BC
Vincent Parrillo
Strangers to These Shores
Chapter Four
Dominant-Minority Relations
BC
Minority-Group Responses
• Dominant and Minority Groups respond
in a variety of way depending on:
• Prevailing cultural patterns
• Racial differences
• Ethnic differences
• Sociohistorical (time) period
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Minority-Group Responses
• Depends on:
• Minority’s perception of its power
resources
– Determines the responses they make
• Responses include
– Avoidance, … Deviance, … Defiance, …
Acceptance, … Negative self-image
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Avoidance
• A way of dealing with discrimination,
…a way to leave one’s problems
behind
• Cluster into small sub-communities, …
a miniature version of a familiar world
– A safe place to live with others like them
– Accused of being clannish
– Accused of not wanting to assimilate into
American culture
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Avoidance Cont.
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Asian groups followed this example
Clustered together in “China Towns”
Limited residential choices
Limited occupational choices
– Not competitive with white Americans
• Other minorities who practiced
avoidance
– Blacks (African Americans), … Irish, …
Chinese, … Japanese, .. Mexican
Americans, … consider Los Angeles, …
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Deviance
• A discriminated group may find it difficult to
identify with the core’s norms, values and
culture.
• Shaw and McKay’s Social Disorganization
Theory
– Immigration & settlement in Chicago
– Study of the city’s immigrants by generation
– As immigrants assimilate they deviate less
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Deviance Cont.
• American criminal justice system has been
subjective in handling violations by
immigrants
• Disparities in fair and equal treatment of
the poor compared to the upper classes
• Police likely to assume the poor and
minorities are guilty
• Under-representation on juries, ..minorities
• Disparities in affording legal services and
sentencing
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Defiance
• A minority group may openly challenge to
eliminate discriminatory practices if:
– They are sufficiently cohesive
– Aware of its economic or political power
• Gain in structural assimilation
– Re. Milton Gordon’s, Seven Stages of
Assimilation
• Defiance, by minority, may be violent or
not
– Riots of 1863, 1963, and 1992
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Acceptance
• Minority’s may accept their situation, …
accommodation
– May be resentful, but accept their social
position
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Native Americans
Blacks (African Americans)
Mexicans (Chicanos)
Japanese, … Relocation camps
Jews
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Consequences of Minority Group
Status
• Negative Self-image
– A common consequence of prejudice and
discrimination
• Difficult to remain optimistic and
determined in the face of constant negative
experiences, … interactions
• A function of social structure, … time, and:
– Race, … Religion, … Ethnicity, … Gender, …
• Cooley’s “Looking Glass Self”
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The Vicious Circle (Cycle)
• The Vicious Circle
• Gunnar Myrdal, … Cumulative Causation
– Prejudice and discrimination perpetuate each
other
• The “Cycle:” A discriminatory action in job
acquisition, … advancement, …
– Discrimination
• Leads to a minority’s reaction, ..condition,
poverty
• Reinforces prejudice of minority inferiority
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Vicious Circle Cont.
• Leads to justification of prejudice and
more discrimination
– Completes the circle and leads to continued
poverty and further discrimination
• If minorities are made welcome, they in
turn will react in a positive manner
• If made unwelcome they will react in a
negative manner
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Minority Group Marginality
• Robert E. Park: “Marginal Minorities”
– A minority attempting to enter the
mainstream culture
– Not gaining full acceptance by the core
– No longer a full member of ethnic culture
• Causes the individual an great deal of
strain
– Confined to live between to cultures and not
a true member of either
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Marginality Cont.
• Children of immigrants find themselves
caught between two worlds
– A second and third generation phenomenon
• Marginality is an example of cultural
conflict caused by a clash of cultural
(ethnic) values
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Middleman Minorities
• Hubert Blalock: “Middleman Minorities”
• The dominant core places middleman
minorities in an intermediate position
between the lower and higher classes
– They forge a mediating commerce link
between minorities and dominant core group
• Serve as a buffer groups between the two
– Experience hostility from both the lower and
upper classes
– Example: Koreans in Los Angeles
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Dominant Group Responses
• Legislative Controls
• Laws to regulate and restrict immigration
in favor of NW Europeans
• Restrictions on educational opportunities
• Restrictions of voting rights, to maintain
political control (Blacks mainly)
• Other countries: South Africa (Apartheid),
Australia (Restricted Asian Immigration)
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Segregation
• Spatial segregation: Physical separation
of a minority from the rest of society, … a
policy of containment
• Areas of separation:
– Residential, … education, … public facilities, .
