Anthropology Chapter 5

Biologically, we can categorize humans based on skin color and hair texture, both of which are common "markers" of what we also call "race" or "racial difference." But the biological basis for comparison can include some real surprises, including that of

earwax type

individual racism

hate crimes, acting on racial stereotypes

racial ideology

A set of popular ideas about race that allows the discriminatory behaviors of individuals and institutions to seem reasonable, rational, and normal

eugenics

A pseudoscience attempting to scientifically prove the existence of separate human races to improve the population's genetic composition by favoring some races over others

What percentage of DNA do all humans share in common?

99.9 percent

whiteness

A culturally constructed concept originating in 1691 Virginia designed to establish clear boundaries of who is white and who is not, a process central to the formation of U.S. racial stratification

miscegenation

A demeaning historical term for interracial marriage

race

A flawed system of classification, with no biological basis, that uses certain physical characteristics to divide the human population into supposedly discrete groups

intersectionality

An analytic framework for assessing how factors such as race, gender, and class interact to shape individual life chances and societal patterns of stratification

racism

Individual thoughts and actions and institutional patterns and policies that create unequal access to power, privilege, resources, and opportunities based on imagined differences among groups

Laws implemented to legally enforce racial segregation in the American South after the Civil War were known as _____________.

Jim Crow laws

Jim Crow

Laws implemented after the U.S. Civil War to legally enforce segregation, particularly in the South, after the end of slavery

Which particular institutional laws seek to prevent interracial marriage?

Miscegenation

institutional racism

Patterns by which racial inequality is structured through key cultural institutions, policies, and systems

individual racism

Personal prejudiced beliefs and discriminatory actions based on race

Since there is no biological basis for race, we can argue which of the following?

Race must be based on ideas and observations separate from biology.

hypodescent

Sometimes called the "one drop of blood rule"; the assignment of children of racially "mixed" unions to the subordinate group

white supremacy

The belief that whites are biologically different from and superior to people of other races

nativism

The favoring of certain long-term inhabitants over new immigrants

genotype

The inherited genetic factors that provide the framework for an organism's physical form

colonialism

The practice by which a nation-state extends political, economic, and military power beyond its own borders over an extended period of time to secure access to raw materials, cheap labor, and markets in other countries or regions

racialization

The process of categorizing, differentiating, and attributing a particular racial character to a person or group of people

phenotype

The way genes are expressed in an organism's physical form as a result of genotype interaction with environmental factors.

The "invisible knapsack" refers to

a set of unearned advantages that white people retain in contemporary society

Which of the following racial terms might be used to describe individuals from Brazil?

cinnamon

When we extend our "family tree" of humanness back about one hundred thousand years, which archaeologists suggest is about the time that has elapsed since the small bands of humans migrated out of Africa, we can see that the exchange of genetic material has occurred billions of times. This deep gene pool suggests that

clear and absolute genetic lines that distinguish us as racial populations do not exist.

The city of Anytown has proposed to locate a new town dump close to a neighborhood with a high percentage of minority residents. The residents are upset by this, and wish to stop the dump. One common way that they might accomplish their goal would be to complain to the local government and write letters and make phone calls. The other approach that can be as effective would be

create a community group to express their concerns to decision-makers

president Barack Obama has a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya. His race is commonly described as African American, or black. This is most closely an example of which term from the text?

hypodescent

Whiteness is privileged in the United States in a number of places, including employment and employment rates, sentencing of criminals and college enrollments. Each of these provides visible, and often very tangible evidence of how racism pervades life in the United States. We might be more surprised to discover that whiteness is also privileged through

infant mortality

Jim Crow laws, unequal educational access for certain racial groups

institutional racism

The primary danger in suggesting that the biological concept for races does not exist is that

it may lead us to the mistaken conclusion that race does not exist when in fact race has very real consequences.

The basis of much of racist attitude involves the characteristics of others that can be seen by the naked eye. What we can see includes the _______ of the individual.

phenotype

Race is not always a simple matter of skin color. In the nineteenth century, violence and riots were directed at Irish immigrants, as those rioting practiced what we now call nativism. Such efforts are directed toward policies that

provide more social services to native-born citizens than to immigrants

Early European settlers to North America believed themselves to be intellectually superior to Native Americans, and thus destined to rule them. This is an example of

racial ideology

popular belief in the idea that one race is meant to rule another, belief that all members of one race are better athletes than others

racial ideology

"Middle Easterners" is a categorization that arose in popular American discourse after 9/11/2001. The creation of this categorization, while a reaction to the actions of the terrorists and means of many people to cope with the magnitude of the attack and the subsequent losses, is also a form of

racialization

Which of the following refers broadly to actions and policies that use imagined differences between human groups to justify unequal access to power, resources, and opportunities?

racism

Examples of institutional racism can be found in housing, health, employment, education and law. We can also define institutional racism as _________ within a society.

structural racism

Eugenics is a pseudoscience that arose in the late 1800s and maintained popularity in the early 1900s. It was an attempt to "measure" attributes such as intelligence in a way that proved the superiority of some races over others. What event was an outcome of eugenic practice?

the Holocaust

The spread of colonialism brought with it suffering and a wide range of how we categorize and misunderstand those who are different from us. Racism, while not created from colonialism, was afforded a huge "toehold" in the lives of those who gained from colonialism directly. However, colonialism also brought into play

the control of one country over another.

The belief that whites are genetically different from, and intellectually superior to, other races is known as

white supremacy