? Please write a paper analyzing the film using the concepts from Chapter 14 on Health Care – Chapter 8 and 10 This is the fi

Scanned with CamScanner

M ic

ha el

B . T

ho m

as /G

et ty

Im ag

es

10

Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

227

You might expect a society based on the values of freedom and equality, such as the United States, not to be deeply afflicted by racial–ethnic conflict, but think of the following situations:

● In 2009, James von Brunn, an eighty-eight-year-old self- proclaimed White supremacist, gunned down and killed a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. Federal authorities knew James von Brunn was affiliated with various hate groups. The shooter left an anti-Semitic letter in his car parked outside the museum, charging that “Obama was created by Jews.” The guard who was shot and killed, Stephen T. Johns, was a thirty-nine-year-old African American guard who worked at the museum.

● A sorority at a major East Coast university posted a photo of their group dressed in sombreros, ponchos, and fake mustaches, also carrying signs that said, “Will mow lawn for weed and beer.” Such denigrating and offensive “racial theme parties” are common on college campuses (Cabrera 2014), including the March 2015 event in which a chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon at the University of Oklahoma was closed after a busload of fraternity brothers chanted a highly racist tune: “There will never be a ni**** at SAE. You can hang him from a tree, but he can never sign with me. There will never be a ni**** at SAE” (cnn.com).

● A thirty-eight-year-old American man of East Indian descent and vice president of a major bank was attacked on a Lake Tahoe beach as his attackers called him a “ter- rorist,” “relative of Osama bin Laden,” and “Indian garbage.” The attack broke his eye socket and he will have dizzy spells for the rest of his life.

These are all ugly incidents. They all have one thing in common—racial–ethnic prejudice and overt racism. Race and ethnicity have fundamental importance in human social inter- action and are integral parts of the social institutions in the United States. Unfortunately, ethnic prejudice and racism are also integral to American society.

Of course, racial and ethnic groups do not always interact as enemies, and interracial tension is not always obvious. It can be as subtle as a White person who simply does not initiate

Race and Ethnicity Race and Ethnicity 228

Racial Stereotypes 232

Prejudice and Discrimination 234

Racism 236

Theories of Prejudice and Racism 238

Diverse Groups, Diverse Histories 240

Attaining Racial and Ethnic Equality: The Challenge 247

Chapter Summary 250

● Define race as a social construction

● Define and give examples of stereotype interchangeability

● Understand the difference between prejudice and racism

● Define and distinguish the different forms of racism

● Show how sociological theory broadens our understanding of prejudice and discrimination

● Discuss at least one common thread present in the histories of Blacks, Mexican Americans, and Japanese Americans in the United States

● Compare and contrast the different social change strategies toward the attainment of racial–ethnic equality and freedom in the United States

in this chapter, you will learn to:

Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

2 2 8    CHA PT ER 10

interactions with African Americans and Latinos, or an elderly White man who almost imperceptibly leans backward at a cocktail party as a Japanese American man approaches him.

In everyday human interaction, as African American philosopher Cornel West has cogently argued, race matters and still matters a lot (West 2004; 1994). What is race, and what is ethnicity? Why does society treat racial and ethnic groups differently, and why is there social inequality—stratification— between these groups? Racial and ethnic inequality is so strong and persistent in American society that sociologists reject the notion that we are a “postracial” society. As this chapter will show, race and ethnicity remain two of the most important axes of social stratification in the United States.

Race and Ethnicity Within sociology, the terms ethnicity, race, minority, and dominant group have very specific meanings, dif- ferent from their meanings in common usage. These concepts are important in developing a sociological perspective on race and ethnicity.

Ethnicity An ethnic group is a social category of people who share a common culture, for example, a common language or dialect, a common nationality, a common religion, and common norms, practices, customs, and history. Ethnic groups have a consciousness of their com- mon cultural bond—a “consciousness of kind.” Italian Americans, Japanese Americans, Arab Americans, Polish Americans, Greek Americans, Mexican Americans, and Irish Americans are all examples of ethnic groups in the United States. Ethnic groups are also found in other societies, such as the Pashtuns in Afghanistan or the Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq, whose ethnicity is based on religious differences.

