imagination

A concept introduced by sociologist C. Wright Mills to help us understand the ways history, society, and biography intersect; in other words, this is a perspective that encourages us to understand our lives as historically and culturally situated.

Ethnicity

A group of people who share a culture, nationality, ancestry, and/or language; physical appearance is not associated with ethnicity.

White Space

A racialized space that is not just a place where people of color are perceived as intruders and unwelcome but also an institutional space where white privilege is reproduced.

People of Color

A term used to collectively refer to racial/ethnic minority groups who have been the object of racism and discrimination in the United States. It is preferable to using the term nonwhite, since nonwhite reinforces white as the norm against which all other groups are defined.

Institutional Racism

A type of racism that is harder to identify than individual discrimination because it is found not in individual actions but in everyday business practices and policies that disadvantage minorities and offer advantages to dominant group members; it is often written off as "just the way things are."

Racism

Any actions, attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors, whether intentional or unintentional, that threaten, harm, or disadvantage members of one racial/ethnic group, or the group itself, over another.

Racial Ideologies

Cultural belief systems surrounding race; they have changed over time, generally as a way to meet the needs of the dominant group in a particular era or in response to changing social conditions.

Racial Identity

Our sense of who we are in racial terms; identities are both internally ascribed and externally imposed.

color-blind ideology

Racial ideology that has dominated US culture throughout the post-civil rights era; includes the ideas that we don't see race, that racism is a thing of the past, and that if racial inequality still exists, it must be due to other factors, such as culture or personal ineptitude.

Racialized Space

Space generally regarded as reserved for one race and not another; most often, it is a space where whites feel comfortable and people of color do not feel welcome.

Race

Specifically refers to a group of people who share some socially defined physical characteristics, for instance, skin color, hair texture, or facial features.

Race Privilege

The advantages associated with being a member of a society's dominant race.

Racial Order

The collection of beliefs, suppositions, rules, and practices that shape the way groups are arranged in a society; generally, it is a hierarchical categorization of people along the lines of certain physical characteristics, such as skin color, hair texture, and facial features.

Social Construction

To say something is this is to emphasize that it has been created by society, rather than having a biological reality

Cultural Norms

Unquestioned practices or beliefs that guide our behaviors and are taken for granted.

Internalized Racism

When members of a subordinate group believe what the dominant group says about them; they internalize negative messages about their racial group and see themselves and their racial group negatively.