Race and Ethnicity

#Sociology

• Race as we know it has no biological basis: but it is so powerful socially, that it can have life-or-death consequences
• People look different, but to narrow our attention onto skin color as explanation of behavior is problematic
• It will blind us from important social factors

Definition of Race §

• Race - A socially defined category, based on real or perceived physical/biological differences between groups of people
• Myths of Race
  • All people can be divided into biologically distinct groups called races - FALSE
  • Each race has distinct traits of mental ability, temperament, and behavior - NOPE
  • Those traits are inherited and innate - therefore fixed and permanent - NO
  • Races can be ranked on a scale of inferiority and superiority - DEFINITELY NOT

Racial Reality §

• Race has no genetic basis
• Not one trait or gene distinguishes all the members of one race from all the members of another race
• Of the small amount of total human variation, 85% exists within any local population
• Most genetic differences (skin color, hair, eye color, height) can be found within a race rather than between races
• Impossible to use biological characteristics to sort people into consistent races

Race as a Social Construction §

• Race is a social construction, meaning it has no objective reality but rather is what people decide it is.
• The definition of race is random and fluid; it changes over time and across society
• Race is a modern idea, ancient societies divide people based on religion, status, class, language, but not skin colors
• How random can the definition of race be?
  • Rules that define race can be very random, for example
  • The One Drop Rule defines black as any person with one drop of black blood in their ancestry. It varies of course but that was the main idea, if some amount of your ancestry was black then you were considered black. But these changed from state to state, it wasn’t consistent. It was really just random
  • This is the meaning of a social construction, society defining a concept
  • Who was considered white?
    • A century ago, Irish, Italians, and Eastern European Jews immigrants to the US were not regarded as white
    • Again this is proof race is a social construction, the definition changes

Racism is Real §

• Although race has little, if any, scientific basis, racism is real (with real consequences)
• Racism is the belief that members of separate races possess different and unequal human traits
• Many historical efforts to explain race were biased due to ethnocentrism
• Biological difference is used to justify unequal treatment
• Social Darwinism argued that some races had evolved more than others and thus were better fit to survive and even to rule others
  • Survival of the Fittest applied to social situations. But obviously not true.
• Eugenics: The science of genetic lines and the inheritable traits they pass on from generation to generation
  • Supporters of this claimed that traits could be traced through bloodlines and bred into populations (for positive traits) or out of them (for negative traits)
  • Selective Breeding…of humans.
  • This kind of thinking influenced immigration policy, “undesirable” races were kept out of the country so they could “keep the traits of our country more pure”
  • This has even happened recently, California female inmates were sterilized illegally, to theoretically prevent them from reproducing and muddying up the bloodlines of America
• Miscegenation is the technical term for a multiracial marriage
  • Miscegenation was illegal until 1967
  • The laws were deemed unconstitutional

Racialization §

• The formation of a new racial identity, in which new ideological boundaries of difference are drawn around a formerly unnoticed group of people
  • For example, after 9/11, there was a movement to Racialize Sikh identity, they wanted to separate themselves from Arab/Muslim so they weren’t associated. Before then, they were not worried about it
• Internalized oppression: the belief among historically oppressed people that negative stereotypes about themselves and positive stereotypes about a dominant group are, in fact, true
  • For example, a African Americans may believe that the younger generations of their race are more likely to be criminals and all those negative stereotypes.
  • Or another example, Chinese people discriminating among themselves due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ethnicity §

• Ethnicity denotes groups that share a common identity based on ancestry, language, or culture
• This is also a social category, but one not based solely on skill color
• It is often based on religion, beliefs, and customs as well as collective memories

Race vs. Ethnicity §

• Race is imposed, hierarchical, exclusive
• Ethnicity is self-defined, nonhierarchical, fluid, cultural, and not as closely linked with power differences

Discrimination and Privilege §

• The importance of being white
  • Peggy McIntosh argues that whiteness is an “invisible knapsack of privileges” that puts white people at an advantage
  • Privilege is invisible to those who have it
• Prejudice refers to negative thoughts and feelings about an ethnic or racial group
• Discrimination refers to harmful or negative acts against people deemed inferior on the basis of their racial category
• Racism that isn’t overt yet still exists is colorblind racism
  • The belief that racism is no longer a problem and we all have equal opportunities
  • Replaces biology with culture and nationality and presumes that there is something fixed, innate, and inferior about nonwhite cultural values

Minority - Majority Group Relations §

1. Assimilation
   • Minorities are absorbed into the dominant culture, through interracial marriage, language attainment, residential concentration
2. Pluralism
   • Coexistence of numerous distinct groups in one society, with no one group being in the majority
3. Segregation
   • Legal or social practice of separating people based on race or ethnicity. Still ample evidence of segregation today, particularly in schools, housing, and prisons
4. Racial conflict
   • Genocide is the most toxic example

Group Responses to Domination §

1. Withdrawal
   • Leave the country
2. Passing
   • Blend in through appearance or change of names
3. Acceptance
   • Front stage of acceptance, code switching
4. Collective resistance

Institutional Racism §

• Institutional Racism: a form of racism that is embedded in the laws and regulations of a society or an organization
  • Historical and ongoing discriminations and segregation
  • Typically sanctioned or instigated by a government

Housing Discrimination §

• Redlining
  • Can’t secure government backed mortgages
  • Investment money was consistently deflected away
• Federal public housing project
  • Built in inner-city locations to contain minority neighborhoods
• GI Bills
  • Subsidization of white families to move into all white suburbs
• Impacts
  • Homeownership has been one of the most significant ways to build net worth, but people of color were largely shut out of home ownership
  • Quality education
  • Employment
    • assets like a house or a car themselves enable people to save time and take on better jobs
  • Intergenerational consequences
  • Education
    • 1954 Brown v Board of Education ruled racial segregation in public schools illegal
      • De Facto segregation - segregation that is the result of other processes such as housing segregation
  • Health - minority patients are less likely to receive the level of care provided to nonminority patients for the same condition regardless of insurance status
  • Policing
    • Different policing strategies
    • Predominantly black neighborhoods are simultaneously over-policed when it comes to surveillance and social control, and under policed when it comes to emergency services
    • Black communities are disproportionately impacted by police violence