Sociology Chapter 9 (Race)
one-drop rule
evolve from the United States laws forbidding miscegenation, was the belief that one drop of black blood makes a person black, rule was critical in the Supreme Court case of Plessy versus Ferguson which upheld the Jim Crow laws, application of this rule was intended to keep the white population pure and left anyone with black blood into one category
race is
externally imposed, involuntary and usually based on fiscal differences, with hierarchal, exclusive and unequal treatments
US Census
for the first time ever, the 2000 census allowed respondents to check off more than one box for racial identity, about 9 million people self-identified as multiracial by checking more than one box in 2010
cross racial interactions
from 1913 to 1948, 30 States enforced anti miscegenation laws which are laws that said that interracial couples could not marry, in the case of loving versus Virginia in the 1967 Supreme Court case that ended anti-miscegenation laws
discrimination
harmful or negative acts Not Mere thoughts against people deemed inferior on the basis of the racial category without regard to their individual Merit
African Americans
in 2018 about 12.7% of the American population was identified as black, the median income of African Americans as a group is roughly 62.8% of that of whites, among men ages 25 to 39, black men are in prison two and a half times and six times as often as Hispanic man and white man respectively
Native Americans
in 2018, people claiming at least some Native American ancestry numbered about 5.6 million, only about 1/5 of Native Americans live in a designated American Indian area, Native Americans rank among the worst in terms of high school dropout rates and unemployment, which go hand in hand with poor health outcomes such as alcoholism, suicide and premature death
Middle Eastern Americans continued
in one study of Television portrayals of Arabs researchers found the four basic myths that continue to surround this ethnic group, they are often depicted as fabulously wealthy as Sultans and oil tycoons, are shown as uncivilized and barbaric, or portrayed as sex crazed, especially for underage white sex slaves, and are said to revelant acts of terrorism Desiring to destroy all things american, little has changed since the study came out over 30 years ago although after 9/11, the emphasis shifted away from The Stereotype of Arabs as extremely rich and toward one of Middle Easterns as terrorists
pluralism
in the context of race and ethnicity, refers to the presence and engaged coexistence of numerous distinct groups in one Society with no one group being in the majority, a culturally pluralistic society has one large socio-cultural framework with a diversity of cultures functioning within it this is the premise of multiculturalism in America, Melting Pot versus salad bowl, pluralism not only permits racial and ethnic variation within Society but it actually encourages people to embrace diversity in the tolerance of racial and ethnic differences
one example of this is the development of whiteness as a concept
initially only included certain narrowly defined European ethnicities in the 1800s before it became even broader category that it currently is today which occurred after World War II
institutional racism that is chapter 9 complete
institutions and social dynamics that may seem race neutral but actually disadvantage minority groups, these institutions can include but are not limited to the criminal justice system, workplaces and schools
racism continued
it is true that our race relations have changed but racism has not been eliminated it's just become more difficult to identify a times, in the past it was socially acceptable in many places to display racist attitudes and use racial slurs, that's not politically correct or acceptable anymore so people tend to reserve their attitudes until they know they are in like-minded company
Asian Americans continued
median family income for the United States population as a whole in 2013 was 61,937 whereas for Asian Americans it was 87,243, despite the overall success of Asian americans, certain groups including cambodians and hmong which originate from Laos in Vietnam experience very high poverty rates
symbolic ethnicity
nationality not in the sense of carrying the rights and duties of citizenship but in the sense of identifying with a past or future nationality, for later generations of white ethnics, it is something not constraining but easily expressed, with no risks of stigma and all the pleasures of feeling like an individual, they can focus on and express their heritage when they choose to it isn't an identity that they must assume at all the time
ethnicity
once ethnic quality or affiliation, voluntary or self-defined, not hierarchical is fluid in multiple with cultural and planar being not as closely linked with power differences
in the ancient empires of egypt, greece, and Rome the idea of race did not exist as we know it today
