ETHNICITY AND RACE
from:
http://anthro.palomar.edu/culture/culture_1.htm
OVERVIEW
What race are you?
 How do you define your race?
 What does it mean to be Black or White or Asian
or Hispanic?
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Ethnicity: refers to selected cultural and
sometimes physical characteristics used to classify
people into groups or categories considered to be
significantly different from others.

E.g.: First Nations, Latinos, Chinese-Canadians, AfroCanadians
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Sometimes ethnicity involves loose group identity
with little cultural traditions in common (Irish and
German Canadians) and sometimes this may include
groups that are coherent subcultures with a shared
language and body of tradition

Minority and ethnic group are different
 Ethnic groups may be the minority or the majority
 In small homogeneous societies like those of
hunter-gatherers and pastoralists there is usually
only one ethnic group and no minorities

Some erroneously think that ethnicity
implies a connection between biological
inheritance and culture and that
biological inheritance determines much
of cultural identity
 We know that this is not true and
that race and culture are not the
same thing
 Edward Tylor:

Cultural traits are entirely learned and any
baby can be enculturated to that culture

A race is meant to be a biological subspecies consisting of
more or less a distinct population with anatomical traits that
distinguish it clearly from other races.
 However, this does not fit the reality of human variation
 In fact, humans are 99.9% genetically identical and most
variation is between males and females and unique
personal traits
 This homogeneity is unusual e.g: chimpanzees have 2-3
times more genetic variation than people and orangutans
have 8 – 10 times more variation

Race is a cultural creation and not a biological reality
 This comes from the misconception that
anatomical traits like skin colour and facial
characteristics cluster together into single distinct
groups of people

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Anatomical traits supposedly identifying a
particular race are often found extensively in
other population as well
This is due to the fact that similar selection
factors in different parts of the world often result
in the evolution of similar adaptations
 E.g.: intense sunlight in tropical areas as
selected for darker skin color as a protection
from intense ultraviolet radiation
 E,g: dark skin of sub-Saharan Africans is
also found among unrelated populations in
the Indian subcontinent, Australia and New
Guinea and other places in the Southwest
Pacific

We could all be classified into a number of different
races depending on the traits that are emphasized
 E.g.: if we used blood type to qualify race

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B type would cluster Australian Aborigines with most Native
Americans and some Africans would be the same race as
Europeans which others would be classified with Asians
Ethnicity like race is a cultural and historical
construct
THE NATURE OF ETHNICITY

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Ethnic symbols are badges of identity to emphasize
distinctness from other groups
 Language, religion and style of dress are common ethnic
symbols
Sometimes biological characteristics may be important as well
 E.g: African American ethnicity is usually defined by dark
brown skin, but shared experience and dialect are often as
important since the range of skin coloration is quite broad
among African Americans

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Ethnic group unity is reinforced by constant emphasis on
what traits set the members apart from others, rather than
what they share in common with the outsiders
This is a universal means of boundary maintenance , or
defence between ethnic groups
 Ethnic symbols are convenient markers for making “wethey” distinctions and focal points for racism and
manifestations of ethnocentrism
 They also mask in-group differences and lump groups
together

Individuals in minority ethnic groups may wish
to assimilate into the dominant ethnic group
and choose de-emphasize their ethnic symbols
 E.g.: children of immigrants may speak their
colloquial dialect of English rather than their
parents’ native language

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Assimilation may be speeded up by marriage across ethnic
boundaries
The effect of intermarriage on reducing ethnic group identity
can be seen in the reduction of discrimination against varying
European groups in North America After several generations
 E.g.: discrimination against Jews in North America as
reduced in conjunction with the increase in marriage to nonJews
 In 1960s only 6% of American Jews married outsiders, in
1985 25%, in the mid 1990s 52%

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African Americans have had a low frequency of intermarriage
 In 1970 2.6% of their marriages were to European
Americans, in 1993 12.1%, rate for men has been 3.5x
higher than women
Asian and Latin Americans have had a high intermarriage rate
 12% of men and 25% of women intermarried
 This may indicate a low resistance to assimilation in their
communities and a greater acceptance of them by the
dominant European American society
FORMS OF DISCRIMINATION
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Prejudice and discrimination are universal
 Can range from benign classification of
people to cruel persecution
Kwame Appiah, a scholar of African American
issues has made a distinction between different
types of prejudicial behaviour
 Racialism: benign categorizing people for
reference purposes on the basis of age
gender and ethnicity/race
 Everyone engages in racialism
 It’s normal to categorize based on
traits or characteristics
 E.g.: lost in a strange city you are
likely to approach and adult rather
than a young child because you think
an adult will know more
 Racism: harmful discrimination
 E.g.: not hiring someone because of their
race
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Many groups think and act in a racist manner
Even members of groups that are aggressively discriminated
against by others may express racist attitudes
Racism is expressed differently in small-scale and large-scale
societies
 Small societies are usually biologically and culturally
homogenous without ethnic group distinctions
 The target of racism is other societies and strangers are
thought of as not being quite human
 Large societies are often heterogeneous and have many
ethnic groups
 The targets of racism are mostly other ethnic groups
within the same society
 E.g.: Northern Italians look down on Southern Italians
and vice versa
ETHNIC IDENTIFICATION PROCESS

Ethnic identity can be self-identified or come
from the outside
 Imposing ethnicity upon people has been a
political tool for controlling and marginalizing
them
E.g.: Nazis labeling Jews even though the individuals they
labeled as such didn’t identify with as Jewish
 19th and early 20th century America restricted legal rights
for people defined as being African, Asian, or Native
American


In Japan today 2nd and 3rd generation resident
Koreans living in Japan have limited rights if
they retain their Korean citizenship (Japan
doesn’t allow dual citizenship)
People in political and economic power usually
define their own ethic group as being superior
 E.g.: portrayal of ‘whites’ and ‘non-whites’ in
media
 Whether one has a positive or negative positive
self-image that stems from ethnicity, gender or
physical condition has a powerful effect on the
way one relates to others and leads his or her life
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