Sociology Exam 3 - Chapter 8
"Racial profiling," "subprime loans," and "dining while Black"
new phrases which demonstrate our continued obsession and problems associated with difference and solidify the idea that each of us experiences the world from our own position within the matrix (Goyette and Scheller 2016)
Miscegenation
the mixing of different racial groups
Racial caste system
a permanent hierarchy based on race that developed in Spanish America
Changing Demographics:
- Close to 60 million immigrants have arrived in the United States over the past 50 years. - In 2016, nearly 14% of U.S. residents were foreign-born, most hailing from Latin America and Asia. (Cohn and Caumont 2016) - The U.S. population is projected to grow from 422 million to 458 million in the next 40 years. - During this period, as the baby boomers age, our nation will also become slightly older; the proportion of the population made up of people age 65 and older will increase from 13% to about 20%. - During this same period, total births will reach their highest level, with an estimated 4.3 million births. - Much of this increase will be due to recent immigrants, who average higher fertility rates than the general population. - The proportion of the population ages 15 to 64 is also expected to increase by 42%. (Kotkin 2010) - These demographic changes will have significant impacts on most of our institutions. - The 2016 electorate was the most diverse in U.S. history, and it was the increasing growth in the numbers of racial minority voters that gave Barack Obama victories in both 2008 and 2012. - While younger voters are becoming increasingly diverse, one of the fastest-growing voting groups consists of the older Americans of the baby boomer generation. - Donald Trump's 2016 election victory was a result of these older voters supporting him with 53% of their votes. (Tyson and Maniam 2016) - In 2014, for the first time, the number of Latinos, African Americans, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans combined exceeded the number of Whites in public grade school classrooms (Williams 2014). - Non-Hispanic Whites are currently in the minority in the populations of four states: California (61% minority population), Hawaii (77% minority), New Mexico (61% minority), and Texas (56% minority). - Nevada (48.5% minority), Maryland (47.4% minority), and Georgia (45% minority) are not that far behind. (Maciag 2015) - Since 2000, 78 counties in 19 U.S. states became majority-minority; of these, 14 had been at least 60% White. - The most diverse counties are concentrated in California, in the South, and on the East Coast. - In 19 of the 25 largest U.S. counties (measured by population), Whites made up less than half of the population. - Six of these that were majority White in 2000 are no longer so. These are San Diego, Orange, Riverside, and Sacramento Counties in California; Clark County in Nevada; and Broward County in Florida. (Krogstad 2015) * As these demographic changes take place, they will have impacts on everything from work and the economy to family structures to who serves in the military. Media and other forms of entertainment will also be affected. Some impacts are even now becoming apparent.
Spanish Colonialism (1492)
- Despite the fact that the land Columbus named "Hispana" was home to a significant population, Columbus declared it "terra nullius" (empty land), revealing much about how explorers and, later, colonists saw themselves in relation to others and the world around them Constructing a Racial Ideology - The Spanish encountered a significantly different people with specific cultural, political, and gender systems. - Native American gender systems varied across tribal groups, but gender relations in some groups were both egalitarian and nonexclusive, with women being able to own property and serving as ritual leaders and organizers of subsistence work. - By 1570, the Spanish colonies were utilizing two racial distinctions: 1. Spanish-born or -descended: This group consisted of those born in either Spain or the colonies and included both those of mixed heritage and those considered to be "purebloods." 2. Native-born or -descended: This group consisted of all Native Americans, who were considered vassals of the king. - Each of these groups had different rights, obligations, and privileges. Natives were obliged to provide labor for both government and private enterprises deemed vital to colonial interests and to pay special poll taxes or tributes. - The Catholic Church used purity certifications to impose barriers on some Spaniards who sought to immigrate to the Americans. The Church went on to use these same purity levels to label both Africans and Native Americans as "New Christians" and mark both as "impure." - Grounded in vague notions of purity and supposed biological differences, these rules would later become the basis for the racial caste system and reveal the centrality of gender relations to the construction of culture and race. - The bodies and wombs of White women were considered sacred, as they were the only source of future generations of Whites. - European men, on the other hand, maintained for themselves access to all women's bodies. - Ultimately, this racial caste system would be linked to the social and economic hierarchies that exist today in Latin American countries in what scholars refer to as pigmentocracies. The Slave System - The Spanish colonies were considered lenient with regard to racial classification for multiple reasons: 1. The colonial laws accorded protections to Native Americans and to slaves. 