Class Notes
Professor Henry Schissler
Chapter Six
The Social Construction of Race and Ethnicity
White Privilege – the package of benefits granted to people in our society who have white skin; a parcel of privileges that white people have been granted, which allows them free passes to certain things in our society that are less easily available, or not available, to people of color; privileges are so much a part of every day life that they are virtually invisible to the beneficiaries
Examples of the pervasive nature of White Privilege –
• never being asked to speak on behalf of their entire race
• being able to do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to their race
• being able to go shopping alone without being followed or harassed
• being able to use checks or credit cards to make purchases without suspicion
• learning the history of their own race in school
• being able to buy a wide assortment of greeting cards, children’s books and magazines, dolls, and toys featuring people of their race
• being confident that job refusals are not based on their race
Social Construction of Race – the process by which people come to define a group as a race based in part on physical characteristics, but also on historical, cultural, and economic factors.
Multiracial – people who are of two or more races, a mixed race heritage; approximately 2.5% of the U.S population, over half are under the age of eighteen.
The prevailing social construction of race pushes people to choose just one race, even if they acknowledge a broader cultural background. Tiger Woods, for example, calls himself “Cablinasian” because of his mixed racial heritage – one quarter black, one quarter Thai, one quarter Chinese, one eighth white, and one eighth American Indian.
Ethnicity is also subject to social construction. In the 1800’s, Irish & Italian Americans were viewed as non-White. Today, Arab-Americans would be viewed as non-white by some, white by others. In Brazil, a person’s status determines his skin color. The higher a person is in status the more “white” he is. It is not uncommon for a high status Brazilian (who is “white”) to have dark skin.
Stereotypes – unreliable generalizations about all members of a group that do not recognize individual differences within the group.
Racial Group – a group that is set apart from others because of obvious physical differences. Whites, African Americans, and Asian Americans are considered racial groups in the U.S. The culture of a particular society constructs and attaches social significance to racial differences.
Ethnic Group – a group that is set apart from others primarily because of its national origin or distinctive cultural patterns. Among the ethnic groups in the U.S. are peoples with a Spanish-speaking background, referred to collectively as Latinos or Hispanics, such as Puerto Ricans, Mexican and Cuban Americans, and other Latin Americans. Other ethnic groups include Jewish, Polish, Italian, and Irish Americans.
Members of an ethnic group can sometimes become, over time, indistinguishable from the majority – although the process may take generations & may not include all group members. This is not the case with racial groups. Stratification along racial lines is more resistant to change.
Minority Group – a subordinate group whose members have significantly less control or power over their own lives than the members of a dominant or majority group have over theirs.
There are five basic properties of a minority group –
1. Members experience unequal treatment as compared to members of the dominant group. Social inequality may be created or maintained by prejudice, discrimination, segregation, or even extermination.
2. Members share physical or cultural characteristics that distinguish them from the dominant group. Each society arbitrarily decides which characteristics are most important in defining the groups.
3. Membership in a minority (or dominant) group is not voluntary; people are born into the group. Race & ethnicity are ascribed statuses.
4. Members have a strong sense of group solidarity. When a group is the object of long-term prejudice & discrimination, the feeling of “us versus them” can & often does become strong.
5. Members generally marry others from the same group for a number of reasons. A dominant group member is often unwilling to marry into a supposedly inferior minority; the group’s sense of solidarity encourages marriages within the group & discourages marriages outside the group.
Internalized Oppression
Dominant groups create two powerful domains of oppression by constructing meaning at the macro-social-structural (society & community) and micro-social-psychological (family & individual) levels.
Antilocution – most people with prejudices talk about them with like-minded friends, occasionally with strangers. Many people do not go beyond this expression of antagonism.
If the talk is not hostile, it can be referred to as Polite Prejudice – reinforcing prejudice by actions, assumptions, or non-hostile words.
By internalizing oppression, two processes are at work for subordinate group members –
(1) Self-Negation
They will restrict their own lives out of a belief in the negative self-views amd group limitations imposed on them. They will not challenge the social order and may engage in self-destructive behaviors, called the “self-fulfilling prophecy” (alcohol or other drug abuse, criminal activity).
(2) Negation of Others
They will restrict the lives of members of their own group or other subordinate groups because of their negative self-view, views of their group and other subordinate groups. They will both accept and promote the cultural status quo determined by the dominant groups. By doing so, they will demonstrate to dominant groups that they are what the harmful overgeneralizations and stereotypes say they are.
Immigration and Ethnic Groups
Diversity in the U.S. reflects centuries of immigration, including government policies to determine who has preference to enter the country. Often, clear racial & ethnic biases are built into these policies.
1920’s – policy gave preference to people from western Europe, made immigration difficult for southern & eastern European, Asian, and African people.
