Race and ethnic relations

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Race and Ethnic Relations

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• Race is a socially constructed category composed of
people who share biologically transmitted traits that
members of a society consider important. There are
no biologically pure races.
• Race is a significant concept chiefly because most
people consider it to be such. Biologically speaking,
race has less and less meaning in the United States
Basic Definitions

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• Ethnicity is a shared cultural heritage. Ethnicity involves
even more variability and mixture than race because most
people identify with more than one ethnic background.
• A minority is a category of people, distinguished by
physical or cultural traits, who are socially disadvantaged.
• Minorities have two major characteristics:
• They share a distinctive identity.
• They occupy a subordinate status.
Basic Definitions

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Racial and Ethnic Groups
• Minority group: subordinate group whose
members have significantly less control or power
over their own lives than members of the dominant
group
• Racial group: group set apart from others because of
physical differences that have taken on social
significance
• Ethnic group: group set apart from others primarily
because of its national origin or distinctive cultural
patterns

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Racial and Ethnic Groups in the
United States, 2006
Note: Percentages do not total 100 and
subtotals do not add up to totals in major
categories because of overlap between
groups (for example, Polish American Jews
or people of mixed ancestry, such as Irish
and Italian). White ancestry is for the year
2000, and percentages are based on total
population in that year.
Source: Author estimates based on American
Community Survey 2006, Tables DP-1 and
R0203, in Bureau of the Census 2007d;
Sheskin and Dashefsky 2006.

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Race
• Race as a biological construct does not
exist
• Racial formation: sociohistorical process in which racial
categories are created, inhibited, transformed, and destroyed
• Social construction of race: process by which people come to
define a group as as a race based on physical characteristics as
a race based on physical characteristics, but also on historical,
cultural, and economic factors

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Race
• The “one-drop” rule was a vivid example of the social
construction of race
• Race is often used to justify unequal access to
economic, social, and cultural resources based on the
assumption that such inequality is “natural”
• Stereotypes: unreliable generalizations about all
members of a group
– Often used to justify inequality

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Race
• Multiple Identities
– 2000 census gave people option of identifying
themselves with multiple racial categories for the
first time
– Half of those classified as multiracial were under
age 18
– Points toward growing awareness of population
diversity

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U.S. Racial Categories 1790-2000

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National Map 14-1
Where the Minority-Majority Already Exists
Source: Macionis , John J. Sociology, 10th Ed ,
Pearson Prentice Hall , 2005 Ch 14

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Ethnicity
• An ethnic group is set apart from others
explicitly because of its national origin or
cultural patterns
– Distinction between racial and ethnic
minorities not always clear-cut
– Distinction between racial and ethnic
groups is socially significant

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• Prejudice is a rigid and irrational generalization about an
entire category of people. Prejudices are prejudgments and
they may be positive or negative.
• Stereotypes are exaggerated descriptions applied to every
person in some category.
– One measure of prejudice is social distance, that is, how
closely people are willing to interact with members of
some category.
– Almost eighty years ago, Emory Bogardus developed the
seven-point social distance scale and determined that
people felt much more social distance from some
categories than from others.
Attitudes and their consequences

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– A recent study using the same scale reported three
major findings:
• A trend toward greater social acceptance has
continued.
• People see less difference in various minorities.
– The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks may
have contributed to low social acceptance of
Arabs and Muslims.
Attitudes and their consequences

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• Racism refers to the belief that one racial category is
innately superior or inferior to another.
– Does Race Affect Intelligence?
• Theories of prejudice:
– Scapegoat theory holds that prejudice results from
frustrations among people who are themselves
disadvantaged.
– A scapegoat is a person or category of people,
typically with little power, whom unfairly blame
for their own troubles
Attitudes and their consequences

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Authoritarian personality theory views prejudice as a
personality trait in certain individuals.
– The cultural theory of prejudice argues that
prejudice is embedded in culture.
– The conflict theory of prejudice proposes that
powerful people use prejudice to justify oppressing
others.
Attitudes and their consequences

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Authoritarian personality theory views prejudice as a
personality trait in certain individuals.
– The cultural theory of prejudice argues that
prejudice is embedded in culture.
– The conflict theory of prejudice proposes that
powerful people use prejudice to justify oppressing
others.
Discrimination is an action that involves treating
various categories of people unequally.
Attitudes and their consequences

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Patterns of Intergroup Relations
• Pluralism: mutual respect for one another’s cultures
among the various groups in a society, which allows
minorities to express their own cultures without
experiencing prejudice
– In U.S., pluralism is more of an ideal than
a reality
– Switzerland exemplifies a modern
pluralistic state

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• The Melting Pot. Probably the most important
theory stating that ethnic minorities would live
together in harmony.
• Multiculturalism is a society in which each group
celebrates its own characteristics
• Some people feel this harms the wider society,
for example
• http://
www.faculty.ccc.edu/aberger/PerilsofMulticulturalism
Patterns of Intergroup Relations

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• Segregation refers to the physical and social
separation of categories of people. It may be
voluntary, but is usually imposed.
• Assimilation is the process by which minorities
gradually adopt patterns of the dominant culture.
Racial traits can diminish over time only through
miscegenation, biological reproduction by
partners of different racial categories.
• Genocide is the systematic annihilation of one
category of people by another.
• Amalgamation: when a majority group and a minority group
combine to form a new group
Patterns of Interaction.