2. Slaves' rights were protected by both judicial and ecclesiastical authority. 3. Spanish slave laws were derived from Roman legal traditions. 4. Manumission (the freeing of slaves) did not require prior approval from the crown. 5. Slaves could purchase their own freedom. 6. Slaves had legal recourse through the Spanish courts, even for grievances against their masters. - The supply of Native American labor in the Spanish colonies was decimated by continual warfare, disease, and sheer overwork. - Under the licensing system established by King Ferdinand in 1513, an estimated 75,000 to 90,000 African slaves were sent to Spanish America by 1600. This figure would more than triple by the end of the 17th century, accounting for approximately 350,000 enslaved Africans. - With these massive increases in the labor force, the Spanish colonies shifted to plantation economies, which also fundamentally altered Spanish slavery. - Blacks began to outnumber Whites by an estimated ratio of 10 to 1 by the early to mid-16th century. - Many of the medieval slave protections were stripped away, and Spanish officials' worst nightmares were realized as slave insurrections repeatedly threatened one colonial settlement after another.
French Colonialism (1534)
- New France, the first site colonized by France in North America, was created by the 1534 expedition headed by Jacques Cartier along the Saint Lawrence River in what is now Quebec. - The French sought gold along the Saint Lawrence River but settled for fishing and fur trading instead. - It was along the Saint Lawrence River in 1608 that Quebec was established at the first French colony. - The French attempted to colonize a large chunk of the Americas with an extremely small and mostly male colonial force. The fact that the Frenchmen were outnumbered and unable to establish cultural dominance and stable communities helps to explain their eventual failures. - French colonial expansion into the Americas was seen more as a business venture, and profits were seen as more important than colonial development. - Initially, the primary goal of these ventures was the Christianization of the natives, but it was not until after the first successful settlements were established that this royal rhetoric was given serious consideration. - The thrust of efforts, inspired by the fur trade, provided the motivation to integrate the indigenous population into the French colonial policy, as governors and foreign missionaries were determined to save the "savages." Labor Crisis and Slavery -After the French discovered that the Natives could not provide sufficient labor, labor crises emerged in the French colonies as labor needs expanded with the expansion of plantations and the economy. - On May 1, 1689, King Louis XIV gave royal approval for the trade and use of Africans as slaves. - Twenty years later, in 1709, slavery was declared legal in New France. - The first groups of imported slaves came from both France and Africa between 1717 and 1720. - The group from France consisted of more than 1,400 White men and women who had been convicted as thieves and deported to New France. Riots by these French slaves caused a sudden halt to this form of slavery. - Africans ultimately came to fill the labor needs of New France, particularly in Louisiana where tobacco and sugar production flourished. During this period, close to 4,000 Africans were forcefully brought to the colony. - France's Colonial Ordinance of 1864, also known as the Black Code, legislated the life, death, purchase, marriage, and religion of slaves, as well as the treatment of slaves by their masters. Left-Handed Marriages and Placage - Within these frontier situations, "social relations were more fluid and social hierarchies less established than they would become with the entrenchment of plantation agriculture" (Spear 2003). - Under these circumstances, a strange norm developed whereby men often formed alliances with Creole women in what were termed "left-handed marriages" - or marriages that were temporary in nature that often resulted in children who served as interpreters and mediators. - These relationships were equivalent to common-law marriages; however, the women were not legally recognized as wives. Among free people of color, these social arrangements were referred to as placage. - Placage flourished throughout the French and Spanish colonies, and such relationships were celebrated as part of high society in New Orleans during what became known as the city's "quadron balls." - Quadron balls provided a carnival atmosphere where elite White males could make their selections from a collection of light-skinned free women of color. Women selected were accorded a household, typically with servants, where her status was slightly less than that of a wife and greater than that of a concubine. - Placage therefore constituted a socially sanctioned form of miscegenation, or the mixing of different racial groups, often lasting even after the man was legally married to a White woman. - While technically free, women involved in placage were both economically and socially dependent on their sexual objectification, availability, attractiveness, and ability to satisfy the fantasies of elite White men. - Eventually, the large number of free people of color and their relationships to others of mixed heritage caused the Louisiana Supreme Court to declare all such mixed-race people to be free, giving them greater access to education and wealth, both of which were used to become advocates for racial reform and freedom.