Late 1930’s & 1940’s – government refused to loosen restrictive immigration quotas to allow Jewish refugees to escape Nazi regime
1960’s to present – policies encourage immigration of people with relatives here & those with needed skills; most have come from Latin American countries & Asia
A significant segment of U.S. population is White ethnics whose ancestors arrived from Europe within the last one-hundred years. This population includes –
• 46.5 million German ancestry
• 33 million Irish ancestry
• 28 million English ancestry
• 16 million Italian ancestry
• 9.8 million French ancestry
• 9 million Polish ancestry
Symbolic Ethnicity – an emphasis on such concerns as ethnic food or political issues rather than on deeper ties to one’s ethnic heritage
Melting Pot vs. Salad Bowl
Acculturation – adopting the norms, values, and lifeways of the dominant culture.
Assimilation – the process by which different cultures are absorbed into a single mainstream culture.
Cultural Pluralism – groups should retain their distinct cultural identities, but only within a framework that ensures their overall equality.
Sociological Theories of Inequality by Race & Ethnicity
Functionalist Theory
Three functions that racially prejudiced beliefs have for dominant group:
1. Beliefs provide a moral justification for maintaining an unequal society that routinely deprives a minority of its rights & privileges (Southern Whites justified slavery by believing Africans were physically & spiritually subhuman & devoid of souls)
2. Beliefs discourage members of subordinate minority from attempting to question their lowly status, which would be to question the very foundation of society
3. Beliefs encourage support for the existing order by introducing the argument that any major social change (such as an end to discrimination) would only bring greater poverty to the minority & lower the majority’s standard of living
Racially prejudiced views can also be dysfunctional for a society & even the dominant group –
1. A society that practices discrimination fails to use resources of all individuals; it limits the search for talent & leadership to members of the dominant group
2. Discrimination aggravates social problems such as poverty, delinquency, and crime & places the financial burden to alleviate problems on dominant group
3. Society must invest a good deal of time & money to defend the barriers to full participation of all members
4. Discrimination often undercuts goodwill & friendly diplomatic relations between nations
Conflict Theory
Exploitation Theory explains the basis of racial subordination as it relates to our economic system. Racism keeps disproportionate number of minorities in low-paying jobs, thereby supplying economic system with pool of cheap labor.
That society functions without major disruption serves as a testimony to the power of the dominant groups to:
• Control the ideological, political, and material resources that subordinate groups would need to shift the balance of power;
• Convince subordinate group members that the current social hierarchies and dominant ideologies are acceptable and/or cannot be changed.
Internalization of oppression occurs because social institutions encourage minorities and others in lower classes to accept their “fate” (religion, educational systems).
Symbolic Interactionist
Contact Hypothesis states that interracial contact between people of equal status who are engaged in a cooperative task will cause them to become less prejudiced and to abandon previous stereotypes.
Prejudice – a hostile attitude toward individuals who belong to a group, simply because they belong to that group (faulty & inflexible generalizations); if evidence is presented to alter the hostility, the prejudice holds and new information is denied or rationalized.
Racism – the belief that one race is supreme and all others are naturally inferior, so that unequal treatment is justified.
Ethnocentrism – the tendency to assume that one’s own culture and way of life represent the norm or are superior to others; judging other cultures by the standards of one’s own group
Discrimination – the denial of opportunities & equal rights to individuals & groups based on some type of arbitrary bias.
In 1954, Toronto newspapers ran advertisements for over one hundred resorts. Two letters were sent to the resorts asking for reservations for the exact same dates. Half the letters were sent under a non-descript “white” name, and the other half were sent under a stereotypical “Jewish” name. 95% replied and 93% offered accommodations to the “white” name; 52% replied and 36% offered accommodations to the “Jewish” name.
In 2002, identical resumes were sent to 325 corporations throughout the United States with advertised job openings. Half of the resumes had a stereotypical African American male name, the other half had a non-descript “white” name. The “white” name received three interviews for every one offered to the African American name.
Glass Ceiling – an invisible barrier that blocks the promotion of a qualified individual in a work environment because of the individual’s gender, race, or ethnicity: example: even in the most diverse corporations, white men hold over 80 percent of both the board of directors and top fifty paid positions.
Institutional Discrimination – the denial of opportunities & equal rights to individuals and groups that results from the normal operations of a society.
Affirmative Action – efforts to recruit minority members or women for jobs, promotions, and educational opportunities through various types of programs and through voluntary participation particularly on the part of business; scope of programs and methods of implementation have changed during its twenty year history.
“You do not take a person who for years has been hobbled by chains
and liberate him, bring him to the starting point of a race and say: ‘You are
free to compete with all the others.’ Legal equity is not enough.”
- President Lyndon Baines Johnson
Segregation – the physical and social segregation of different categories of people.
The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s succeeded in outlawing segregation. But economic segregation has become more and more prevalent throughout the United States, particularly in rural and urban school districts.
The Sheff vs. O’Neill court case in Connecticut confronted this issue – economic segregation resulting in unequal (discriminatory) educational opportunities for poorer children.
“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
“When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’”
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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