people recognized broad physical differences between groups of people but they did not discriminate based on those differences, as Europeans came into contact with different peoples and cultures during the age of exploration, racism was used to justify the conquest and colonization of foreign lands
Native Americans statistics
1.2% of the United States population identifies as Native American or Alaskan native, of those more than 21% had a diagnosable mental illness in the past year, Native Americans experience post-traumatic stress disorder more than two times as often as the general population, Native Americans develop substance use challenges younger and a higher rates than all other ethnic groups
scientific racism
19th century theories of race that characterize a period of feverish investigation into the origins, explanations and classifications of race
Equity inequality
Equity inequality captures the historical disadvantage of minority groups and the way those disadvantages accrue over time, average household net worth in 2016 for African Americans was 17,100 for Latinos it was $20,600 and for whites it was $171,000
theories of assimilation
Harold Isaacs in 1975 noticed something that these theories of assimilation could not explain, people did not so easily shed their ethnic ties, Clifford Gertz in 1973 explained this persistence as a matter of primordialism that is the strength of ethnic ties resides in deeply felt or primordial ties to one's culture, on the other hand Nathan Glazer and Daniel P Moynihan reason that ethnic identification persisted because it was an individual's best interest to maintain it
latinxs
Latinx refers to individuals who Trace their ancestry back to Latin america, Hispanic means descended from or identifying with Spanish-speaking populations including from Spain itself, in 2018 Latin X meet up approximately 18% of the population, in 2018 the majority of latinx in the United States were from, Mexico 61.9%, Puerto Rico about 9.7%, Cuba 4%, and the Dominican Republic three and a half percent
Middle Eastern Americans
Middle Eastern refers to people who come from places as diverse as the Arabian peninsula, North africa, iran, Iraq and the Palestinian territories, today about 2.1 million Americans report Arab ancestry and even more Americans have a middle eastern Heritage because not all Middle Easterns are Arab, widespread misunderstandings about middle Eastern's Drive in part from their negative stereotyping in the mainstream media
genocide
The Mask killing of a group of people based on racial ethnic or religious traits
color blind racism
The View that racial inequality is perpetuated by a supposed color blind stance that ends up reinforcing historical and contemporary inequities, disparate impact, and institutional bias By ignoring them in favor of a technically neutral approach
straight line assimilation
a concept brought upon by Robert park, offered a universal and linear model for how immigrants assimilate, as they arrive settling and achieve full assimilation in a newly homogeneous territory or country, Milton Gordon has an alternative model suggesting that immigrants populations pass through or stall in seven stages of assimilation, being cultural, structural, marital, identification, attitude reception, Behavior reception and Civic assimilation
acceptance versus resistance
acceptance is the oppressed group faints compliance and hides its true feelings of resentment, depressed group often learns to code switch in which they act one way in the presence of the dominant group and another way in private
situational ethnicity
an ethnic identity that can be either displayed or concealed depending on its usefulness in a given situation
withdrawal
an example withdrawal is the great migration of the mid 20th century in the United states, many black people move from the rural Jim Crow South in search of jobs and equality in the industrialized urban north and west, this has had mixed results, some black communities prospered economically and educationally resulting in events like the Harlem Renaissance but others face hostility exploitation violence and poverty
Collective resistance
and organized effort to change a power hierarchy on the part of a less powerful group in a society
passing
another response to racial oppression is passing or the blending in with the dominant group, passing can occur through physical changes like altering one's hair lightning or darkening one skin and plastic surgery, you can also occur through language such as changing one's name from Schmidt to Smith to assimilate
new kinds of racism
as overt racism declines, Scholars are beginning to find traces of a new kind of racism gaining ground, this new kind of racism replaces biology with culture and presumes that there is something fixed, innate and inferior about non-white cultural values, many people argue that the new racism is even more dangerous although overt racism is definitely problematic at least it can be easily be seen and pointed out
why is race important?