An ethnic group does not exist only because of the common national or cultural origins of a group, however. Ethnic groups develop also because of their unique historical and social experiences. These experi- ences become the basis for the group’s ethnic identity, meaning the definition the group has of itself as sharing a common cultural bond. Prior to immigration to the United States, Italians, for example, did not necessarily think of themselves as a distinct group with common interests and experiences. Originating from different villages, cities, and regions of Italy, Italian immigrants identified themselves by their family background and community of origin. However, the process of immigra- tion and the experiences Italian Americans faced as a group in the United States, including discrimination, created a new identity for the group, who subsequently began to define themselves as “Italians” (Waters and Levitt 2002; Alba 1990; Waters 1990).

The social and cultural basis of ethnicity allows ethnic groups to develop more or less intense ethnic

identification at different points in time. Ethnic iden- tification may grow stronger when groups face preju- dice or hostility from other groups. Perceived or real threats and perceived competition from other groups may unite an ethnic group around common politi- cal and economic interests, which as you may recall was an idea advanced by early sociological theo- rist Emile Durkheim (see Chapter 1). Ethnic unity can develop voluntarily, or it may be involuntarily imposed when more powerful groups exclude ethnic groups from certain residential areas, occupations, or social clubs. Exclusionary practices strengthen ethnic identity.

Defining Race Like ethnicity, race is primarily, though not exclu- sively, a socially constructed category. A race is a group treated as distinct in society based on certain charac- teristics, some of may be biological, that have been assigned or attributed social importance. Because of presumed biologically or culturally inferior character- istics (as defined by powerful groups in society), a race is often singled out for differential and unfair treat- ment. It is not the biological characteristics per se that define racial groups but how groups have been treated and labeled historically and socially (Higginbotham and Andersen 2012).

Society assigns people to racial categories, such as Black, White, and so on, not because of science, logic, or fact, but because of opinion and social experience. In other words, how groups are defined racially is a social process. This is what is meant when one says that race is “socially constructed.” Although the meaning of race begins with alleged biological/genetic differences between groups (such as differences in physical char- acteristics like skin color, lip form, and hair texture), on closer examination, the assumption that racial differ- ences are purely biological breaks down. In fact, biolo- gists have pointed out that there is little correspondence between races as defined biologically/genetically and the actual naming of the races (Taylor 2012; Morning 2011; Ledger 2009; Lewontin 1996).

Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

RACE AND ETH N ICI TY   2 2 9

DEBUNKING Society’s Myths← Myth: Racial differences are fixed, biological categories. Sociological Perspective: Race is a social construct, one in which certain physical or cultural characteris- tics take on social meanings that become the basis for racism and discrimination. The definition of race varies across cultures within a society, across different societ- ies, and at different times in the history of a given society (Graves 2004).

The social categories used to divide groups into races are not fixed. They vary from society to society and at different times in the history of a given society (Morn- ing 2011, 2008; Washington 2011). Within the United States, laws defining who is Black have historically var- ied from state to state. North Carolina and Tennessee law historically defined people as Black if they have even one great-grandparent who was Black (thus being one-eighth Black—called “octoroon” in the 1890 Cen- sus; see Table 10.1). In other southern states, having any Black ancestry at all defined one as a Black person—the so-called one-drop rule, that is, one drop of Black blood (Washington 2011; Broyard 2007; Malcomson 2000). This one-drop rule still applies to a great extent today in the United States, even though its use for defining one’s race has eroded somewhat.

This is even more complex when we consider the meaning of race in other countries. In Brazil, a light- skinned Black person could well be considered White, especially if the person is of high socioeconomic sta- tus. This demonstrates that one’s race in Brazil is in part actually defined by one’s social class. Thus, in parts of Brazil, it is often said that “money lightens” (o dinheiro embranquence). In this sense, a category such as social class can become racialized. In fact, people in Brazil are considered Black only if they are clearly of African descent and have little or no discernible White ancestry at all. A large percentage of U.S. Blacks would not be considered Black in Brazil (Telles et al. 2011; Telles 2004). Although Brazil is often touted as being a utopia of race “mixing” and racial social equality, nonetheless, as sociologist Edward Telles notes, light- skinned Brazilians continue to be privileged and con- tinue to hold a disproportionate share of the wealth and power. Brazilians of darker skin color have signifi- cantly lower earnings, occupational status, and lower access to education (Telles et al. 2011; Villareal 2010; Telles 2004, 1994).

