5. Sociology of nations and international
relationships
25
1

The sociology of race and of ethnic relations is the
area of the discipline that studies the social,
political, and economic relations between races and
ethnicities at all levels of society. This area
encompasses the study of racism, residential
segregation, and other complex social processes
between different racial and ethnic groups. The
sociological analysis of race and ethnicity
frequently interacts with other areas of sociology
such as stratification and social psychology, as well
2
as with postcolonial theory. 25
 At the level of political policy, ethnic relations is discussed in
terms of either assimilationism or multiculturalism. Anti-racism
forms another style of policy, particularly popular in the 1960s
and 70s. At the level of academic inquiry, ethnic relations is
discussed either by the experiences of individual racial-ethnic
groups or else by overarching theoretical issues.
25
3
 Classical Theorists
 Marx views society as two separate classes, the
capitalist class and the working class. He hoped
for the working class to rise up against the
capitalist class in an attempt to stop the
exploitation of the working class. He blamed part
of their failure to organize on the capitalist class,
as they separated black and white laborers. This
separation, specifically between Blacks and
Whites in America, contributed to racism. Marx
attributes capitalism's contribution to racism
through segmented labor markets and a racial
25
inequality of earnings.
4
 Weber
 Weber laid the foundations for a micro-sociology of
ethnic relations beginning in 1906. Weber argued that
biological traits could not be the basis for group
foundation unless they were conceived as shared
characteristics. It was this shared perception and
common customs that create and distinguish one
ethnicity from another. This differs from the views of
many of his contemporaries who believed that an
ethnic group was formed from biological similarities
alone apart from social perception of membership in
a group
25
5
 W.E.B. DuBois
 W.E.B. DuBois is well known as one of the most influential black
scholars and activists of the 19th century. DuBois educated himself on
his people, and sought academia as a way to enlighten others on the
social injustices against his people. DuBois research "revealed the Negro
group as a symptom, not a cause; as a striving, palpitating group, and not
an inert, sick body of crime; as a long historic development and not a
transient occurrence." Dubois believed that Black Americans should
embrace higher education and use their new access to schooling to
achieve a higher position within society. He referred to this idea as the
Talented Tenth. With gaining popularity, he also preached the belief
that for blacks to be free in some places, they must be free everywhere.
After traveling to Africa and Russia, he recanted his original philosophy
of integration and acknowledged it as a long term vision.
25
6
 Booker T. Washington
 Booker T. Washington was considered one of the most
influential black educators of the 19th and 20th
centuries. Washington offered an industrial education
for Blacks through the Tuskegee Institute. He hoped to
provide them with an education to escape
sharecropping and debt, instead engaging in self
employment, land ownership, and small business. His
theory regarding race in America advocated to
continue black disfranchisement and segregation, in
return for the whites support in economic and
educational attainment. This theory highlighted the
accommodationist philosophy he became well known
for.
25
7
 One of the most important social psychological findings
concerning race relations is that members of stereotyped
groups internalize those stereotypes and thus suffer a wide
range of harmful consequences. For example, in a
phenomenon called stereotype threat, members of racial
and ethnic groups that are stereotyped as scoring poorly on
tests will perform poorer on those tests if they are
reminded of this stereotype. The effect is so strong that
even simply asking the test-taker to state her or his race
before taking the test (such is by bubbling in "African
American" on a multiple choice question) will significantly
alter test performance. A specifically sociological
contribution to this line of research has found that such
negative stereotypes can be created on the spot: an
experiment by Michael Lovaglia et al.(1998) demonstrated
that left-handed people can be made to suffer stereotype
threat if they are led to believe that they are a
disadvantaged group for a particular kind of test.
25
8
 A racist political campaign poster from the 1866
25
Pennsylvania gubernatorial election
9
 Audit studies

Another important line of research on race takes the form of audit studies. The audit
study approach creates an artificial pool of people among whom there are no average
differences by race. For instance, groups of white and black auditors are matched on
every category other than their race, and thoroughly trained to act in identical ways.