Occupations
• May be “institutionalized”
• May be overt of covert, de jure or defacto
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Segregation Cont.
• Social segregation: Involves confining
participation in social, service, political, and
other types of activities
• Dominant group excludes the outgroup
from meaningful primary-group interaction
– May be voluntary or involuntary, … mostly
involuntary
• Frequent interaction may lessen prejudice,
but interaction is often severely controlled
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Expulsion
• To eject a minority group from a territory
or country
• England, … Gypsies in the 16th century
• Spain, … The Moors in early 17th century
• British, … Acadians from Nova Scotia in
the mid 18th century
• Americans, … Cherokee from Georgia in
1838, “The Trail of Tears”
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Xenophobia
• Def. The undue fear of, or contempt of
strangers or foreigners
• Often reflected in print, speeches,
sermons, legislation, and violent actions
• Examples in the United States
– The Wild Irishman
– The French radicals
– Immigrants in general (except NW Europe)
• Related to Ethnocentrism
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Ethnocentrism
• One’s group is seen as the center of
everything, others are defined negatively
• Encourages the creation of negative
stereotypes, …in turn invites prejudice
• Results in discrimination
• Escalates to ongoing institutional
discrimination
• Becomes a normal social behavior, … a
part of the normative culture
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Annihilation
• The killing of all men, women, and children
of a particular group
• Goes back to ancient times
• Examples in more recent times
– The British, … the Tasmanians
– The Portuguese in Brazil, … infected natives
with smallpox
– Germans, … The Jewish holocaust
– Others: … ?
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Hate Groups and Hate Crimes
• In the past, U.S., … the Know-Nothings
• Mid-19th century and beyond, …Ku Klux
Klan
• The rise of hate groups usually occurs in
times of economic stress
• Florida contains the largest number of
hate group (48), … California (35)
• Hate crimes: Criminal offense against a
person, .. “bias against,”…race, …religion,
… sexual orientation, … ethnic group
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Exploitation
• Usually members of a dominant group
exploit a subordinate (minority) group
• Power-differential Theory: S. Lieberson
• Intergroup relations depend on the relative
power of the migrant and indigenous
group
• Each group strives to maintain its own
culture and institutions
• The “Dominant” group will control the
interaction and the subordinate group
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Internal Colonialism Theory
• Robert Blauner: Integrated elements of
caste, racism, ethnicity, culture, and
economic exploitation into a single theory
• Theorized that the treatment of Native
Americans, Blacks, and Mexicans
resembled a colonial like relationship
much like the European colonies of nonWestern peoples
– Not as a colony, but “internal colonialism”
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Internal Colonialism Cont.
• These groups were ghettoized into
colonial like communities
– Reservations, … Ghettos, … Barrios
• Their culture is transformed
• Their colony is controlled by external
forces
– Politically, … economically, … socially
• They are relegated to subordinate status
• Interactions reinforce exploitation
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Split-Labor Market Theory
• Edna Bonacich: Ethnic antagonism results
from a combination of economic
exploitation and economic competition
– A wage differential for competing groups
• Ethnic antagonism is based not on
ethnicity or race but on the conflict
between higher-paid and lower-paid labor
• See Figure 4.3 for a summary
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Limitation to These Theories
• Power Differential Theory
– Only offers one variable to explain conflicts
between dominant and subordinate groups
• Internal-Colonialism Theory
– Applies to only three groups at best
– It doesn't explain relations with other groups
• Split-Labor Market Theory
– Doesn’t address other sources of conflict,
discrimination, and prejudice, … only wages
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Key terms
Annihilation
Avoidance
Cumulative causation
Defiance
Exploitation
Expulsion
Internal-Colonialism
Marginality
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Middleman Minorities
Negative Self-image
Paternalism
Power-differential
Social segregation
Spatial segregation
Split-labor-market
Vicious circle
Xenophobia