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• Brought to this country as indentured servants or
slaves.
• Sociologist Gunnar Myrdal referred to as “the American
dilemma.” In 1865
• This denial of basic human rights was a sharp contradiction to the
promise of the American republic
– Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution outlawed
slavery
• After Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws perpetuated the
subordinate status of African Americans.
Racial Groups: African Americans

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• In the first part of the twentieth century, a mass migration of
African Americans to the cities of the North occurred
• followed by the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
– Even today African Americans continue to be
economically disadvantaged as a group,
• Problem exacerbated by the loss of factory jobs that
has accompanied America’s move to a service
economy.
– The educational gap between whites and African
Americans has narrowed substantially in recent years.
– Political clout of African Americans has increased
substantially in recent decades.
Racial Groups: African Americans

22. © 2009 he McGraw Hill Companies22
Source: Macionis , John J. Sociology, 10th Ed , Pearson Prentice Hall , 2005
National Map 14.4 (b) The Concentration African Americans by County, 2000

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Native Americans were the original inhabitants of the
Americas.
• Before European contact, they lived in hundreds
of distinct societies.
• Between 1871 and 1924, they were subjected to a
policy of forced assimilation.
• Now they are being encouraged to migrate from
reservations to the cities in search of economic
opportunity, but they remain far behind whites in
educational and economic standing.
• Many tribes and individuals have recently come
together to assert pride in their culture.
Racial Groups: Native Americans

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Source: Macionis , John J. Sociology, 10th Ed , Pearson Prentice Hall , 2005
National Map 14.2 Land Controlled by Native Americans, 1790-1998

25. © 2009 Alan S. Berger 25
• Asian Americans make up about 4 percent of the United
States population. They have a “model minority” image.
– Chinese immigration started with the Gold Rush.
• When the economy soured, discrimination
increased and harsh laws were enacted limiting
further immigration.
• In response, most Chinese Americans clustered in
closed ghettoes called Chinatowns. Assimilation
and upward mobility marked the era that began
with World War II.
• Chinese Americans currently outpace the national
average economically and educationally, although
many living in Chinatowns continue to experience
poverty
• Currently, about 3.1 million Chinese Americans live
in U.S.
Racial Groups: Asian Americans

26. © 2009 Alan S. Berger 26
– Japanese Americans also came to this country in the
last century to work, and soon experienced legal and
social discrimination. During the Second World War
many were confined in relocation camps. After the war,
many made a dramatic economic recovery, and today
this group is above the national average in financial
standing. Their upward social mobility has also
strongly encouraged cultural assimilation and
interracial marriage.
– More recent Asian immigrants include Koreans and
Filipinos.
• Large-scale Korean immigration followed the
Korean War. Korean Americans often own and
operate small businesses.
• Filipinos enjoy relatively high incomes.
Racial Groups: Asian Americans

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• Vietnamese Americans
• Came to U.S. during and after Vietnam War and, over
time, gravitated toward larger
urban areas
Racial Groups: Asian Americans

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Major Asian American Groups
in the United States, 2006
Source: Author’s analysis of American Community Survey 2006
in Bureau of the Census 2007d.

29. © 2009 Alan S. Berger 29
• White Anglo-Saxon-Protestants (WASPs), mostly of
English origin, have dominated the U.S. since
colonial days.
– Most came to this country highly skilled and
motivated to achieve. Especially in the last
century, many WASPs strongly opposed
subsequent waves of non-Anglo immigrants. Their
power is gradually declining in the twenty-first
century.
Ancestry Across the United States. The highest
concentrations of WASPs are in Utah,
Appalachia, and northern New England.
Racial Groups: WASPS

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• White ethnic Americans come from European
nations other than Britain.
– Most experienced substantial prejudice
and discrimination when they arrived
here in the nineteenth century. Many
have now fully assimilated and achieved
substantial success.
Racial Groups: WASPS

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Source: Macionis , John J. Sociology, 10th Ed , Pearson Prentice Hall ,
2005 National Map 14-3 The Concentration of People of WASP
Ancestry across the United States

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– Most Mexican Americans (or Chicanos) are recent
immigrants, though some lived in Mexican territory
annexed by the U.S. in the last century. They are well
below the national average in economic and educational
attainment.
– Puerto Ricans are American citizens and travel freely
between the island and the mainland, especially New
York City. They are the most socially disadvantaged
Hispanic minority.
Racial Groups: Hispanic Americans

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– Many Cubans fled the 1959 Marxist revolution and
settled in Miami and other U.S. cities. Most were well-
educated business and professional people and have
done relatively well in this country.
Racial Groups: Hispanic Americans

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Source: Macionis , John J. Sociology, 10th Ed , Pearson Prentice Hall , 2005
National Map 14.4 (a) The Concentration of Hispanics/Latinos by County, 2000

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Racial Groups
• Arab Americans
– About 3 million live in U.S.
– Arabic language is single most unifying force
– Most are not Muslim
– For years, and especially after 9/11, have
been subject to profiling and surveillance by
law enforcement

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Source: Curry et al Sociology For The Twenty-First Century,
Fifth Edition, Pearson Education, Upper Saddle River,2008

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Residential Segregation
in the United States, 2005
Source: Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood?
Gallup Organization July 12,2005.