Race Ethnicity Inequality Arent Race Ethnicity the same

Race, Ethnicity & Inequality

Aren’t Race & Ethnicity the same thing?

Ethnicity • People who identify with one another on the basis of common ancestry & cultural heritage.

Race • A category of people who are alleged to share certain biologically inherited physical characteristics that are considered socially important within a society. – Shepard

Racial Categories Change Through Time & From Culture to Culture

The problems with continuing Woods says he’s Cablinasian • People of mixed racial/ethnic heritage – Since gene flow is open we can have offspring with any number of racial/ethnic combinations and it/we haven’t created any new races – by recognizing only one, we dismiss their full heritage http: //www. tigerwoods. com/splash. sps

The Great Racial Myth? • Slightly over half of all biological/physical anthropologists today believe in the traditional view that human races are biologically valid and real. • The other half believes that the traditional racial categories for humankind are arbitrary and meaningless, – or that at a minimum there are better ways to look at human variation than through the "racial lens. " http: //www. pbs. org/wgbh/nova/first/gill. html

Dr. George Gill “I have found that forensic anthropologists attain a high degree of accuracy in determining geographic racial affinities by utilizing both new and traditional methods of bone analysis. “ Dr. George W. Gill is a professor of anthropology at the University of Wyoming. He also serves as the forensic anthropologist for Wyoming lawenforcement agencies and the Wyoming State Crime Laboratory. http: //www. pbs. org/wgbh/nova/first/gill. html

Dr. C. Loring Brace “…there is no "biological entity that warrants the term 'race'. ” Dr. C. Loring Brace is professor anthropology and curator of biological anthropology at the Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor “…it is perfectly true that the long-term residents of the various parts of the world have patterns of features that we can easily identify as characteristic of the areas from which they come. ” http: //www. pbs. org/wgbh/nova/first/brace. html

DNA • Researchers have unanimously declared there is only one race — the human race. – New York Times “Do Races Differ? Not Really, DNA Shows. • 99. 9 percent of the human genome is the same in everyone regardless of race. • The standard labels used to distinguish people by ‘race’ have little or no biological meaning. – New York Times “Do Races Differ? Not Really, DNA Shows. http: //www. policyreview. org/DEC 01/satel. html

What we view as race may be an evolutionary response to the environment. • Morphological characteristics, however, like skin color, hair form, bone traits, eyes, and lips tend to follow geographic boundaries coinciding often with climatic zones. – For example, more prominent noses humidify air better. http: //www. pbs. org/wgbh/nova/first/gill. html

The Idea of Race is Real • “If people define situations as real, they are real in their consequences. ” – W. I. & D. S. Thomas in Essentials of Sociology • and the consequences can be devastating…

Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing • The Holocaust • Darfur Catastrophe • 80, 000 people have died in Darfur, 30, 000 have been murdered, 50, 00 have died from disease and famine” – http: //www. americanprogress. org/site/pp. asp? c=bi. JRJ 8 OVF&b=84769 http: //www. shamash. org/holocaust/photos/index. shtml

• 95% of all Native Americans died due to destroyed food supply, disease & murder. – Essentials of Sociology, Henslin • Manifest Destiny (mid 1800 s)

• • Slavery Lynching Segregation Discrimination http: //www. english. uiuc. edu/maps/poets/g_l/lynching. htm

Minority & Dominant Groups • Minority group – “People who are singled out for unequal treatment and who regard themselves as objects of collective discrimination. ” – Not based solely on quantity • Dominant group – “Have greater power, privileges and social status”. Essentials of Sociology, Henslin

Prejudice & Discrimination • Prejudice is an attitude, either positive or negative, which prejudges a person who belongs to a particular group. • Discrimination is an action, “unfair treatment directed against someone”. • One can exist with or without the other Essentials of Sociology, Henslin

Merton’s Typology of Prejudice and Discrimination • Unprejudiced nondiscriminator • Unprejudiced discriminator • Prejudice nondiscriminator • Prejudice discriminator

Global Patterns of Racial-Ethnic Relations • I. Genocide – “A systematic annihilation or attempted annihilation of a people based on their presumed race or ethnic group” • II. Ethnic Cleansing – “A policy of population elimination, including forcible expulsion and genocide” Essentials of Sociology, Heslin

• III. Population Transfer – Indirect population transfer • “Achieved by making life so horrible for a members of a minority group that they leave ‘voluntarily’. ” • Jews in czarist Russia – Direct population transfer • “A dominant group expels a minority. ” • Native Americans Essentials of Sociology, Henslin

• IV. Internal Colonialism – “The policy of economically exploiting minority groups” – Slavery in U. S. – Apartheid in South Africa • V. Segregation – “The formal separation of racial or ethnic groups” – The U. S. South until 1960 s Essentials of Sociology, Henslin

VI. Assimilation • “Minority group is absorbed into the mainstream culture. ” – Forced assimilation • The dominant group refuses to allow the minority group to practice its own religion, speak its language or follow its customs. ” – Permissible assimilation • Dominant group “allows the minority to adopt the dominant group’s patterns in its own way and at its own speed. ” Essentials of Sociology, Henslin

VII. Multiculturalism/Pluralism • “Permits or even encourages racial and ethnic variations” Essentials of Sociology, Henslin

The United States Are we really a melting pot?

Or are we a tossed salad?

Which box do I check? • “Race became a factor in the census during slavery when five blacks were counted the same as three whites to determine how many representatives a state could send to Congress!” – Essential of Sociology, Henslin

Whose business is it anyway? • The problems with not continuing to ask about race/ethnic heritage – can’t identify which groups need help – Most people of mixed racial/ethnic heritage identify with one race more than another • Most are treated as if they belonged to a single racial category