Chapter 8
Racial–Ethnic Relations
The Problem in Sociological Perspective
 Prejudice is an attitude.
 Discrimination is action, differential treatment.
 Minority group:
 People who are discriminated against because they belong to
a particular group.
 Dominant group: those who discriminate
Characteristics of Minority Groups
 Membership is not voluntary (achieved status) but comes
through birth (ascribed status).
 Physical or cultural traits are held in low esteem by the
dominant group (prejudice).
 Members are treated unequally by the dominant group
(discrimination).
 Minorities feel group solidarity because of physical or
cultural traits and disadvantages of these traits.
Policies of Dominant Groups: Patterns of Intergroup
Relations
 Pluralism
 Assimilation: forced or permissible
 Segregation
 Internal colonialism
 Population transfer: direct or indirect
 Genocide
Ideas of Racial Superiority
 Race
 The inherited physical characteristics that identify a group of people
 Eugenics
 Attempts to improve the human “race” through selective breeding
 Race is an arbitrary social category.
 Sociologists use the term racial–ethnic group.
 Racial–ethnic group: people who identify with one another on
basis of ancestry and cultural heritage
 Ethnicity – Culture
The Scope of the Problem
 The melting pot
 Anglo-conformity
 Stereotypes: unrealistic generalizations of what people
are like
 Effects of discrimination reach beyond statistics
Institutional Discrimination
 Individual Discrimination
 Institutional Discrimination
 National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAR): organization
that used to support racial discrimination as a moral act
Unintended Institutional Discrimination
 Institutional Discrimination: can occur even when those doing the
discriminating are unaware of it
 The Achievement Predictor (TAP)
 Institutional discrimination is built into our social system.
 Operates throughout society
 High school exit exams, SATs, IQ tests
Symbolic Interactionism
 Ethnophaulisms: derogatory labels that are applied to racial–
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ethnic groups
Socialization into prejudice
Labels affect prejudice by causing selective perception
Self-fulfilling Prophecy: labels so powerful they justify
prejudice and discrimination
Compartmentalize: separate negative acts from other aspects
of their lives
Functionalism
 Functions and dysfunctions of discrimination
 Racial–ethnic stratification
 Ensures that society’s dirty work gets done
 Society needs a division of labor
 Ethnocentrism
 Helps dominant group justify higher social position and greater share of
society’s resources
 Dysfunctions
 Interfere with people’s welfare and the functioning of society
Conflict Theory
 Surplus value of labor
 Split-labor Market
 Weakens the bargaining power of workers by splitting them along racial–
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ethnic lines
Reserve Labor Force
 Minority workers are ideal for the reserve labor force
False class consciousness
Consequences of a split-labor market
 Leads minorities and whites to view one another as enemies
Riots
Research Findings
 Native Americans
 2 million Native Americans representing more than 500 tribes
 Exogamy: intermarriage
 Treaties: broken for land and resources
 Stereotypes: justify inhumane acts
 Education and culture conflict: Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)
 Pan-Indianism: moving beyond identification with a particular tribe and
emphasizing common elements that run through all of their cultures
 Latinos (Hispanics)
 Largest ethnic group in the U.S.
 Unauthorized immigrants
 Factor that clearly distinguishes Latinos from other U.S. minorities is the
Spanish language
 African Americans
 Civil Disobedience: deliberately but peacefully disobeying laws considered
unjust
 Rising Expectations
 Militancy: after M.L. King’s death
Race or Social Class? A Sociological Debate
 Social Class
 Any group of people who have more or less similar goods, services, or
skills to offer for income in a given economic order and who therefore
receive similar financial remuneration in the market-place
 Life Chances
 Quality of life and experiences
Asian Americans
 Detention Camps
 Discrimination against Chinese and Japanese
 Development stages of Chinatowns
 Involuntary segregation
 Defensive insulation
 Voluntary segregation
 Gradual assimilation
 General economic success of Asian Americans seems to be rooted
in three factors: family life, education, and assimilation
Social Policy
 Centers on goals of encouraging cultural pluralism and preventing
discrimination
 Appreciating different backgrounds
 Establish national, state, and local “cultural centers”
 Teach history in ways that recognize the contributions of many groups
 Teach foreign languages in public schools
Preventing Discrimination
 Use the legal system
 Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids discrimination by race, color,
creed, national origin, and sex, must be enforced
 Education vouchers
 Parents could choose any school they wanted their children to attend,
private or public
The Dilemma of Affirmative Action
 The Bakke Case
 Proposition 209
 The University of Michigan Case
 Absent constitutional amendments like those in Michigan and California;
states that want to use race–ethnicity in college admissions must follow
the Supreme Court’s decision
Principles for Improving Relations
 People of different racial–ethnic backgrounds should have equal status.
 People in interethnic contact should work together.
 To achieve equality, groups must demonstrate cooperative dependence.
 Authority, law, and custom should support interaction among groups.
The Future of the Problem
 Progress
 Inconsistent and backwards at times
 An ongoing struggle
 Disparities in education
 Education is the key in improving racial–ethnic relations
 Disturbing possibility is permanent underclass
 Militants, from minority or dominant group, are an unpredictable factor in
future racial–ethnic relations
 The American Dilemma