because we believe it to be, because it is real in its consequences
ethnic identity
can become racialized when it is subsumed under a force label racial marker or otherness
Jewish people
contrary to what Nazis and other white supremacists May believe are an ethnic group but not a race
race
defined as a group of people who share a set of characteristics, usually physical ones and are said to share a common bloodline, largely a social construction rather than a fixed biological or natural reality and racial classifications have changed greatly over time
Amish
distinct ethnic group in American society linked by a common Heritage that includes a language, religion and history with few exceptions are white
ethnocentrism
scientific racism was rooted in this concept of the belief that one's own culture or group is superior to others and the tendency to view all other cultures from the perspective of One's Own the true goal of this pseudoscience was to justify Imperial exploits by automatically classifying non-whites as abnormal, improper or even inferior
African Americans continued
sociologist today are beginning to study how new black immigrants are fracturing the holistic conception of african-american, more than 10% of the black population is foreign born via the Census Bureau from 2012, afro-caribbeans originating from cuba, Haiti or jamaica, resent being unilaterally categorized as african-american, each of these immigrant groups enjoys a unique history, culture and language that do not correspond to the African stereotypes of black skin, new black immigrant groups would rather not assimilate but instead retain their distinctive immigrant status setting themselves apart from the lowest status group in America blacks
miscegenation
technical term for a multiracial marriage
social Darwinism
the application of darwinian ideas to society namely The evolutionary survival of the fittest concept, Herbert Spencer popularized the notion that some groups or races have evolved more than others and thus were more fit to survive and even rule over other races
racism
the belief that members of separate races possess different and unequal human traits, racist thinking is characterized by three key beliefs, humans are divided into distinct Bloodlines and/or fiscal types, these Bloodlines or physical traits are linked to distinct cultures, behaviors, personalities and intellectual abilities and certain groups are superior to others
nativism
the concept of new, objectionable immigrants and Native desirable immigrants was the Crux of nativism, the movement to protect and preserve indigenous land or culture from the allegedly dangerous and polluting effects of new immigrants, Madison Grant epitomized the spirit of nativism when he argued that not restricting the immigration of Southern and Eastern Europeans meant race suicide for the white race from 1916 and 1936
conflict relations
the final Paradigm of race relations is conflict relations when antagonistic groups within a society live integrated in the same neighborhoods hold the same jobs and go to the same schools
racialization
the formation of a new racial identity, in which new ideological boundaries of difference are drawn around a formerly unnoticed group of people, and sample of this is the Discrimination faced by Muslims and Sikhs in the wake of 9/11
segregation
the legal or social practice of separating people on the basis of the race or ethnicity, the official policy in the United States particularly in the South until the 1960s, although it has been illegal for over 40 years, there was still ample evidence of segregation in American society today particularly in schools housing or prisons
eugenics
the science of genetic lines and the inheritable traits they pass from generation to generation, eugenicists claimed that traits could be traced through Bloodlines and bread into populations for positive traits or out of them for negative traits, eugenics quickly became a way for racist to justify immigrant exclusion in the name of improving the stock of the nation
Asian Americans
the term Asian-American is very broad, encompassing diverse and sometimes clashing people from East Asia and Southeast asia, Asians and mixed Asian us residents compromise 6.7% of the population and are the fastest growing racial group in the country, Asian Americans are unique among minorities because of their High average socioeconomic status but this obscures the very high poverty rates faced by certain ethnic groups
prejudice
thoughts and feelings about an ethnic or racial group which lead to preconceived notions and judgments often negative about the group
DNA testing
today DNA testing is used to determine people's racial makeup and while this process may be more accurate on some level than 19th century racial measures it is still supports the notion of fixed biological and racial differences, less than 6% of difference between different racial groups
The Importance of Being White
white is a flexible term and label that is expanded over time to include many formerly non-white groups such as jews, Irish and italians, Peggy McIntosh argues that whiteness is an invisible knapsack of privileges that puts white people at an advantage just as racism places non-whites as a disadvantage, calling attention to whiteness helps whites to understand how slanted the playing field really is, by traditionally focusing on minority groups, the implicit message that scholarship protects is that non-whites are deviant
group responses to domination, there are four ways in which groups respond to oppression
withdrawal, passing, acceptance or resistance