Given nearly identical resumes, they are sent to interview for the same jobs. Simple
comparisons of means can yield strong evidence regarding discrimination. The best
known audit study in sociology is The Mark of a Criminal Record by Devah Pager. This
study compares job prospects of black and white men who were recently released from
jail. Its key finding is that blacks are significantly discriminated against when applying
for service jobs. Moreover, whites with a criminal record have about the same prospect of
getting an interview as blacks without one.
25
10
 Discipline Development By Country
 United States

In the United States, the study of racial and ethnic relations has been widely influenced
by the factors associated with each major wave of immigration as the incoming group
struggles with keeping its own cultural and ethnic identity while also assimilating into
the broader mainstream American culture and economy. One of the first and most
prevalent topics within American study is that of the relations between white Americans
and African Americans due to the heavy collective memory and culture borne out of and
lingering from centuries of forced slavery in plantations. Throughout the rest of
American history, each new wave of immigration to the United States has brought
another set of issues as the tension between maintaining diversity and assimilating takes
on new shapes. Racism and conflict often rears up during these times
25
11
 United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, foreign nationals were actively encouraged and sponsored to migrate
in the 1950s after the dissolution of the Empire and the social devastation of the Second World
War. The 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act changed the law so that only certain British
This law was tightened again with
the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968 and Immigration Act 1971. The
Race Relations Act 1968 extended certain policies with respect to
employment, housing, commercial and other services. This was extended
again with the Race Relations Act 1976.
Commonwealth members were able to migrate.
 As with the UK establishments of media and cultural studies, 'ethnic
relations' is often taught as a loosely-distinct discipline either within
sociology departments or other schools of humanities.
 Major British theorists include Paul Gilroy, Stuart Hall, Richard Jenkins,
John Rex, Michael Banton and Tariq Modood.
25
12
 Racism
 Racism is generally defined as actions, practices,
or beliefs that reflect the racial worldview: the
ideology that humans are divided into separate
and exclusive biological entities called "races".
This ideology entails the belief that members of a
race share a set of characteristic traits, abilities, or
qualities, that traits of personality, intellect,
morality, and other cultural behavioral
characteristics are inherited, and that this
inheritance means that races can
be ranked as
25
13
innately superior or inferior to others.
The exact definition of racism is controversial both because there is little
scholarly agreement about the meaning of the concept "race", and
because there is also little agreement about what does and doesn't
constitute discrimination. Some definitions would have it that any
assumption that a person's behavior would be influenced by their racial
categorization is racist, regardless of whether the action is intentionally
harmful or pejorative. Other definitions only include consciously
malignant forms of discrimination. Among the questions about how to
define racism are the question of whether to include forms of
discrimination that are unintentional, such as making assumptions
about preferences or abilities of others based on racial stereotypes,
whether to include symbolic or institutionalized forms of
discrimination such as the circulation of racial stereotypes through the
media, and whether to include the socio-political dynamics of social
stratification that sometimes have a racial component. Some definitions
of racism also include discriminatory behaviors and beliefs based on
cultural, national, ethnic, caste, or religious stereotypes.
25
14
Racism and racial discrimination are often used to
describe discrimination on an ethnic or cultural
basis, independent of whether these differences
are described as racial. According to the United
Nations convention, there is no distinction
between the terms racial discrimination and
ethnic discrimination, and superiority based on
racial differentiation is scientifically false,
morally condemnable, socially unjust and
dangerous, and that there is no justification for
racial discrimination, in theory or in practice,
anywhere.
25
15
 Elephant Jokes
 How do you know if an elephant has been in your refrigerator?
 There are footprints on the marshmallows.
 Dead Baby Jokes
 What is red and sits in the corner?
 A baby chewing on razor blades.
 Alan Dundes says that such jokes show a hostility and
resentment against babies that resulted in the
contraception and abortions from the 1960s to the
1980s, when the joke cycle ended (Dundes [1987] 3-14).
