RACE AND ETHNICITY (CHAPTER 11)

Question 1

Define race.

Answer 1

A socially constructed category of people who share biologically transmitted traits that members of a society consider important.

People may classify one another racially based on physical characteristics such as skin color, facial features, hair texture, and body shape.

Question 2

Racial diversity appeared among our human ancestors as the result of living in different geographic regions of the world.

Answer 2

In regions of intense heat, for example, humans developed darker skin (from the natural pigment melanin) as protection from the sun; in regions with moderate climates, people developed lighter skin.

Question 3

Define ethnicity.

Answer 3

A shared cultural heritage.

People define themselves - or others - as members of an ethnic category based on common ancestry, language, or religion that gives them a distinctive social identity.

Question 4

Define minority.

Answer 4

Any category of people distinguished by physical or cultural difference that a society sets apart and subordinates.

Minority standing can be based on gender, race, ethnicity, class, or an intersection theory reveals, on a combination of these and various other dimensions.

Question 5

Minorities have two important characteristics.

Answer 5

1. They share a distinct identity, which may be based on physical or cultural traits.
2. Minorities experience subordination.

Question 6

Define visible minority.

Answer 6

A visible minority describes persons, other than Aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in color.

Question 7

Minorities usually make up a small proportion of a society’s population, but this is not always the case.

Answer 7

Black South Africans are disadvantaged even though they are a numerical majority in their country. In Canada, women make up slightly more than half of the population but are still struggling for the opportunities and privileges enjoyed by men. This is because low social standing, not numbers, defines minorities.

Question 8

Define prejudice.

Answer 8

A rigid and unfair generalization about an entire category of people.

Question 9

Prejudice may target people of a particular …

Answer 9

Social, class, sex, sexual orientation, age, political affiliation, physical disability, race or ethnicity.

Question 10

Our positive prejudice.

Answer 10

Our positive prejudice tend to exaggerate the virtues of people like ourselves.

Question 11

Our negative prejudice.

Answer 11

Our negative prejudices condemn those who differ from us. Negative prejudice can be expressed as anything from milk dislike to outright hostility.

Question 12

Because attitudes are rooted in culture …

Answer 12

Everyone has at least some prejudice.

Question 13

Prejudice often takes the form of a stereotype, ,…

Answer 13

A simplified description applied to every person in some category.

Question 14

Many white people hold stereotypical views of minorities.

Answer 14

Stereotyping is especially harmful to minorities in the workplace. If company officials see minority workers only in terms of a stereotype, they will make assumptions about their abilities, steering them toward certain jobs, and limiting their access to better opportunities.

Question 15

Minorities, too, stereotype Whites and other minorities.

Answer 15

Surveys show, for example, that African Americans are more likely than Whites to express the belief that Asians engage in unfair business practices and Asians are more likely than Whites to criticize Hispanics for having too many children.

Question 16

Measuring prejudice: the social distance scale.

Answer 16

One measure of prejudice is social distance, how closely people are willing to interact with members of some category.

In the 1920s, Emory Bogardus developed the social distance scale. Bogardus (1925) asked students at U.S. colleges and universities to look at this scale and indicate how closely they were willing to interact with people in 20 racial and ethnic categories. People express the greatest social distance (most negative prejudice) by declaring that a particular category of people should be barred from the country entirely (point 7); at the other extreme, people express the least social distance (most social acceptance) by saying they would accept members of particular category into their family through marriage (point 1).

Question 17

What patterns of social distance do we find among college and university students today?

Answer 17

1. The long-term trend is that students are more accepting of all minorities.
2. Today’s students see less difference among various minorities.
3. The concern over terrorism in the world probably has increased prejudice toward Arabs and Muslims.

Question 18

Define racism.

Answer 18

A powerful and harmful form of prejudice, racism is the belief that one racial category is innately superior or inferior to another.

Question 19

We should not forget that Canada has a long history of racial oppression.

Answer 19

Slavery was practiced in British North America prior to Canadian Confederation until 1833. In addition, European settlers upheld the belief in the racial inferiority of Indigenous people, which provided the justification for the dispossession of their land and culture. Racism also provided the rationalization for Canada’s immigration policies, which ranked people into a hierarchy of preferred immigrants. Today, such overt racism in this country has decreased.

Question 20

Scapegoat theory (theory of prejudice).

Answer 20

Scapegoat theory holds that prejudice springs from frustration among people who are themselves disadvantaged. For instance, take the case of a White woman who is frustrated by the low pay she receives from her assembly-line job in a textile factory. Directing her hostility at the powerful factory owners carries the obvious risk of being fired; therefore, she may blame her low pay on the presence of minority co-workers. Her prejudice does not improve her situation, but it is a relatively safe way to express her anger, and it may give her the comforting feeling that at least she is superior to someone.

Question 21

Define scapegoat.

