Racial and Ethnic Minorities

The Webberians

The Concept of Race

• Race refers to a category of people who are defined as similar because of a number of physical characteristics.

• Race has been defined along genetic, legal, and social lines, each presenting its own set of problems.

The Concept of Race

“I don’t even know who I am. My mind says I’m black. Then I look at my skin, and it says I’m white. I’ve come to the conclusion that color is just a state of mind.”-Linda Fay McCord

The Concept of Race

Genetic Definitions

• Geneticists define race by noting differences in gene frequencies among selected groups.

• Racial criteria appear to be independent of one another.

Social Definitions

• Race is determined by the race that a person chooses to present themselves as.

• People are free to report more than one race.

Facts about Race

• About 8 to 9 million people identify themselves as belonging to two or more races.

• Racial intermarriages represent 5.4 % of all married couples.

• Most people with one white and one black parent, when given the opportunity to label themselves, have historically chosen one parent’s racial identity, and that most often has been and continues to be black.

• Three million children are growing up in interracial families.

Ethnic Groups• An ethnic group has a distinct cultural tradition that its own member identify

with or might not be recognized with others.• Shared loyalty to customs

-similarity in family patterns-religion-values-patterns of recreation

• Many ethnic groups are a part of larger political parties– For example: Arabs, French Canadians, Jews, Pennsylvania Dutch

The Concept of Minority• The concept of minority should be

thought of as a group of people who are singled out from others in society for differential and unequal treatment. They are excluded from social participation by a dominant group in society. – Louise Wirth

•Today, women, gays and lesbians, adolescents, the handicapped and intellectuals can be thought of as minority groups.

Problems in Race and Ethnic Relations

• Prejudice: an irrationally based negative attitude toward certain groups and their members, regarded as a subjective feeling.

• In 1945, 56% of the American public said they opposed a law that would require employees to work alongside people of any race or color (Gallup Poll, 1972).

• The cause of prejudice : • A desire for unity within a particular

group. • Competing : Eg: Hutu and Tutsi Fight for

genetic superiority.• Projection: allows us to transmit onto

others those parts of ourselves that we do not like and try to avoid facing

• Discrimination: differential treatment given to individuals who are assumed to belong to a particular category or group. – Overt action

• Intolerance against African Americans • According to Robert K. Merton there are the following four types of people based on

the classification of racial prejudice/ discrimination:– Unprejudiced Non-discriminators: people that are neither prejudiced or discriminatory.– Unprejudiced Discriminator: people that will not speak out against discrimination or prejudices.– Prejudiced Non-discriminators: those who hesitate to express their prejudices . Ie: employers who

hate certain minorities but hire them to avoid affirmative-action laws.– Prejudiced Discriminators: individuals who do not believe in equality and practice their prejudice

through idealistic behaviors.

• Institutional Prejudice and Discrimination: complex social arrangements that restrict the life chances/choices of a group in comparison to those of a dominant group.

Eg: Gypsies in Europe

Patterns of Racial and Ethnic Relations

Assimilation• Process by which groups with

different cultures come to have a common cultures.

• One group usually has a larger role

• Problem of Selection• Anglo-Conformity-the

renunciation of ancestral cultures in favor of Anglo-American behavior and values.

Pluralism• Development and coexistence of

separate racial and ethnic group identities within a society.

• Theory developed by Horace Kallen

• Reaction against assimilation and advocates rights of minorities.

• Celebrates the differences between people.

• Unity of a whole society depends on the harmony of various parts.

Subjugation• The subordination of one group

and the assumption of a position of authority, power, and domination by the other.

• Differences in power lead to superior and inferior positions.

• Gerhard Lenski (1996)• Ex: 1870’s Native Americans in

the U.S.

Segregation• Form of subjugation, refers

to the act, process or state of being apart.

• Done by formal sanctions or informal discriminations.

• Ex: American blacks• Voluntary Segregation• Ex:Amish

Expulsion• Process of forcing a group

to leave the territory in which it lives.

• Ex: 1933 Germany when Adolf Hitler made life unbearable for Jews.

• Forced Migration• Ex: Native Americans in 19th

century when U.S. expanded

Annihilation• Deliberate extermination of a

racial or ethnic group.• Ex: The Holocaust• However, it can be unintentional• Ex: Discovery of the New World• December 11, 1946: the General

Assembly of the United Nation voted to affirm that genocide was a crime under international law.

Racial and Ethnic Immigration to the United States

• Historical U.S immigration ( The Land of the Free)

• Old immigration: northern Europe who came before 1880’s (English, Dutch, French)– Felt threatened by waves of unskilled and uneducated

newcomers

• New immigration: southern and eastern Europe between 1880 and 1920

(Poles, Hungarians, Ukrainians)• Quotas 1921-1965: designed to limit the

number of people arriving from foreign countries.

• The U. S has had one of the most open immigration policies in the world and continues to take in more legal immigrants each year than the rest of the world combined.

Immigration Today Compared with the Past

• 1965 major change in U.S immigration policy: family ties to people living in the U.S became the key factor in determining whether a person was admitted into the country. – Effects: shift in immigrant coming to the U.S – By 2006, 61.1% of immigrants came from Latin America, 28.6% from Asia and 7.6% from

Europe.– In 1890, only 1.4% of foreign born population was nonwhite. By 2000, 75% was

nonwhite.

• Of the 35 million foreign born people are recent arrivals . • All unique in skill, background, and origins• However: the education of immigrants today are at two extremes, some

immigrants are less likely to have completed high school, while others are highly educated.

Illegal Immigration• Two types of illegal immigrants: those who

enter t he U.S legally and those who enter illegally

• These immigrants tend to settle in specific states: California in the lead with 25%, Texas 14%, Florida with 7%, and New York with 6%.

• Immigration Reform and Control Act 1986 (IRCA): law that attempted to control flow of illegal immigrants into the U.S.– Fines and penalties imposed to those who

knowingly employ illegal immigrants– Law provided legal status to illegal immigrants who

entered the U.S before 1982 and lived here continuously since then.

• Between 1989 and 1993, 2.7 million people were granted legal residency under the IRCA

• IRCA had little effect in stopping the flow if illegal immigrants to the U.S

WASPS•Number: 41,000,000

•Origin: England, Scotland, Wales (Non-Catholic)

•Timespan: Dominant from 1830 to 1960

African Americans Number: 40.7

Million Origins: Jamaica,

Haiti, Dominican Republic, Barbados, Trinidad and Africa.

Africans have spread out considerably since the 1940s

Hispanics 45.5 Million Mexico,

Puerto Rico, Cuba, Salvador, and the Dominican Republic.

Asian Americans 15.2 Million China,

Philippines, India, Vietnam, Korea, and Japan

1850 on

Native Americans 4.5 Million (2.8 Million

“Pure”) Alaska, Montana,

North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota

Cherokee, Navajo, Sioux, Chippewa, and Choctaw

Reservations