Chapter 8 "Race and Ethnicity as Lived Experience"

Institutional Discrimination

-Discrimination carried out systematically by institutions (political, economic, educational, and others) that affect all members of a group who come into contact with it. -More widespread and systematic.

Defining Race and Ethnicity

-Race and ethnicity do not refer to the same thing -The idea of different races belonging to distinguishable categories have existed for a long time.

What is a Minority Group?

-Sociologists define a minority group as people who are recognized as belonging to a social category (either racial or ethnic group) and who suffer from unequal treatment as a result of that status. -minority groups are denied the access to power and resources that are generally accorded to others in the dominant groups. -it possible to be a majority numerically but still have a minority status. -membership in a minority group may serve as a kind of "master status," overriding any other status, such as gender or age. They suffer a range of disadvantages.

White Privilege

-The idea that one group (whites) in a society enjoys unearned advantages not available to others (nonwhites) and that group members (whites) are largely unaware of the unequal benefits they possess. -Because privilege is often invisible to the privileged, it can blind them to the challenges faced my members of non-privileged groups.

Types of races and facts.

-races: Negroid, Mongoloid, and Caucasoid -There are no "pure" races -There are no such thing as superior races -Race is not the reason different groups might display positive or negative characteristics. -There exist greater genetic diversity within racial populations than between them. -The physical differences we see between groups such as skin color or hair texture are due to geographic adaptations. -There is not enough "wiggle room" in the genome for race to be a genetic trait. (only 0.1% sets us apart from every other human)

One Drop Rule

-the one drop rule is a way of defining any person with just one drop of blood from African ancestry as black -This rule was used a justification for slavery and denying rights during much of the nineteenth century

Ta-Nehisi Coates

A social commentator whose award winning seller "Between the world and me" speaks powerfully about racism and discrimination in American society, drawing heavily from personal experience. it is a letter to his 15 year old son which describes how their black bodies have always been at risk of destruction. He wants to inspire his son to learn about his heritage.

Race

A socially defined category based on real or perceived biological differences between groups of people. -Race is more important to us on a social level than is on a biological level.

Symbolic Ethnicity

A way of displaying group membership. Symbolic ethnicity is an ethnic identity that is only relevant on specific occasions and does not significantly impact everyday life. -Enactments of ethnic identity that occur only on special occasion. (eg. Irish parades on St. Patrick's Day).

Affirmative Action

Affirmative action is a particularly contentious area and one about which claims of reverse racism has been made. -Affirmative action policies, programs, and practices were established to help create opportunities for underrepresented minorities in housing, education, employment. -opposition to use in college admission -While some opponents see affirmative action as giving one group of people unfair preferential treatment over others, proponents of social justice argue that these kinds of programs are necessary for creating a more level playing field in the United States.

Situational Ethnicity

An ethnic identity that can be either displayed or concealed depending on its usefulness in a given situation. -It is when we deliberately assert our ethnicity in some cases while downplaying it in others. -Situational ethnicity involves a kind of cost-benefit analysis that symbolic ethnicity does not.

Structural Functionalism (Understanding Race)

Functionalism has proven less successful in explaining the persistence of racial divisions and why other races and ethnicities have continued to maintain their distinct identities alongside the white majority culture today. -What functionalism can best offer is an explanation of how prejudice and discrimination develop by focusing on social solidarity and group cohesion.

Tomas Almaguer (Conflict Theory)

In his book "Racial Fault Lines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California" (2008) he looks at the history of race relations in California during the late nineteenth century. He describes a racial hierarchy that placed whites at the top. Rather than focusing exclusively on class he examines how white supremacist ideology became institutionalized. Racist beliefs became a part of political and economic lie during that period.

How do we display our racial and ethnic group membership?

Through dress, language, food, and religious practices; through preferences in music, art, or literature; even through the projects we find interesting and the topics we pursue at school. -symbolic ethnicity - situational ethnicity

Double-Consciousness

W.E.B. DuBois's term for the divided identity experienced by blacks in the United States. -DuBois asked whether one could be black and at the same time claim one's right as an American

Internalized Racism

When members of a minority group members are prejudiced against themselves or their own group.

Conflict Theory (Understanding Race)

William Julius Wilson (1980) posited that openly racist government policies and individual racist attitudes were the driving forces behind the creation of a black underclass but that the underclass is now perpetuated by economic factors not racial ones.

