Chapter 12, Race And Ethnic
Relations
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Race and Ethnicity
Racial Stereotypes
Prejudice, Discrimination, and Racism
Theories of Prejudice and Racism
Diverse Groups, Diverse Histories
Patterns of Racial and Ethnic Relations
Attaining Racial Equality: The Challenge
Race and Ethnicity
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Race is a social construction based on
physical criteria.
An ethnic group is a culturally distinct group.
A group is minority or dominant on the basis of
which group occupies lower average social
status.
Stereotypes
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Reinforce racial and ethnic prejudices and
cause them to persist in society.
Both racial and gender stereotypes receive
ongoing support in the media.
Serve to justify and make legitimate the
oppression of groups based on race, ethnicity
and gender.
Prejudice, Discrimination and
Racism
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Prejudice is an attitude involving prejudgment
on the basis of race or ethnicity.
Discrimination is actual behavior involving
unequal treatment.
Racism involves both attitude and behavior.
Prejudice and Socialization
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Media stereotypes began to improve as a
result of civil rights activity in the 1960s.
Positive interactions between Blacks and
Whites have been 5% or less of total
interactions on television programs.
Social Psychological
Theories: Scapegoat
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Members of the dominant group have harbored
frustrations in their desire to achieve success.
As a result of frustration, they vent their anger
in the form of aggression.
The aggression is directed toward members of
minority groups who serve as scapegoats.
Social Psychological Theories:
Authoritarian Personality
Characteristics of authoritarian personalities
make them likely to be prejudiced:
 Tendency to categorize other people
 Rigidly conform
 Intolerance of ambiguity
 Inclined to superstition
Functionalist Theory
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For race and ethnic relations to be functional to
society, minorities must assimilate.
First step in assimilation is for minorities to
adopt the culture of the dominant society.
Symbolic Interaction Theory
Addresses two issues:
1. Role of social interaction in reducing racial
and ethnic hostility.
2. How race and ethnicity are socially
constructed.
Contact Theory
Interaction between whites and minorities will
reduce prejudice if 3 conditions are met:
1. Contact is between individuals of equal
status.
2. Contact is sustained.
3. Participants agree upon social norms favoring
equality.
Conflict Theory
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Class-based conflict is an inherent and
fundamental part of social interaction.
Class inequality must be reduced to lessen
racial and ethnic conflict in society.
Gender and race are intertwined but neither is
separable from the effects of class.
Native Americans
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The indigenous population in north America in
1492 has been estimated from 1 to 10 million.
Conquest, disease, and expulsion from their
lands resulted in a decline in population to
300,000 by 1850.
Native Americans
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Today, about 55% of all Native Americans live
on or near a reservation.
Have the highest poverty rate of all minorities
and suffer massive unemployment (50%
among males).
Entrepreneurship has increased in recent
years, through casinos and other enterprises.
African Americans
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Between 20 and 100 million Africans were
transported to the Americas.
The majority went to Brazil and the Caribbean
and 6% went to the U.S.
Slavery evolved as a rigid caste system, also
involving the domination of men over women.
African Americans
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After the civil war, the system of sharecropping
emerged as a new exploitative system.
The migration of Blacks to the urban north from
the 1900s through the 1920s encouraged the
development of political, social, and cultural
action.
Latinos
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Includes Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans,
Cubans, and other Latin American immigrants.
Includes Latin Americans who were early
settlers in the U.S.
The terms Hispanic and Latino/a mask the
great diversity among the groups.
Latinos
Entries into U.S. Society:
 Mexican Americans though military conquest
(1846-1848).
 Puerto Ricans through war with Spain (1898).
 Cubans as political refugees fleeing from a
political regime (1959).
Chinese
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During 1865-1868, thousands of Chinese
laborers worked for the Central Pacific railroad.
In 1882, the federal government passed the
Chinese exclusion act that banned immigration
of laborers and intermarriage.
Hostility and exclusion resulted in the creation
of Chinatowns.
Japanese
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Immigration of the first generation (Issei) took
place mainly between 1890 and 1924.
In 1924, passage of the Japanese immigration
act forbade further immigration.
The second generation (Nisei) became better
educated and assimilated.
Japanese
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Members of the third generation (Sansei) still
met with prejudice and discrimination.
During WWII, virtually all Japanese Americans
were forced into relocation camps.
In 1987, legislation awarding $20,000 to each
relocated person and offering an apology was
passed.
Middle Easterners
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Immigrants from Middle Eastern countries such
as Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and Iran began
arriving in the mid-1970s.
Like other immigrants, many experienced
downward mobility and formed their own ethnic
enclaves.
White Ethnic Groups
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Immigration dates to the WASP immigrants
from England, Scotland, and Wales.
40% of the world’s Jewish population lives in
the U.S.
In 1924, the National Origins Quota Act, the
most discriminatory act in U.S. immigration
history, was passed.
Domestic Colonialism Model
Four elements:
 Forced and involuntary entry.
 Control of the group’s affairs by the colonizers.
 Racism is used to justify the colonizer’s
domination.
 The minority is prevented from expressing its
culture and values.
Civil Rights Movement
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Encouraged resistance to segregation through
nonviolent techniques.
Civil rights bill in 1964 laid the legal framework
for anti-discrimination policies.
Voting rights act of 1965.
Fair housing act of 1968.