Answer 21

A person or category of people, typically with little power, whom people unfairly blame for their own troubles. Because they have little power and thus are usually “safe targets,” minorities are often used as scapegoats.

Question 22

Authoritarian personality theory (theory of prejudice).

Answer 22

Theodor Adorno and colleagues (1950) considered extreme prejudice a personality trait of certain individuals. This conclusion is supported by research showing that people who show strong prejudice toward one minority are usually intolerant of all minorities. These authoritarian personalities rigidly conform to conventional cultural values and see moral issues as clear-cut matters of right and wrong. People with authoritarian personalities also view society as naturally competitive and hierarchical, with “better” people (like themselves) inevitably dominating those who are weaker (all minorities).

Adorno and his colleagues also found the opposite pattern to be true: People who express acceptance toward one minority are likely to be accepting of all. They tend to be more flexible in their moral judgments are treat all people as equals.

Adorno thought that people with little schooling and those raised by cold and demanding parents tend to develop authoritarian personalities. Filled with anger and anxiety as children, they grow into hostile, aggressive adults who seek out scapegoats.

Question 23

Define discrimination.

Answer 23

Unequal treatment of various categories of people.

Question 24

Difference between prejudice and discrimination.

Answer 24

Prejudice refers to attitudes, but discrimination is a matter of action. Like prejudice, discrimination can be either positive (providing special advantages) or negative (creating obstacles) and ranges from subtle to extreme.

Question 25

Institutional prejudice and discrimination.

Answer 25

We typically think of prejudice and discrimination as the hateful ideas or actions of specific people. But Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton (1967) pointed out that far greater harm results from institutional prejudice and discrimination, bias built into the operation of society’s institutions, including schools, hospitals, the police, and the workplace. For example, researchers have found that banks reject home mortgage applications from minorities at a higher rate - or charge higher rates for the same mortgage - compared to White applicants, even when income and quality of neighborhood are held constant.

According to Carmicheal and Hamilton, people are slow to condemn or even recognize institutional prejudice and discrimination because it often involves respected public officials and long-established traditions.

Question 26

Prejudice and discrimination: the vicious circle.

Answer 26

Prejudice and discrimination reinforce each other. The Thomas theorem offers a simple explanation of this fact: Situations that are defined as real become real in their consequences.

Stage 1: Prejudice and discrimination begin, often as an expression of ethnocentrism or an attempt to justify economic exploitation.
Stage 2: As a result of prejudice and discrimination, a minority is socially disadvantaged, occupying a low position in the system of social stratification.
Stage 3: The social disadvantage is then interpreted not as the result of earlier prejudice and discrimination but as evidence that the minority is innately inferior, unleashing renewed prejudice and discrimination by which the cycle repeats itself.

Question 27

Define pluralism.

Answer 27

Pluralism is a state in which people of all races and ethnicities are distinct but have equal social standing. In other words, people who differ in appearance or social heritage all share resources equally.

Question 28

Application to Canada.

Answer 28

Canada is pluralistic to the extent that all people have equal standing under the law.

But Canada is not truly pluralistic, for three reasons.
1. ALthough most people value their cultural heritage, few want to live exclusively with others exactly like themselves.
2. Tolerance for social diversity goes only so far. one reaction to the growing population of minorities in Canada, for example, is the rise of white supremacist groups in many Canadian cities.
3. People of various colors and cultures do not have equal social standing.

Question 29

Assimilation.

Answer 29

Many people view Canada as a “mosaic” in which disparate cultural groups join together to create an accepting and peaceful multicultural society. Rather than everyone joining as equals in some new cultural pattern, however, most minorities have adopted the traits of the dominant culture established by the earliest settlers. Why? Because doing so is both an avenue to upward social mobility and a way to escape the prejudice and discrimination directed at more visible minorities. Sociologists use the term assimilation to describe the process by which minorities gradually adopt patterns of the dominant culture. Assimilation can involve changing modes of dress, values, religion, language, and friends.

Question 30

Multiculturalists oppose making assimilation a goal …

Answer 30

Because it suggests that minorities are a problem and the ones who need to do all the changing (rather than majority people).

Question 31

Note that assimilation involves changes in …

Answer 31

Ethnicity but not in race.

For racial traits to diminish over generations, miscegenation, or biological reproduction by partners of different racial categories, must occur.

Question 32

Is interracial marriage becoming more common?

Answer 32

Yes.

Question 33

Segregation.

Answer 33

Segregation is the physical and social separation of categories of people. Some minorities, especially religious orders like the Amish, voluntarily segregate themselves. However, majorities usually segregate minorities by excluding them. Residential neighborhoods, schools, occupations, hospitals, and even cemeteries may be segregated. Pluralism encourages cultural distinctiveness without disadvantage, but segregation enforces separation that harms a minority.

Question 34

Define genocide.

Answer 34

The systematic killing of one category of people by another. This deadly form of racism and ethnocentrism violates nearly every recognized moral standard, yet it has occurred time and again in human history.