25
16
 In politics, racism is commonly located on the far
right due to the far right’s common association with
nativism, racism, and xenophobia. In history, racism
has been a major part of the political and ideological
underpinning of genocides such as the holocaust,
but also in colonial contexts such as the rubber
booms in South America and the Congo, and in the
European conquest of the Americas and
colonization of Africa, Asia and Australia. It was also
a driving force behind the transatlantic slave trade,
and behind states based on racial segregation such
as the USA in the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries and South Africa under apartheid.
Practices and ideologies of racism are universally
condemned by the United Nations in the
Declaration of Human Rights.
25
17
 Some sociologists have defined racism as a system of group privilege. In
Portraits of White Racism, David Wellman has defined racism as
“culturally sanctioned beliefs, which, regardless of intentions involved,
defend the advantages whites have because of the subordinated position
of racial minorities”. Sociologists Noël A. Cazenave and Darlene Alvarez
Maddern define racism as “...a highly organized system of 'race'-based
group privilege that operates at every level of society and is held
together by a sophisticated ideology of color/'race' supremacy. Sellers
and Shelton (2003) found that a relationship between racial
discrimination and emotional distress was moderated by racial ideology
and public regard beliefs. That is, racial centrality appears to promote
the degree of discrimination African American young adults perceive
whereas racial ideology may buffer the detrimental emotional effects of
that discrimination. Racist systems include, but cannot be reduced to,
racial bigotry,”. Sociologist and former American Sociological
Association president Joe Feagin argues that the United States can be
characterized as a "total racist society"
25
18
 Police harassment and brutality directed at black
men, women, and children are as old as American
society, dating back to the days of slavery and Jim
Crow segregation. Such police actions across the
nation today reveal important aspects of . . . the
commonplace discriminatory practices of
individual whites . . . [and] white dominated
institutions that allow or encourage such
practices.
25
19
 Some sociologists have also pointed out, with
reference to the USA and elsewhere, that forms of
racism have in many instances mutated from
more blatant expressions hereof into more covert
kinds (albeit that blatant forms of hatred and
discrimination still endure). The “newer” (more
hidden and less easily detectable) forms of
racism—which can be considered as embedded in
social processes and structures—are more
difficult to explore as well as challenge. It has
been suggested that, while in many countries
overt and explicit racism has become increasingly
taboo, even in those who display egalitarian
explicit attitudes, an implicit or aversive racism is
still maintained subconsciously.
25
20
 Anti-racism includes beliefs, actions, movements,
and policies adopted or developed to oppose
racism.In general, anti-racism is intended to
promote an egalitarian society in which people do
not face discrimination on the basis of their race,
however defined. By its nature, anti-racism tends
to promote the view that racism in a particular
society is both pernicious and socially pervasive,
and that particular changes in political,
economic, and/or social life are required to
eliminate it.
25
21
 Multiculturalism relates to communities containing multiple cultures. The
term is used in two broad ways, either descriptively or normatively. As a
descriptive term, it usually refers to the simple fact of cultural diversity: it is
generally applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, sometime at
the organizational level, e.g. schools, businesses, neighbourhoods, cities, or
nations. As a normative term, it refers to ideologies or policies that promote
this diversity or its institutionalisation; in this sense, multiculturalism is a
society “at ease with the rich tapestry of human life and the desire amongst
people to express their own identity in the manner they see fit.” Such ideologies
or policies vary widely, including country to country, ranging from the
advocacy of equal respect to the various cultures in a society, to a policy of
promoting the maintenance of cultural diversity, to policies in which people of
various ethnic and religious groups are addressed by the authorities as defined
by the group they belong to.
25
22
 However, two main different and seemingly
inconsistent strategies have developed through
different Government policies and strategies:The first
focuses on interaction and communication between
different cultures. Interactions of cultures provide
opportunities for the cultural differences to
communicate and interact to create multiculturalism.
(Such approaches are also often known as
interculturalism.) The second centers on diversity and
cultural uniqueness. Cultural isolation can protect the
uniqueness of the local culture of a nation or area and
also contribute to global cultural diversity.[citation
needed] A common aspect of many policies following
the second approach is that they avoid presenting any
specific ethnic, religious, or cultural community values
25
as central.
