Sociology and Race,
Prejudice, & Hate
• Are We Racist/ Prejudiced……………..
In WRHS????
In NJ????
IN USA????
Journal : Have you ever experienced
discrimintation yourself? Explain!
Basic Terms
• Assimilation: The process through which a person
forsakes his or her own cultural tradition to become
part of a different culture.
• Should we demand that immigrants assimilate?
• Is assimilation necessary?
Basic Terms
• Ethnic Group: A group that is set apart from others primarily
because of its national origin or distinctive cultural patterns.
• DIFFERENT FROM RACE!
Basic Terms
• Prejudice: A negative attitude toward an entire category of people, often
an ethnic or racial minority.
• Racism: The belief that one race is supreme and all others are innately
inferior.
• Discrimination: The denial of opportunities and equal rights to individuals
and groups because of prejudice or other arbitrary reasons.
Basic Terms
• Pluralism: Mutual respect for one
another’s culture among the
carious groups in a society,
which allows minorities to
express their own cultures
without experiencing prejudice.
• Stereotype: An unreliable
generalization about all
members of a group that does
not recognize individual
differences within the group.
Basic Terms
• Ethnocentrism: The tendency to assume that one’s own
culture and way of life represent the norm or are
superior to all others.
• Hate Crime: A criminal offense committed because of
the offender’s bias against a race, religion, ethnic
group, national origin, or sexual orientation.
• Should rape be considered a hate crime?
Journal
• What is a question you are afraid to ask regarding race
or prejudice? Explain.
5 Basic Characteristics of
Minorities
• Members of a minority group experience unequal treatment compared to
members of a dominant group.
• Members of a minority group share physical or cultural characteristics
that distinguish them from the dominant group. Each society arbitrarily
decides which characteristics are most important in defining groups.
• Membership in a minority group is not voluntary, people are born into
the group.
• Minority group members have a strong sense of group solidarity.
• Members of a minority group generally marry others from the same
group. A member of a dominant group is often unwilling to marry into a
supposedly inferior minority group.
Sociological Theories on
Racism
• Functionalist Perspective:
• Three purposes that Racism has:
1.
2.
3.
Racist views provide a moral justification for maintaining
an unequal society that routinely deprives a minority group
of its rights and privileges.
Racist beliefs discourage the subordinate minority from
attempting to questions the very foundations of society.
Racial myths suggest that any major societal change would
only bring greater poverty to the minority and lower the
majority’s standard of living.
Sociological Theories on
Racism
Four Dysfunctions Associated with Racism:
1.
A society that practices discrimination fails to use the resources
of all individuals. Discrimination limits the search for talent and
leadership to the dominant group.
2.
Discrimination aggravates social problems such as poverty,
delinquency, and crime, and places the financial burden of
alleviating those problems on the dominant group.
3.
Society must invest a good deal of time and money to defend its
barriers to the full participation of all members.
4.
Racial prejudice and discrimination often undercut goodwill and
friendly diplomatic relations between nations.
Sociological Theories on
Racism
• Conflict Perspective:
• Exploitation Theory: (Marxist Class theory)
• Views the exploitation of the lower class as a basic part of the capitalist
economic system.
• Racism keeps minorities in low-paying jobs, supplying the capitalist ruling
class with a pool of cheap labor.
• Only problem is it does not account for all types of prejudice. Some
minority groups have experienced prejudice in the United States without
experiencing it in the workforce or in economic terms.
Sociological Theories on
Racism
• Interactionist Perspective:
• In cooperative circumstances, interracial contact between people of
equal status will cause them to become less prejudiced and to abandon
old stereotypes.
• People begin to see one another as individuals and discard the broad
generalizations characteristic of stereotyping.
• Based on individual interactions; on a micro level.