RACE &
ETHNICITY
BELL WORK – RACE &
ETHNICITY 4/30
What is Race?
Is race a real thing?
What is the purpose of race?
When did you first encounter race?
PLATO’S CAVE
“RACE” IS A SOCIAL
CONSTRUCTION
Race- a category of people who share observable traits
whom OTHERS see as a distinct group
Ethnicity – refers to a set of cultural characteristics that
distinguishes one group from another, it is generally based
on, national origin, religion, language customs and values
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF
“RACE”
In 1790, the 1st U.S. census used the following classifications: Free White
Males, Free White Females, All other Free Persons, and Slaves
In 1870 there were 5 races; White, Colored (Black), Mulatto (people with
some black blood), Chinese & Indian
In 1890, 8 races were listed: White, Colored (black), Mulatto(3/8th to 5/8th
black blood), Quadroon (1/4th black blood), Octoroon (1/8th black blood),
Chinese, Japanese and Indian
In 1900, Mulatto, Quadroon, and Octoroon were dropped so that any amount
of black inheritance mean a person had to be classified as “Black”
Between 1930 and 2000 some racial classifications (Hindu, Eskimo,
Hawaiian, and Mexican) appeared and disappeared. Others (Filipino, Korean,
Hawaiian, Mexican) made an appearance and have stayed ever since
Currently on the census form there are a wide variety of racial categories to
choose from: White, Black, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian Indian,
Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Native Hawaiian,
Guamanian and Samoan
"my master was a great tyrant, he treats me badly, as if I were a
common Irishman,“
Daniel O'Connell – Irish Revolutionary – Asked Irish-Americans
to support the repel of slavery
Minstrel Shows – Black face
• Identification of a common ‘enemy’
HOW THE
IRISH
BECAME
WHITE
WHAT WAS HAPPENING
WHEN THE IRISH
BECAME ‘WHITE’?
Assimilation- the blending of minority groups into dominant society
• Specifically – Anglo-Conformity
Melting Pot or Tossed Salad?
• Everyone’s Irish on St. Patties Day
• China Town & Little Italy
Accommodation- minority learns to deal with majority when necessary
but keeps its language and culture
• Amish People Cubans in Miami Asians in California
BELL WORK 5/2
Some words you’ll need to remember for today
Internalization
Role Taking Theory & the Looking Glass Self
Labeling Theory
Manifest and Latent Function
MINSTREL SHOWS
The minstrel show, or minstrelsy,
was an American entertainment
performed by white people in
blackface or, especially after the
Civil War, black people in
blackface.
Now if I was President ob dese
United States,
I'd drink mint julep, an swing
upon de gates…
So I wheel about, &c….
I'm for a union gal, an dis is a
stubborn fact,
Butt if I marry an don't like it, I'll
nullify the act
HTTPS://WWW.YOUTUBE.
COM/WATCH?V=UFINT6A
KG0S
How do the artists mannerisms change throughout their skit?
COMMON
MINSTREL
CHARACTERS
These four stock characters were
among several that reappeared in
minstrel shows throughout the
nineteenth century.
"Jim Crow" was the
stereotypical carefree slave,
"Mr. Tambo" a joyous
musician,
"Zip Coon" a free black
attempting to "put on airs" or
rise above his station.
“Circassian Beauty” – usually
a seductive female slave of
mixed decent
LUPE FIASCO “BITCH BAD”
TRINIDAD JAMES ALL GOLD
EVERYTHING
DEF POETRY – JULIAN CURRY
PREJUDICE AND
DISCRIMINATION
PREJUDICE INVOLVES ATTITUDES, WHILE
DISCRIMINATION IS ABOUT BEHAVIOR.
PREJUDICE USUALLY LEADS TO
DISCRIMINATION. CONVERSELY IN SOME
INSTANCES, DISCRIMINATION CREATES
PREJUDICE.
HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN?
PREJUDICE, RACISM
AND DISCRIMINATION
Prejudice- widely held negative attitudes toward a group and
its individual members
• Are most people prejudiced? Or are most people free from
prejudice?
Racism- an extreme form of prejudice that assumes
superiority of one group over others
Discrimination- treating people differently based on race,
ethnicity, or culture
DISCRIMINATION 2
TYPES
Legal discrimination
Examples?
Apartheid in South Africa,
Jim Crow Laws
Institutionalized Discrimination
Over time, unequal access to resources pushes
minority groups into less powerful places in society
PREJUDICE
Negative prejudice is based on stereotypes
a stereotype is an oversimplified, exaggerated or
unfavorable generalization about a group of people
STEREOTYPES
• Think of the following while you
stereotype this person
• What do they do for fun?
• Where are they from?
• What type of life do they lead?
STEREOTYPES
• What do they do for fun?
• Where are they from?
• What type of life do they lead?
STEREOTYPES
• What do they do for fun?
• Where are they from?
• What type of life do they
lead?
STEREOTYPES
• What do they do for
fun?
• Where are they from?
• What type of life do
they lead?
STEREOTYPES
• What do they do for fun?
• Where are they from?
• What type of life do they
lead?
STEREOTYPES
• What do they do for fun?
• Where are they from?
• What type of life do they lead?
STEREOTYPES
What do they do for fun?
Where are they from?
What type of life do they
lead?
STEREOTYPES
• What do they do for fun?
• Where are they from?
• What type of life do they lead?
STEREOTYPES
• What do they do for fun?
• Where are they from?
• What type of life do they lead?
STEREOTYPES
• What do they do for
fun?
• Where are they
from?
• What type of life do
they lead?
STEREOTYPES
• What do they do for fun?
• Where are they from?
• What type of life do they lead?