Racialization is a process whereby some social category, such as a social class or nationality, takes on what society perceives to be racial characteristics (Omi and Winant 2014; Harrison 2000; Malcomson 2000). The experiences of Jewish people provide a good

example of what it means to say that race is a socially constructed category. Jews are more accurately called an ethnic group because of common religious and cul- tural heritage, but in Nazi Germany, Hitler defined Jews as a “race.” An ethnic group thus became racialized. Jews were presumed to be biologically inferior to the group Hitler labeled the Aryans—white-skinned, blonde, tall, blue-eyed people. On the basis of this definition— which was supported through Nazi law, taught in Nazi schools, and enforced by the Nazi military—Jewish people were brutally mistreated. They were segregated, persecuted, and systematically murdered in what has come to be called the Holocaust during the Second World War.

Mixed-race people defy the biological categories that are typically used to define race. Is someone who is the child of an Asian mother and an African American father Asian or Black? Reflecting this issue, the U.S. Census’s current practice is for people to have the option of checking several racial categories rather than just one, thus defining one’s self as “biracial” or “multiracial” (Spencer 2011; Waters 1990). As ◆ Table  10.1 shows, the decennial U.S. census (taken every ten years) has dramatically changed its racial and ethnic classifications since 1890, reflecting the fact that society’s thinking about racial and ethnic categoriza- tion has not remained constant through time (Spencer 2012; Saulny 2011; Washington 2011; Rodriguez 2000; Lee 1993).

Opposition to the multiple categorization of races has arisen upon both scholarly and political grounds. Some (Spencer 2012) have argued that advocating simultaneous multiple categorization of races tends to downplay the rich cultural traditions in the case of Blacks in the United States, including but not limited to language (“Ebonics”), music (jazz, blues, rock, hip- hop, and so on), dance, a vast literature, and many, many others. Some people have argued that multira- cial classification will ultimately lead to a “postracial” society and thus a solution of sorts to race problems in the United States. Wiping out single-race categorization will not, and has not, however, led to less discrimina- tion against minorities of color.

The “postracial dream” conflicts with the hard realities of housing discrimination, higher foreclo- sure rates during the recession, racial discrimination in education and in standardized testing, differential access to medical care, a lower life expectancy, and many other forms of discrimination (Bobo 2012; Rugh and Massey 2010). Some of these forms of racial dis- crimination actually increased even within the last decade! At least one sociological analyst concluded that “Those who proclaim that multiracial identity will destroy racial distinctions are living a lie” (Spencer 2012: 70).

Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

23 0    CHA PTER 10

The Significance of Defining Race. The biologi- cal characteristics that have been used to define dif- ferent racial groups vary considerably both within and between groups. Many Asians, for example, are actu- ally lighter skinned than many Europeans and White Americans but, regardless of their skin color, have been defined in racial terms as “yellow.” Some light-skinned African Americans are also lighter in skin color than some White Americans. Developing racial categories overlooks the fact that human groups defined as races are—biologically speaking—much more alike than they are different (Graves 2004).

The biological differences that are presumed to define different racial groups are somewhat arbitrary. Why, for example, do we differentiate people based on skin color and not some other characteristic such as height or hair color? You might ask yourself how a society based on the presumed racial inferiority of red-haired people would compare to other racial inequalities in the United States. The likelihood is that if a powerful group defined another group as infe- rior because of some biological characteristics and they used their power to create social institutions that treated this group unfairly, a system of racial inequal- ity would result. In fact, very few biological differences exist between racial groups. As we already noted, most of the variability in almost all biological characteristics, even blood type and various bodily chemicals, is within and not between racial groups.

Different groups use different criteria to define racial groups. To American Indians, being classified as an American Indian depends upon proving one’s

◆ Table 10.1 Comparison of U.S. Census Classifications, 1890–2010

Census Date White African American Native American Asian American Other Categories

1890 White Black, Mulatto, Quadroon, Octoroon

Indian Chinese, Japanese

1900 White Black Indian Chinese, Japanese

1910 White Black, Mulatto Indian Chinese, Japanese Other

1990 White Black or Negro Indian (American) Eskimo Aleut

Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, Asian, Indian, Vietnamese

Hawaiian, Guamanian, Samoan, Asian or Pacific Islander, Other

2000 and 2010a, b

White Black or African American

American Indian, Alaskan Native

Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, Asian, Indian, Vietnamese

Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, Other

a In 2000, for the first time ever, and again in 2010, individuals could select more than one racial category. In 2010, only 5 percent actually did so. b Hispanics were included under “Other” in 1910 and 1920. In 1930 and subsequent years, the category “Mexican” was listed in addition to the category “Other.”