The Earliest Americans:
- The Native Americans who inhabited the Americas prior to the arrival of Columbus in 1492 were Asian immigrants who arrived more than 20,000 years ago. - There is a good chance that they came via two different routes: 1. People on foot, traversing the glacial land bridge between Siberia and Alaska, were mostly hunters and gatherers who followed the mastodon and long-horned bison, and might have been responsible for their eventual extinction. 2. Fishers and hunters utilizing boats from the Pacific Islands allowed the currents to guide them to these shores. - Many of the early native American communities were urban, with populations reaching the tens of thousands. - Archaeologists and anthropologists have identified several towns, with temples and evidence of a priestly class, along with nobles, merchants, and artisans, demonstrating highly stratified, hierarchical, and technologically sophisticated civilizations.
British Colonialism (1587)
- The Plymouth Company's Mayflower reached the New World in 1820, where the ship's passengers established Plymouth, Massachusetts. - These settlers shared the European rationalization for imperial expansion by declaring the indigenous peoples barbaric - and saving these pagans via Christian civilization was the goal. Building a Tradition of Slavery - The first non_native slaves were poor whites primarily from Ireland. These slaves began arriving in New England in the early 1600s. Upwards of 50,000 Irish people, mostly women and children, were forcibly deported to the Americas. - Harsh treatment, hostility, and degradation led Irish and Black slaves to engage frequently in collaborative rebellions. - The first Blacks entered Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619 as indentured servants; by 1661 they were legislated servants for life. - The Virginia Law (1662) was a revised statute linking slavery to maternity by declaring that all children would be free or enslaved according to the status of their mothers. This was a significant departure from previous British laws, which traced the status of children to their fathers. - The lucrative commerce in Native American slaves commenced among the English with the founding of Carolina in 1670 and lasted through 1717. - What emerged was a distinct racial hierarchy in which male European landowners dominated both Native American and African Slaves. - The English manipulated the ethnic conflicts among the various Native Americans, encouraging them to avoid slavery by enslaving their adversaries and selling them to the English for trifles of cloth, beads, and guns. * This new racial system finally gave birth to racial classification and defined race relations throughout the nation until the dawn of the Civil War. These new laws and hierarchies were motivated by attempts to divide those who otherwise might be inclined to join together in revolt. Slave Rebellions: Voices of Resistance - Slave rebellions represented a continual and persistent source of both strain and stress for the White planter class. The response was the continual evolution of racial hierarchies buttressed by laws, sanctions, and privileges that pervaded the entire colonial structure. - The first significant slave rebellion occurred in Gloucester County, Virginia, in 1663. This conspiracy included both White indentured servants and slaves and aimed to overthrow White masters. The plot was exposed by an informant, resulting in the execution of several of the plotters and the passage of a series of laws that began to emphasize the ineradicable distinctions between slave masters and slaves.
European Settlements and Population Dynamics:
European settlements and population dynamics varied considerably both across different European groups and compared with those established by Native Americans. - Pre-Columbian population estimates suggest that the Native Americans were generally distributed throughout the Americas, with most occupying the areas that are now Mexico and Central America (47%), followed by South America (35%) and the Caribbean (10%). - The first groups of colonizers, the Spanish and Portuguese, settled in the most densely populated areas. - Later colonizing efforts by both the French and the English created settlements in the less densely populated areas primarily in North America and Canada. * Such dynamics produced very different sets of opportunities and issues for both the colonizers and the colonized.
