Brynn Callahan
Sociology, 5th Hour
Chapter 10 Essay
Chapter 10 was about racial and ethnic relations. Race is a category of people who share
the inherited physical characteristics and who other people see as being a distinct group.
Historical scholars placed people into three different kinds of racial groups: Caucasoids,
Mongoloids, and Negroids. Ethnicity is the set of cultural traits and characteristics that
distinguish one group of people from another. An ethnic group is people who share a common
cultural background and a common sense of identity.
There are also minority groups. A minority group is a group of people who are singled
out or treated unfairly or unequally due to their physical characteristics or culture. In order to be
considered a minority group, a group must contain all of the following characteristics: possessing
physical or cultural characteristics that differ from the dominant group, being a victim or unequal
treatment from the dominant group, membership of the group would be of ascribed status, group
members all hold a strong bond and are loyal to each other, and members tend to practice
endogamy. An example of a minority group would be Haitians in the United States, or
Aborigines in Australia.
There are also minority groups in the United States. One of the largest minority groups
in the United States are African Americans, who make up 12 percent of the population. African
Americans were brought into the country in the early 1600s as slaves. Over the past 400 years,
African Americans have gained both economic and political foothold in American Society. The
United States is also home to more than 35 million Hispanics, who are the largest minority group
in the country. Along with Hispanics and African Americans are Asian Americans and American
Indians. I think the variety of people in the United States has brought in a lot of good things to
the country, as well as different cultures.
A lot of times, minority groups are discriminated prejudiced against by those who are of
the dominant group. There is a big difference between discrimination and prejudice.
Discrimination can be found on both an individual or social level, and these acts range from
name-calling and rude remarks from acts of violence. There are two different types of
discrimination, Legal and Institutionalized. Legal discrimination is upheld by law, and
Institutionalized discrimination is an outgrowth of the structure of society. Prejudice is a
stereotype, an oversimplified, exaggerated, or unfavorable generalization about a group of
people. It can have grave consequences for society. If people are told often enough or long
enough that they or others are socially, mentally, or physically inferior, they eventually become
to believe it. There are patterns of prejudice and discrimination: active bigot, timid bigot, fairweather liberal, and all-weather liberal. Active bigot is prejudiced and openly discriminatory,
whereas timid bigot is prejudice but is afraid to discriminate because of pressures or the thoughts
of others and their opinions. Fair-weather liberal is not prejudice but discriminated anyways,
usually because of peer pressure or pressure from society. All-weather liberal, on the other hand,
is not prejudiced at all and therefor does not discriminate, even if pressured by the thoughts of
others. An example for these would be the 1950s, in the U.S. Supreme Court Brown v. Board of
Education of Topeka, which declared racial segregation of public schools illegal. This was a
huge turning point for not only just education, but for our country as a whole. This Supreme
Court case led to a lot of other important legal actions to take place during this time period.
Discrimination and prejudice can sometimes be very hard to understand, but various
explanations have been thought of to try to understand the thought process of them, and to get an
answer as to why. The three different categories that sociologists came up with are sociological,
psychological, and economic. I think most of it is sociological because people learn from their
environment and tend to feed off of one another, even if they don’t necessarily have the same
opinions of beliefs in it. The other two, Psychological and Economic, seem to make a lot of
sense as well though.
Along with these various explanations, patterns of minority group treatment have been
put together as sort of a timeline from acceptance to rejection, to help understand how they work
and why. First is Cultural Pluralism, which allows each group within society to keep its unique
and cultural identity. Second is Assimilation, which is the blending of the culturally distinct
groups into a single group with a common culture or identity. Four is Legal Protection, when
minority rights are protected by law. Fifth is Segregation, which is when the minority group
beings to physically separate from the dominant group. Subjugation is sixth, and it’s when the
dominant group starts to try to control every aspect of the minority group, and mostly by force.
Seventh is Population Transfer, which is when the dominant group moves the minority group to
new locations within or outside the country. Next is Extermination, which is when the dominant
group attempts to destroy the minority. An example of these steps would be the Holocaust, these
were basically the steps that Hitler and the Nazi’s took in order to exterminate over 6 million
Jews.
Racial and ethnic relations have helped to form and shape the United States into what it is
today. Different races, ethnicities, ethnic groups, & minority groups have had a big impact on
the United States. Over time, things have changed, and made the United States a stronger and
better country.