Racism

a set of beliefs about the superiority of one racial or ethnic group; used to justify inequality and often rooted in the assumption that differences between groups are genetic -Racism is woven in the fabric of American society, from its historical roots to the present day. It is part of our national legacy and still persists within our social institutions. -Racism is still very much alive and 42 percent of Americans said they worry a "great deal" about race relation in United States (Gallup 2017)

Ethnicity

a socially defined category based on common language, religion, nationality, history, or another cultural factor -The Scottish Irish, for instance, are a distinct ethnic group in American society, linked by a common cultural heritage that includes language, religion, and history -After World War II the importance of ethnic identity declined and skin color became the main way to differentiate who was white and was not.

Prejudice

an idea about the characteristics of a group that is applied to all members of that group and is unlikely to change regardless of the evidence against it. -literally a "prejudgment" and is an inflexible attitude about a particular group of people that is rooted in generalizations or stereotypes. -Prejudices ideas dont always flow from the dominant groups toward the minorities. -Prejudiced ideas circulate through culture making them hard to avoid, even for those who would wish not to have them. -Prejudice often leads to discrimination.

Race Consciousness

an ideology that acknowledges race as a powerful social construct that shapes our individual and social experiences. -A race conscious approach recognized that despite the civil rights gains of the last hundred years, race is still a powerful factor in shaping our everyday lives in the world we live in. -recognize current social inequalities.

Color-Blind Racism

an ideology that removes race as an explanation for any form of unequal treatment -implies race should be invisible and inconsequential -Eduardo Bonilla Silva claims that color blindness is just a new form of racism.

Public Sociology

bringing legal and scholarly works with frontline involvement in solutions to the real-world problems of racial and gender oppression.

Individual Discrimination

discrimination carried out by one person against another. occurs when one person treats others unfairly because of their race or ethnicity.

Non-mainstream people

neither situational nor symbolic ethnicity is available to those who are visibly non-mainstream, whatever that may look like in a given society.

Passing

presenting yourself as a member of a different group than the stigmatized group you belong to (light skinned African American trying to pass as white). -involves manufacturing or maintaining a new identity that is more beneficial than one's real identity. -One prominent example is how black masculinity makes demands om black men that include a public persona of heterosexuality. Black men have to pass as heterosexual no matter their sexual preference.

Minority Group

social group that is systematically denied the same access to power and resources available to society's dominant groups though they are not necessarily fewer in number than the dominant groups

Byron Burkhalter

talks about the "racially relevant" content and language that can mark a person's ethnicity or race through disembodied mediums- for example. referring to other African Americans women as "sisters". Responses also help establish racial identity. -We can't always tells a person's race by looking at them. -In face-to-face interactions, seeing racial characteristics leads to stereotyping; inline, applying stereotypical templates leads to assumptions about race.

Cultural Appropriation

the adoption of cultural elements belonging to an oppressed group by members of the dominant group, without permission and often for the dominant group's gain. Sometimes, cultural appropriation is just insensitive. It can hurt the members of an aggrieved group, who may feel wronged, insulted, and offended. -it can have a broader effect and serve to perpetuate negative stereotypes, exacerbate interracial relations and further entrench social inequalities. -cultural appropriation most often benefits te dominant group, which takes an oppressed group's cultural symbols and turns them into a commodity for profit.

Critical Race Theory

the study of the relationship between race, racism, and power. -They believe that racism permeates our social institutions, especially our judicial system, and must be recognized and addressed as such. -One feature is that it is a focus on intersectionality, or takin into account how race is also modified by class, gender, sexuality, and other social statuses. -Critical race theory encourages the inclusion of narratives from a multitude of intersecting voices and viewpoints. -Another feature is its commitment to challenging racist laws and policies and to engage in a kind of activism that not only critiques the status quo but also is intended to push forward and agenda for social justice.

Embodied Identity

those elements of identity that are generated through others' perceptions of our physical traits; has been used as basis for discrimination. In a digital age does race disappear when more and more interactions take place exclusively online? This has been touted as one of the more democratizing traits of the Internet.

Privilege

unearned advantage accorded to members of dominant social groups (males, whites, heterosexuals, the physically able, etc.) -In a stratified society one may have privilege due to class, gender, race, sexuality, or other factors. Contributors: W.E.B. DuBois (1903) and Peggy McIntosh (1988) -Privilege can include a wide range of advantages experienced in our large social institutions as well as in our small day to day interactions.

Discrimination

unequal treatment of individuals based on their membership in a social group; usually motivated by prejudice. -It is possible, though unlikely that a person can be prejudiced and still not discriminated against and vice versa.