Turner Thesis
Frederick J. Turner's argument, developed in 1893, that the American identity, which included democratic governance, rugged individualism, innovative thinking, and egalitarian viewpoints, was forged in the American frontier experience; was the predominant stock story - or the "official" narrative - for 70 years before the nondominant counternarratives were heard again; these counternarratives rejected the idea of a frontier and all of its presumptions; rather than a blank slate of free land that was just waiting to be settled, developed, and occupied, the "frontier" was made up of sovereign lands controlled by other nations and protected by treaties
Geographics of Early America:
In the Northeast, the Iroquois and the Algonquin, two major language and cultural groups, occupied a region now known as the Northeastern Woodlands. - The Algonquin controlled two major areas, one encompassing the Great Lakes and the other near the Atlantic Ocean. - Several tribes constituted the Algonquin: the Wampanoag were the first tribe in this region encountered by the Europeans; the Illini and the Potawatomi occupied the Illinois region. - The League of the Iroquois, formed as early as 1090, comprised five tribes who lived in the areas today known as New York State and the Southeastern Woodlands. - The largest groups in the League of the Iroquois were the Cherokee, the Chickasaw, and the Creek. - The southern regions were dominated by the Natchez, Biloxi, and Seminole - known as the Mound Builders.
Three Primary Lenses of Colonialism:
We can view colonialism through three primary lenses: 1. As a structure of domination subjugating one group of people to another across political entities 2. As "internal" or "domestic" colonialism, a similar structure occurring within a given nation-state, typically against socially marked groups 3. As a "colonialism of the mind," wherein the colonized are institutionally, pedagogically, linguistically, and cognitively conquered by the colonizer
Colonialism
a set of hierarchical relationships in which groups are defined culturally, ethnically, and/or racialls, and these relationships serve to guarantee the political, social, and economic interests of the dominant group; under the guise of advancing the "kingdom of God," the Spanish, French, and English pursuit of colonies was more closely aligned with greed and fame; the structures, ideologies, and actions that form patterns of colonialism shape groups' interrelated experiences in profound ways - the realities behind colonialism are complex, and usually structurally and culturally catastrophic for the colonized
Colonial Ordinance of 1685 ("Black Code")
a set of laws governing slaves and Blacks in New France; legislated the life, death, purchase, marriage, and religion of slaves, as well as the treatment of slaves by their masters; formally required all slaves to be baptized and educated in the Catholic faith and prohibited masters from forcing slaves to work on Sundays and religious holidays; required masters to provide slaves with food, shelter, and clothing, and with care when sick; held that slaves could not own property or have any legal recourse; further established when slaves could marry, where they could be buried, what punishments could be meted out to them, and under what conditions that could be freed; these laws were an attempt to curtail the sexual and moral problems generated by frontier society, which tended to blur the lines between groups with differing status; prohibited Whites, as well as free Blacks, from having sexual relationships with slaves; any children born of such unions were to become wards of the state and held in perpetual slavery; in other words, a slave's status could not be altered based on marriage, and the child of a slave would become a slave; in legalizing the status of the slave, the code created a firm border between slaves and free persons; the only loophole applied to any existing sexual relationships between free Black men and Black women who were slaves - any children born of these unions would be rendered legitimate and free
Left-handed marriages
a strange norm developed in New France whereby french men often formed alliances with Creole women in marriage; these marriages, temporary in nature, often resulted in children who served as interpreters and mediators
Quadron Balls
balls which provided a carnival atmosphere where elite White males could make their selections from a collection of light-skinned free women of color; women selected were accorded a household, typically with servants, where her status was slightly less than that of a wife and greater than that of a concubine; "quadron" literally means one-quarter Black
Settler colonies
colonies distinguished by the colonizing nation's control of political, economic, social, and cultural mechanisms in the colonies, which creates a colonial elite; the colonies that developed within the Americas are best classified as settler colonies; the European elite who migrated to the settler colonies in the Americas were intent on settlement, creation of a self-sustaining independent political/economic system, and domination of both geography and indigenous populations
Difference between Americans Today and Americans Living in Previous Periods:
compared to Americans living in previous periods, Americans today are generally more fashion conscious, upbeat, diverse, liberal, confident, self-expressive, and open to change (Taylor and Keeter 2010); Latinos are quickly emerging as a population that is significantly altering what it means to be American, and college enrollment among Hispanics is now the largest and fastest growing of all student groups (Fry 2011)
Effect of Hurricane Katrina
in 2005, the deadly force of Hurricane Katrina revealed the ugly underbelly of race, class, and gender as thousands of New Orleans residents were displaced - the largest internal displacement in American History (Kromm and Sturgis 2008)
