1. Racial and Ethnic Inequality
Chapter 3
Racial and Ethnic Inequality

2. Race and Ethnicity Race: A socially constructed category of people
Who share biologically transmitted traits that a society defines as important
Sociologists view racial categories at best as crude and misleading
And at worst as a harmful way to divide humanity
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5. Race and Ethnicity Ethnicity:
Shared cultural heritage
While race and ethnicity are different, the two may go together
When groups share not only certain physical traits but ethnic traits as well
Ex.: Korean Americans and Native Americans
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6. Race and Ethnicity
The racial and ethnic diversity in the United States is a product of immigration
The “Great Immigration” extended from the end of the Civil War till the outbreak of WWI
“Nativists” opposed immigration
Feared that immigrants might overwhelm neighborhoods/schools and threaten the country’s mostly English culture
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7. Multiracial People
7 million in U.S. describe themselves as multiracial
As time goes on, fewer people see one another in rigid racial categories
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8. Recent Immigration
The next great immigration began in 1965 when Congress ended the quota system.
Immigrants came mainly from Mexico and other Latin American nations
As well as the Philippines, South Korea, and other Asian nations
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9. The Current Immigration Controversy
In 2007, the total U.S. population reached 302 million
Including about 38 million who are foreign born
It is estimated that 500,000 illegal immigrants enter the country each year from Mexico
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10. Minorities
Category of people, identified by physical/cultural traits, subjected to disadvantages
Characteristics:
They share a distinctive identity
They tend to be disadvantaged
About one-third of the people in the U.S. fall into a minority racial or ethnic category
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11. Patterns of Minority – Majority Interaction
Genocide – the systematic killing of one category of people by another
Segregation – the physical and social separation of categories of people
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13. Patterns of Minority – Majority Interaction
Assimilation –
Process by which minorities gradually adopt cultural patterns of the dominant majority
Pluralism –
State in which people of all racial and ethnic categories have roughly equal social standing
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14. The Social Standing of U.S. Minorities
Native Americans
African Americans
Asian Americans
Hispanic/Latino Americans
Arab Americans
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16. Native Americans
Conflict marked the relationship between Native Americans and explorers/colonizers
Since the late fifteenth century
At first the U.S. government saw Native peoples as independent nations
Tried to gain land from them through treaties
Used military power against those unwilling to bargain
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17. Native Americans
1871: the U.S. declared Native Americans wards of the federal government
Granting them various forms of “assistance”
Resulted in many Native Americans becoming dependent on the Bureau of Indian Affairs
Native Americans gained full citizenship in 1924.
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18. Native Americans During the 1990s:
Native American organizations reported gains in new membership applications
Most Native Americans continue to struggle
Share a profound sense of injustice endured at the hands of whites
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20. People of African Descent
People of African ancestry arrived in the Americas with early European explorers
While slave traders brought 500,000 Africans to the U.S. as slaves
Not all people of African descent were slaves
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21. People of African Descent
In the Dred Scott case of 1857:
the U.S. Supreme Court declared that people of color were not citizens
The Civil War brought slavery to an end
Jim Crow laws barred black people from:
Voting, sitting on juries, and institutionalized segregation policies
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22. People of African Descent
By the early 1950s, opposition to segregation was building
1954 case, Brown v. the Board of Education, eliminated “separate but equal” schooling
Rosa Parks sparked the bus boycott
Desegregated public transportation in Montgomery, Alabama
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23. People of African Descent
In the 1960s the federal government
passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964
passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965
passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
Together, these laws brought an end to most legal discrimination in public life
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24. People of African Descent
Today, the struggle isn’t over
below-average incomes
rate of poverty is twice that of white poverty rate
college completion rate is well below the national average
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26. People of Asian Descent
Asian Americans include people with historical ties to dozens of Asian nations.