Sources: Lee, Sharon. 1993. “Racial Classification in the U.S. Census: 1890–1990.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 16(1): 75–94; U.S. Census Bureau. 2003. “Racial and Ethnic Classification Used in Census 2000 and Beyond.” Rodriguez, Clara E. 2000. Changing Race: Latinos, the Census, and the History of Ethnicity. New York: New York University Press; Silver, Alexandra. 2010. “Brief History of the U.S. Census.” Time (February 8): 16; Washington, Scott. 2011. “Who Isn’t Black? The History of the One-Drop Rule.” PhD dissertation, Department of Sociology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ.

This is Barack Obama, the first African American ever to be elected U.S. president, and for two terms. His father is Black African (Kenyan) and his mother is White American. Why is his race African American?

Sc ot

t O ls

on /G

et ty

Im ag

es N

ew s/

Ge tty

Im ag

es

Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

RACE AND ETH N ICI TY   23 1

ancestry, but this proof varies considerably from nation to nation. Among some American Indians, one must be able to demonstrate at least 75  percent American Indian ancestry to be recognized as such; for other American Indians, demonstrating 50 percent American Indian ancestry is sufficient.

It also matters who defines racial group member- ship. The government makes tribes prove themselves as tribes through a complex set of federal regulations (called the “federal acknowledgment process”); very few are actually given this official status, and the criteria for tribal membership as well as definition as “Indian” or “Native American” have varied considerably through- out American history. Thus, as with African Americans, it has been the state or federal government, and not so much the racial or ethnic group itself, that has defined who is a member of the group and who is not!

Official recognition by the government matters. For example, only those groups officially defined as Indian tribes qualify for health, housing, and educational assistance from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (the BIA) or are allowed to manage the natural resources on Indian lands and maintain their own system of governance (Locklear 1999; Brown 1993; Snipp 1989).

This definition of race emphasizes that in addition to physical and cultural differences, race is created and maintained by the most powerful in society. Again, this is what is meant by the social construction of race. Who is defined as a race can be as much a political question as a biological or cultural one. For example, although they probably did not think of themselves as a race, Irish Americans in the early twentieth century were defined by more powerful White groups as a “race” that was inferior to White people. This was an example of the racialization of an ethnic or nationality group. At that time, Irish people were not considered by many even to be White (Ignatiev 1995)! In fact, a century ago, the Irish were called “negroes/coloreds/Blacks/niggers turned inside out,” and Negroes (Black people) were called “smoked Irish” (Malcomson 2000).

The social construction of race has been elabo- rated in an insightful perspective in sociology known as racial formation theory (Omi and Winant 2014; Brodkin 2006). Racial formation is the process by which a group comes to be defined as a race. This definition is supported through official social institutions such as the law and the government. This concept empha- sizes the importance of social institutions in producing and maintaining the meaning of race; it also connects the process of racial formation to the exploitation of so-called racial groups. A good example comes from African American history. During slavery, an African American was defined as being three-fifths of a person (equivalently, as “divested two-fifths the man”) for the purposes of deciding how slaves would be counted for state representation in the new federal government and how they would be defined for purposes of taxa- tion. Defining slaves in this way served the purposes of White Americans, not slaves themselves. It linked the definition of slaves as a race to the political and eco- nomic needs of the most powerful group in society (A. L. Higginbotham 1978).

“Whiteness” is also a social construction. This only underscores the importance of social constructionism in the definition of race in addition to biological crite- ria. A new field of “Whiteness studies” has developed, showing how racial formation works in defining who is “White” (Painter 2011). Early on, Anglo-Saxons were defined as the “true Whites” and thus superior to other White groups (Irish, Germans, Polish, and Italians, for example).

Racial formation theory also explains how groups such as Asian Americans, American Indians, and Lati- nos have been defined as races, despite the different experiences and nationalities of the groups compos- ing these three categories. Race, like ethnicity, lumps groups together that may have very different histori- cal and cultural backgrounds, but once they are so labeled, the groups are perceived as a single entity. All members of any out-group are perceived to be similar

Most people still think race is a strictly physical, biological category of humans. This is not correct. The notion of race is more social construction than biol- ogy. Race is, in part, perceived physical attributes such as skin color, hair texture, lip form, eye form, and so on, but it in greater part is defined by social and

What Exactly Is “Race” Anyway? cultural attributes. In fact, any biologi- cal category of “race” is not a socially identifiable category at all without the social and cultural attributes that society assigns to the various “race” labels. Hence, the notion of race is strongly rooted in society and has taken on its meaning only as people were treated

differently throughout time. Up until the 1950s in the United States, the races were defined as strict physical/biological categories, as follows: Negro (Black), Caucasian (White), Asian (Yellow), American Indian (Red), and finally “Australoid” (Brown). Virtually all the colors of the spectrum! There are still people to this day who define “race” in terms of this archaic color spectrum.

what would a sociologist say?

Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

232   CHAPTER 10

or even identical to each other, and differences among them are perceived to be minor or nonexistent. This has recently been the case in the United States with Middle Easterners: Egyptians, Lebanese, Syrians, Saudi Arabians, Iranians, Iraqis, Jordanians, Afghans, and many others are classified as one group and called Middle Easterners, or simply “Arabs.”

Minority and Dominant Groups Minorities are racial or ethnic groups, but not all racial or ethnic groups are always considered minorities. Irish Americans, for instance, are no longer thought of as minorities, although they certainly were in the early part of the twentieth century. A minority group is any distinct group in society that shares common group characteristics and is forced to occupy low status in society because of prejudice and discrimination. The group that assigns a racial or ethnic group to subordi- nate status in society is called the dominant group.

A group may be classified as a minority on the basis of ethnicity, race, sexual preference, age, class status, and even gender. A minority group is not nec- essarily a numerical minority but is a group that holds low social status in relation to other groups in society, regardless of the size of the group. In South Africa, Blacks outnumber Whites ten to one, but Blacks have been viciously oppressed and politically excluded first under the infamous apartheid (pronounced “aparthate” or “apart hite”) system of government. In general, a racial or ethnic minority group has the fol- lowing characteristics:

1. The minority group possesses characteristics (such as race, ethnicity, sexual preference, age, religion, or gender) that are regarded as different from those of the dominant group.

2. The minority group suffers prejudice and discrimi- nation by the dominant group.

3. Membership in the group is frequently ascribed rather than achieved, although either form of status can be the basis for being identified as a minority.

4. Members of a minority group feel a strong sense of group solidarity. There is a “consciousness of kind” or “we” feeling. This bond grows from com- mon cultural heritage and the shared experience of being a recipient of prejudice and discrimination.

DEBUNKING Society’s Myths← Myth: Minority groups are those with the least numerical representation in society. Sociological Perspective: A minority group is any group, regardless of size, that is singled out in society for unfair treatment and that generally occupies a lower status in the society.

Racial Stereotypes Racial and ethnic inequality in society produces racial stereotypes, and these stereotypes become the lens through which members of different groups perceive one another. Over time, these stereotypes may become more rigid and unchangeable. A stereotype is an over- simplified set of beliefs about members of a social group or social stratum. It is based on the tendency of humans to categorize a person based on a narrow range of perceived characteristics. Stereotypes are presumed to describe the “typical” member of some social …

E DUCATION AND HEALTH CAR E  351

Despite assertions by politicians that this law has had a positive and “dramatic” effect, the results have shown that wide gaps persist in verbal and math test scores. The gap has actually widened under the NCLB law. Some of the gap in test scores, as we have seen, can be attributed to poor measurement and cultural bias in the tests, but the problems in the education system run deep and cannot be measured by test scores alone.

Other federal initiatives focus on school reform, with little success. Political controversy centers on how to fund education, where best to spend tax dollars, and what policies would be most successful. Key issues in the education debate are:

1. adopting standards and assessments that will pre- pare students to succeed in college and the work- place and to compete in a global economy;

2. developing good measures of student success that can be used to inform teachers and administrators about improving instruction;

3. recruiting, rewarding, and retaining the best teach- ers and principals; and

4. improving the lowest-achieving schools.

Educational reform is difficult to implement. Educa- tional reform must begin with a clear understanding of education as an institution, including how schools create and reinforce inequality. Continued research and governmental commitment will help create a more balanced, fair, and successful model for educating Americans.

Health Care in the United States Like education, health care in the United States is also an institution. The United States still has some of the most sophisticated health care treatme

Collepals.com Plagiarism Free Papers

Are you looking for custom essay writing service or even dissertation writing services? Just request for our write my paper service, and we'll match you with the best essay writer in your subject! With an exceptional team of professional academic experts in a wide range of subjects, we can guarantee you an unrivaled quality of custom-written papers.

Get ZERO PLAGIARISM, HUMAN WRITTEN ESSAYS

Why Hire Collepals.com writers to do your paper?

Quality- We are experienced and have access to ample research materials.

We write plagiarism Free Content

Confidential- We never share or sell your personal information to third parties.

Support-Chat with us today! We are always waiting to answer all your questions.