Institutions
institutions exert a considerable amount of power within a society; most of our daily activities are governed by these institutions, and it would be difficult to identify any regular activities or societal functions that are not involved in some way or another with institutions; institutions not only regulate racial groups but also differentially reward them; in this way, institutions become the vehicles by which racial structures and processes are reproduced and the sites through which marginalized groups can transform the system
Impact of the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks
the United States has been experiencing a particularly turbulent period since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that resulted in the deaths of more than 3,000 people; this single event has fundamentally altered the experiences of everyone in this country and in the world; during this period we have also witnessed four separate wars, as well as countless other military operations from Haiti to Libya, Afghanistan to Iraq - many of them rooted in notions of "the Other" and difference
Lost Boys of Sudan
the almost 20,000 Sudanese boys uprooted because of civil war over the past three decades; of these, about 4,000 came to the United States and settled in areas such as Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, San Diego, Seattle, and Tuscon; joined millions of immigrants who have come to the United States seeking peace, justice, freedom, and the American Dream; their story has defined the racial matrix, created intersectionality, and set us on the path that we continue to walk to this day
Gender gap
the difference between the wages of women and those of men in the same groups; not as great for minority women as the gap for White non-Hispanic women; among all groups, Hispanic women, followed by African American women, have the largest earning gap when compared to White men (54% and 63%, respectively); these gaps increase with age: median earnings of women ages 16-19 are 89% of the earnings of their male counterparts, compared to 74% for those 65 and older; among educated women, Asian Americans lead all other women in median annual earnings regardless of education
Genocide
the large-scale, systematic destruction of a people or nation; during the past few decades, ethnic violence has erupted into genocide among the Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda and among the Serbs, Croats, and Muslims in Bosnia
Bacon's Rebellion of 1676
the most significant challenge to the class structure of New England; Black, Irish, scottish, and English bond servants were pitted against a small group of planter elites; Bacon found himself and his group facing the issue of the increasing use of Africans as bonded labor forcing a large number of White laborers out of their positions; while members of the planter class were gaining land grants with each new allotment of workers, no such provisions were being made for those displaced by the increasing numbers of cheaper laborers; crop failures in 1676 fueled the fire and the revolt became a mass rebellion of bond servants who aimed to level the government and the entire class structure; more than 6,000 European Americans and 2,000 African Americans marched to West Point and took over the garrisons and military arsenal, forcing the military governor to flee and effectively shutting down tobacco production for the next 14 months; the elite response to Bacon's Rebellion was to create new identities of color and race to usurp divisions of class and status; the rebellion threatened the very heart of the British colonial system by challenging the power of the Anglo-American slave-owning planter elite; the planter class responded by solidifying slavery into a racial caste system, creating Whiteness in the process
Placage
the term used among free people of color to describe the social relationship - or left-hand marriages - between French men and Creole women; while such relationships were equivalent to common-law marriages, the women were not legally recognized as wives
Triple glass ceiling
three-pronged workplace discrimination based on race, gender, and class; women currently make up only about 4% of CEOs in Fortune 500 firms, and Asians, Hispanics, and Blacks account for slightly less than 1%; wage disparities affect all women, but Hispanic, African American, American Indian, Native Hawaiian, and other native women are the lowest paid
Frontiers and borderlands
under the guise of protecting the interests of weaker states, the Europeans placed the Native Americans and their lands into "protectorate" relationships in which the stronger European nations took on the responsibility of protectors; these "protected" spaces became universally known as the frontiers or borderlands; this designation provided convenient camouflage for the more aggressive actions of the various European colonial systems; provided the European colonies with three important benefits: 1. They created the illusion of Native American national sovereignty. 2. They served as an outlet or safety valve for excess and displaced colonial labor and capital accumulation. 3. They served as spaces where the European powers could wage imperialistic wars against each other. These wars, in which the Europeans typically encouraged or manipulated Native American tribal differences, can be viewed as proxy wars. * The idea of borderlands helps clarify how the three European colonial powers constructed race and space as conflicting rivalries. These conflicting rivalries not only shaped our nation but also started us on our troubled path toward a racial state.
Racial violence
violence that pits one racial group against another; has occurred around the world, including in places like Australia, India, Belgium, France, and the United Kingdom