ISLAM
1. Islam is one of three traditional branches of Abraham. The
other two are Judaism and Christianity. People who practice
Islam are called Muslims.
2. Muslims believe in all prophets that Jews and Christians
believe in, including Jesus. BUT, they believe that there was an
additional prophet named Mohammad.
3. Islam is based on the Koran – a holy book that is very
similar to the Bible.
4. There are many groups of Muslims – the branch that are
terrorists do not represent Muslims as a whole.
THE 5 PILLARS
1. There is only one God. He is Allah. Mohammad was his
prophet.
2. Give to the poor
3. Live a life of prayer. (Many Muslims pray 5 times a day.)
4. Strengthen your prayer life by observing Ramadan
5. If you can afford it, make a pilgrimage to Mecca.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN
WE STEREOTYPE
PEOPLE?
If people are told often or long enough that they or others are
socially mentally or physically inferior they may come to
believe it
American Sociologist W. I Thomas
“If people define situations as real, they are real in
their consequences”
Robert K Merton & Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
a prediction that results in behavior that makes the
prediction come true
TODAY
Identify the characteristics that define the term
‘minority’
Take a look at different patterns of minority
group treatment
Your Bell Work
•List the adjectives that describe you, try to
come up with as many as possible, shoot
for at least 5
MINORITIES ARE…
Defined by distinctive physical or cultural characteristics that
can be used to separate them from the majority
Dominated by the majority
Possess traits that are perceived to be inferior when compared
to the majority
Have a common sense of identity with strong group loyalty
Determined by who makes up the majority
MERTON’S PATTERNS OF PREJUDICE
Does Not Discriminate
Non-Prejudiced
Prejudiced
Discriminates
All
Weather
Liberal
FairWeather
Liberal
Timid
Bigot
Active
Bigot
PATTERNS OF MINORITY
GROUP TREATMENT
Cultural Pluralism – allows groups to
keep their unique identity
Assimilation – blending of groups into
one distinct group
Legal Protection
Segregation- minority groups are
forbidden to live and work in the same
areas as the dominant group
Population Transfer
Genocide- destruction in whole or in
part of a national, racial, ethnic or
religious group
NATIVE AMERICANS
1/4th live below poverty line
Fewer graduate from high school than any other minority
Lowest annual income ($21,619)
Only 1 in 5 hold professional, managerial or administrative
positions
1 in 3 hold blue collar positions
Lack of much political power
½ of those living in reservations are below the poverty line
9.3% not on reservations go to college, opposed to 5% of
those on reservations
Alcoholism is also incredibly rampant
AFRICAN AMERICANS
13% of the population in the United States
Why have they remained America's most dominant minority?
• Appearance
• Institutional Discrimination – segregation & Jim Crow
• Only 40 years of constitutional equality
• For every $100 a white person makes African Americans
make $62
• Twice as likely to have low level service jobs
• implications?
• Unemployment for African Americans is twice that of Whites
• Does not include hidden unemployment – discouraged
workers/part-time workers who would rather be full time meaning
1 in four are ACTUALLY unemployed
LATINOS
Fastest growing minority in the United States
• ¼ Americans in 2050
Mostly Mexicans but many are from other regions
Only 50% complete high school opposed to 84% of non-Latinos
Average income for Latinos ($26,628) is higher than African
Americans but still much lower than whites ($40,577)
Most work in low-skill, low paying jobs
Cubans are the only sub-group that are similar in employment,
education and housing similar to whites
• Why?
Politics – 13 Mexicans, 3 Cubans and 1 Puerto Rican in
congress, also going to be huge in the future
ASIAN AMERICANS
4% of the total population
China Towns started because of competition for jobs with other
immigrants in the late 1800s
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 – ends Chinese immigration for a
century
California Alien Land Bill 1913 – only allowed Japanese to lease,
not own, farmland
1924 Immigration Bill completely bars Japanese immigration
Pearl Harbor – Executive Order 9066, 111,000 Japanese are put in
internment camps
Commonly seen as the “model minority”
INSTITUTIONALIZED
DISCRIMINATION
Examples?
Do you agree or disagree with Affirmative
Action?
TRUE OR FALSE
Most hate crimes are extremely brutal and involve violence done
to a person
• True
The frequency of hate crimes in the U.S. has finally begun to
decrease
• False, they are still on the rise
Most school related hate crimes are committed by students who
belong to organized hate groups
• False, most occur with one or two friends
Some kinds of hatred toward certain groups of people are
instinctive and biologically based
• False, race is a social construction, and racism is learned
HATE CRIMES
• White supremacist’s shooting spree in Illinois and Indiana that
left a black man and a Korean college student dead and nine
others injured
• The Asian American man in Cali. Who was stabbed to death
while rollerblading. Two young men were arrested with Nazi
paraphernalia
• The destruction of mosques and the verbal harassment of,
physical assault, and even the murder of ‘Arab-looking’
people in the days and weeks following Sept. 11
• James Byrd, who was dragged behind a car driven by two
white men until his body was torn apart in Texas
• The killing of Matthew Sheppard in Laramie Wyoming
• In 2009, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Hate Crimes
Prevention Act expanded the 1969 U.S Federal Hate-Crime
Law to include crimes motivated by a victim's actual or
perceived race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or
disability
HAVE AFRICAN AMERICANS
MADE ADVANCES?
Yes, but…
• 84% of whites finish high school compared to 76% of AA
• 25% of whites finish college compared to 15% of AA
• White high school graduates tend to make as much as AA with a
college degree
However since 1960
• Professional and technical jobs for AA has increased 128%
• Those with manager/official jobs is twice as high
Since 1970 political power has also increased
• 4,800 in city councils opposed to 715
• 8,000 elected officials opposed to 1,600