The largest number have roots in China, the Philippines, India, South Korea, and Japan
The first Asians to migrate to North America in the modern era came from China and Japan
Because of the Gold Rush of 1849
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27. People of Asian Descent
Once the demand for cheap labor lessened:
Whites pressured legislatures and courts to bar Asians from certain work
World War II brought important change to Japanese and Chinese Americans
President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066
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28. People of Asian Descent
Forcibly relocated all Japanese Americans to internment camps where they stayed until 1944
Chinese Americans fared better
In 1943, the federal government ended the 1882 ban on Chinese immigration
Extended citizenship to Chinese Americans born abroad
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29. People of Asian Descent
Many Asian Americans prospered as the postwar economy grew
By the 1980s, called the “model minority”
Based on their cultural commitment to study, hard work & outstanding achievement
Many Asian Americans have assimilated into the larger cultural mix
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35. Hispanic/Latino People
Hispanics came to the United States from;
Central & South America, Caribbean, & Spain
There is no single Latino culture
A high birth rate and heavy immigration have resulted in:
Hispanics surpassing African Americans as the nation’s largest racial or ethnic minority
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36. Hispanic/Latino People
While the social standing of Hispanics is below the U.S. average:
Various categories of Latinos have very different rankings
The most well off are Cuban Americans, who have greater education and enjoy higher incomes
Mexican Americans have lowest relative ranking
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38. Arab Americans
Immigration to the U.S. from many nations has created a culturally diverse population
Arab Americans are diverse in terms of social class
A number of US Cities have large, visible Arab American communities
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39. Prejudice Prejudice – Stereotypes –
Any rigid and irrational generalization about an entire category of people
Stereotypes –
Exaggerated descriptions that are applied to everyone in the same category –
Greatly contribute to the perpetuation of prejudice
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40. Prejudice Most serious kind of prejudice is racism
The assertion that people of one race are innately superior or inferior to others
In today’s society, racism is less blatant than it once was
Subtle forms of racism are still very much part of our national life
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41. Measuring Prejudice: The Social Distance Scale
Bogardus developed this scale to measure prejudice among U.S. college students
High social distance meant high negative prejudice
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42. Measuring Prejudice: The Social Distance Scale
Today’s students:
Are more accepting of minorities
See less difference between the various minorities
Express the most prejudice toward Arabs and Muslims
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44. Prejudice Two key factors in the cause of prejudice: Multiculturalism:
personality factors
societal factors
Multiculturalism:
Educational programs designed to recognize cultural diversity in the U.S.
And to promote respect for all cultural traditions
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45. Discrimination
While prejudice is an attitude, discrimination is a matter of actions
Discrimination can be positive or negative
Institutional discrimination
Built into the operation of social institutions, including the economy, schools, & the legal system
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46. Discrimination
Because prejudice and discrimination reinforce each other:
Societies can subject minorities to a vicious cycle of subordination
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47. Discrimination
One strategy designed to break the vicious cycle of prejudice and discrimination:
Affirmative Action
Policies intended to improve social standings of minorities subject to historical prejudice
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48. Affirmative Action: Reverse Discrimination or Cure for Prejudice
Policies intended to improve the social standing of minorities
Targeted to those who are subject to historic prejudice and discrimination
University of California Regents V. Bakke (1978)
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49. Structural-Functional Analysis: The Importance of Culture
The Culture of Poverty
Criticism
Contend that this approach defines people as responsible for their own disadvantage
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50. Symbolic-Interaction Analysis: The Personal Meaning of Race
When race becomes a master status, it becomes a personal trait
Overwhelms all others and defines any person of color
Critics contend that race involves more than individual behavior
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51. Social-Conflict Analysis: The Structure of Inequality
The Importance of Class
Multicultural Theory
Critics contend that social-conflict theory:
understates what people in the U.S. have in common
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52. Social-Conflict Analysis: The Structure of Inequality
takes away people’s responsibility for their own lives
tends to minimize significant strides that have been made in dealing with social diversity
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53. Conservatives: Culture and Effort Matter
Claim that differences in culture set some parts of the population apart from others
People in various racial and ethnic categories have different values and priorities
A free society must be an unequal society
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54. Liberals: Society and Government Matter
Liberals contend that cultural differences are not the main reason for inequality
View racial and ethnic inequality
Resulting mostly from prejudice and discrimination built into society’s institutions
They urge people to avoid thinking that minorities are themselves the “social problem”
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55. Radicals: Fundamental Changes Are Needed
Radicals suggest two ways to solve the problem of racial and ethnic inequality:
Attack the source of all inequality- capitalism itself
Eliminate the concept of race; it provides an ideological basis for dividing people
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