Social Inequalities: Race and Ethnicity

Norton & Sommers 2011

Matthews 2013 Matthews 2013: Jason Richwine was at the Heritage Foundation. He had done his dissertation at Harvard in 2009. When he made the news, he was disavowed by HF. His dissertation asserts that there are real differences in IQ between races, and that the persistent low IQ scores of Hispancis suggests they should be prevented from immigration in favor of what are essentially “more intelligent” races. He writes, “No one knows whether Hispanics will ever reach IQ parity with whites, but the prediction that new Hispanic immigrants will have low-IQ children and grandchildren is difficult to argue against. OTHER explanations for the persistence he observed?

Cultural Construction of Race Race implies hereditary differences between peoples & is used to justify social stratification. Race matters!

Racism Racism in America on 20/20 Avenue Q: Everyone’s a little bit racist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHKIMOgoJoU

American Anthropological Association There is greater genetic variation within racial groups than between them. Physical variations are on a continuum. Historically, racial categories have been used to divide, rank, and control populations.

Racial Stratification: Brazil Fluid & only one of many criteria that govern social status & mobility. More than 500 distinct racial labels based on slight phenotypic differences. Racial Stratification: U.S. Skin color & presumed ancestry. In the South it became much like a caste system.

Racial Stratification: Japan The dominant racial ideology describes Japan as racially and ethnically homogeneous. “Us/not us” dichotomy. Race is ascribed.

Racial Stratification: Burakumin Descendants of the ancient lowest social caste. Genetically indistinguishable from Japanese, but treated as a distinct, low-status race. Some self-identify, others try to ‘pass’. Endogamy. Ainu also ignored & treated as ‘quaint’.

Racial Stratification: Japan Modern Ainu Burakumin 1873

Race and the U.S. Census First recorded because the Constitution said a slave was 3/5 of a person, & Indians weren’t taxed. Each census has had different “racial” (really national and/or ethnic) labels. “Hispanic”? “Asian”? “African”? “Other”?

Hypodescent in the U.S. In the U.S., race is most commonly ascribed based on heritage and phenotype. The offspring of racially mixed unions are typically ascribed the status of the parent with the lower racial status, although phenotype may be a factor.

Is President Obama “Black”? “The media, however, have continually called Obama the nation's first major party ‘black candidate,’ saying he could make history as the first ‘black president.’ But is that accurate?” (CNN 6/9/08)

Is President Obama “Black”? “’Obama's mother is of white U.S. stock. His father is a black Kenyan,’ Stanley Crouch recently sniffed in a New York Daily News column entitled ‘What Obama Isn't: Black Like Me’.” (Time 02/1/07)

Is President Obama “Black”? The fact that members of the African-American community have opposing views of this- despite themselves having mixed genetic ancestry mostly likely- demonstrates the cultural- and not biological- reality of race. However, due to the US norm of hypodescent, most Whites consider him “Black”.

Ethnic Groups Categories of people who see themselves as sharing an ethnic identity that differentiates them from other groups based on language, religion, geography, history, ancestry, and/or physical traits. Ethnic identity - The sense of self one experiences as a member of an ethnic group. Ethnic boundaries - Perceived cultural attributes by which ethnic groups distinguish themselves.

Ethnicity vs. Race Race refers to perceptions of physical differences. Ethnicity refers to perceptions of cultural differences. Ethnicity can transform into race when cultural differences become assumed biological differences. Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda

Relational ethnogenesis Identity is formed in relation to other ethnic groups. Ethnic boundaries are maintained and marked through distinctive clothing, hairstyles, food, language, practices, and other symbolic behaviors.

Nation-States Governments and territories that are identified with (relatively) culturally homogeneous populations and national histories. Nation-states construct national identities by drawing boundaries between insiders and outsiders. People who live within boundaries have an identity based on a common language and shared customs and culture.

Nation-States Examples in the U.S.? National identities are grounded in (re)invented versions of both “the past” and “traditions.” The premise is that any national member is connected to all the others in traditions and ideas of the past, even if they never meet in time or space, making nations imagined communities. Examples in the U.S.?

Nation-States and Indigenous Peoples Indigenous peoples are small scale societies designated as bands, tribes, and chiefdoms. These societies are characterized by close identification with their land, relative social egalitarianism, community-level resource management, and high levels of self sufficiency.

Nation-States and Indigenous Peoples Nation-states are often in conflict with indigenous peoples, whom they have conquered and deprived of their land. Law has been an important tool of modern nation-states in changing the cultures of indigenous peoples.

Nation-States and Ethnic Conflict Ethnic differentiation sometimes interferes with the dominant group's consolidation of power. Ruling powers often divide ethnic groups and set them against each other, as in the Hutu-Tutsi conflict in Rwanda, where Hutus committed genocide against Tutsis in 1994.

Nation-States and Ethnic Conflict Such conditions, perceived or real, have resulted in brutal discrimination: Ethnocide: Efforts to destroy a culture, including forced assimilation (suppression of Breton culture in France and some Native cultures in the Americas) Genocide or ethnic cleansing: Killing of an ethnic or racial group (Jewish and Roma Holocaust; Serbs and others in former Yugoslavia; some Native cultures). Ethnic expulsion (the goal of le Front National regarding non-French immigrants, especially Arabs) Colonialism: The political, social, economic, and cultural domination of a territory and its people by a foreign power.

U.S. Cultural Diversity The cultural diversity of the U.S. has been framed in terms of ethnicity based on the national origin of immigrants. From the 1880s through the 1920s, restrictive and racist immigration laws gave preference to immigration from European countries. In 1965, changes in American immigration laws led to increasing immigration from a wide diversity of nations and races.

Assimilation Model Immigrants should abandon traditions and become absorbed in American culture. Resulted in the building of urban Settlement Houses, designed to teach immigrants “American” norms.

Assimilation Model Assimilation is not uniform: it may be forced or unforced depending on historical particularities. Brazil (as opposed to the U.S.) is cited as a highly assimilative society wherein ethnic neighborhoods are virtually unknown.

Multiculturalism (Mosaic/ ‘tossed salad’) The view that cultural diversity in the United States is a positive value and makes an important contribution to American national identity. Basic aspects of multiculturalism at the government level are the official espousal of some degree of cultural relativism along with the promotion of distinct ethnic practices.

Multiculturalism A number of factors have caused the United States to move away from an assimilationist and toward a multicultural model. Large-scale migration has brought in substantial minorities in a time span too short for assimilation to take place. An ethnic consciousness may take root in reaction to consistent discrimination. Studies have demonstrated that closely maintained ethnic ties have been a successful strategy for recent immigrants.

Other examples in the U.S.? Diaspora A diaspora is the dispersal of an ethnic population, voluntarily or not, from their native homeland. They are often marginalized and persecuted. Jews Roma (“Gypsies”) Other examples in the U.S.?

Transnationalism Examples? Improved communications and cheaper travel make it easier for immigrants to retain closer social and economic ties with their families and cultures in their homelands. These factors have lead to transnational imagined communities, including diasporic ones. Examples?