23
 National assimilation or cultural assimilation is a
socio-political response to demographic
multiculturalism that supports or promotes the
assimilation of cultural and ethnic minorities
into the dominant culture. The term assimilation
is often used when referring to immigrants and
various ethnic groups settling in a new land. New
customs and attitudes are acquired through
contact and communication. Each group of
immigrants contributes some of its own cultural
traits to the new society. Assimilation usually
involves a gradual change and takes place in
varying degrees; full assimilation occurs when
new members of a society become
indistinguishable from older members.
25
24
 Social cohesion is the bonds that bring people
together in a given society. The concept is a multifaceted notion covering many different kinds of
social phenomena. It is associated with
sociological theories of structural functionalism
and in broader fields of political science.
25
25
 The sociology of immigration involves the
sociological analysis of immigration, particularly
with respect to race and ethnicity, social
structure, and political policy. Important
concepts include assimilation, enculturation,
marginalization, multiculturalism,
postcolonialism, transnationalism and social
cohesion.
25
26
 In classical sociology
 Of the classical founders of social science, conflict theory is most commonly
associated with Karl Marx (1818–1883). Based on a dialectical materialist
account of history, Marxism posited that capitalism, like previous
socioeconomic systems, would inevitably produce internal tensions leading to
its own destruction.[1] Marx ushered in radical change, advocating proletarian
revolution and freedom from the ruling classes. At the same time, Karl Marx
was aware that most of the people living in capitalist societies did not see how
the system shaped the entire operation of society. Just like how we see private
property, or the right to pass that property on to our children as natural, many
of members in capitalistic societies see the rich as having earned their wealth
through hard work and education, while seeing the poor as lacking in skill and
initiative. Marx rejected this type of thinking and termed it false
consciousness, explanations of social problems as the shortcomings of
individuals rather than the flaws of society. Marx wanted to replace this kind of
thinking with something he termed class consciousness, workers' recognition
of themselves as a class unified in opposition to capitalist and ultimately to the
capitalist system itself. In general, Marx wanted the proletarians to rise up
against the capitalist and overthrow the capitalist system.
25
27
 Black Feminism argues that sexism, class
oppression, and racism are inextricably bound
together. Forms of feminism that strive to
overcome sexism and class oppression. The
Combahee River Collective argued in 1974 that the
liberation of black women entails freedom for all
people, since it would require the end of racism,
sexism, and class oppression
25
28
 However, not all Black feminists are inclusive of trans women, which means
that Black feminist would not necessarily eliminate the oppression of
transphobia. One of the theories that evolved out of the Black feminist
movement was Alice Walker's Womanism. Alice Walker and other womanists
pointed out that black women experienced a different and more intense kind
of oppression from that of white women. They point to the emergence black
feminism after earlier movements led by white middle-class women which they
regard as having largely ignored oppression based on race and class.[3] Patricia
Hill Collins defined Black feminism, in Black Feminist Thought (1991), as
including "women who theorize the experiences and ideas shared by ordinary
black women that provide a unique angle of vision on self, community, and
society".
25
29

Black feminists contend that the liberation of black women entails freedom for all people,
since it would require the end of racism, sexism, and class oppression. There is a longstanding and important alliance between postcolonial feminists, which overlaps with
transnational feminism and third-world feminism, and black feminists. Both have
struggled for recognition, not only from men in their own culture, but also from Western
feminists.

Black women faced the same struggles as white women; however, they had to face issues of
diversity on top of inequality. Black feminist organizations emerged during the 1970s and
face many difficulties from both the culture they were confronting and their adjustment to
their vulnerability within it. These women also fought against suppression from the larger
movements in which many of its members came from.
25
30
 The Race of the Future theory/idea states that due to
the process of miscegenation, the mixing of different
races, especially in marriage, cohabitation, or sexual
relations, all the races are blending to become one
single new race in the future