Multicultural Matrix and Analysis Worksheet (Attached)
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terns. In the United States, Puerto Ricans, Jews, and Polish Americans are all categorized as ethnic groups (Table 31-1).
TABLE 31-1 RACIAL AND ETHNIC GROUPS IN THE UNITED STATES, 2016
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Note: Arab American population excluded from White total. All data are for 2016. Percentages do not total 100 percent, and when subcategories are added, they do not match totals in major
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categories because of overlap between groups (e.g., Polish American Jews or people of mixed ancestry such as Irish and Italian). Only White ancestry groups over 5 million listed. Sources: American Community Survey 2017a:Tables B01001H, B02001, B02016, B02018, B03001, B04006; Steinhardt Social Research Institute 2016.
Minority Groups A numerical minority is any group that makes up less than half of some larger population. The population of the United States includes thousands of numerical minorities, including television actors, green-eyed people, tax lawyers, and descendants of the Pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower. However, these numerical minorities are not considered to be minorities in the sociological sense; in fact, the number of people in a group does not necessarily determine its status as a social minority (or a dominant group). When sociologists define a minority group, they are concerned primarily with the economic and political power, or powerlessness, of that group. A minority group is a subordinate group whose members have significantly less control or power over their own lives than the members of a dominant or majority group have over theirs.
Sociologists have identified five basic properties of a minority group: unequal treatment, physical or cultural traits, ascribed status, solidarity, and in-group marriage (Wagley and Harris 1958):
1. Members of a minority group experience unequal treatment compared to members of a dominant group. For example, the management of an apartment complex may refuse to rent to African Americans, Hispanics, or Jews. Social inequality may be created or maintained by prejudice, discrimination, segregation, or even extermination.
2. 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.
3. Membership in a minority (or dominant) group is not voluntary; people are born into the group. Thus, race and ethnicity are considered ascribed statuses.
4. Minority group members have a strong sense of group solidarity. William Graham Sumner, writing in 1906, noted that people make distinctions between members of their own group (the in-group) and everyone else (the out-group). When a group is the object of long-term prejudice and discrimination, the feeling of “us versus them” can and often does become extremely intense.
5. 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. In addition, the minority group’s sense of solidarity encourages marriage within the group and discourages marriage to outsiders.
Race Many people think of race as a series of biological classifications. However, research shows that that is not a meaningful way of differentiating people. Genetically, there are no systematic differences between the races that affect people’s social behavior and abilities.
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Instead, sociologists use the term racial group to refer to those minorities (and the corresponding dominant groups) who are set apart from others by obvious physical differences. But what is an “obvious” physical difference? Each society labels those differences that people consider important, while ignoring other characteristics that could serve as a basis for social differentiation.
Social Construction of Race Because race is a social construction, the process of defining races typically benefits those who have more power and privilege than others. In the United States, we see differences in both skin color and hair color. Yet people learn informally that differences in skin color have a dramatic social and political meaning, whereas differences in hair color do not.
When observing skin color, many people in the United States tend to lump others rather casually into the traditional categories of “Black,” “White,” and “Asian.” Subtle differences in skin color often go unnoticed. In many nations of Central America and South America, in contrast, people recognize color gradients on a continuum from light to dark skin color. Brazil has approximately 40 color groupings, while in other countries people may be described as “Mestizo Hondurans,” “Mulatto Colombians,” or “African Panamanians.” What we see as “obvious” differences, then, are subject to each society’s social definitions.
The largest racial minorities in the United States are African Americans (or Blacks), Native Americans (or American Indians), and Asian Pacific Americans (Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans, Hawaiians, and other Asian Pacific peoples). Figure 31-1 provides information about the population of racial and ethnic groups in the United States over the past five centuries, projected through 2060.
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FIGURE 31-1 Racial and Ethnic Groups in the United States, 1500–2060 (Projected) Sources: Author’s estimate; Bureau of the Census 2004a; Colby and Ortman 2015:9. Top photo: Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZC2-1745]; bottom photo: ©Ken Usami/Photodisc/Getty Images
The racial and ethnic composition of what is today the United States has been undergoing change not just for the past 50 years, but for the past 500. Five centuries ago the land was populated only by indigenous Native Americans.
Given current population patterns, it is clear that the nation’s diversity will continue to increase. In 2011, for the first time ever, census data revealed that the majority of all children ages three and under are now either Hispanic or non-White. This turning point marked the beginning of a pattern in which the nation’s minority population will slowly become the majority. By 2014, the majority of people under age 18 in the United States belonged to racial or ethnic minority groups (Colby and Ortman 2015).
Racial definitions are crystallized through what Michael Omi and Howard Winant (2015) have called racial formation, a sociohistorical process in which racial categories are created, inhabited, transformed, and destroyed. In this process, those who have power define groups of people according to a racist social structure. The creation of a reservation system for Native Americans in the late 1800s is one example of racial formation. Federal officials combined what were distinctive tribes into a single racial group, which we refer to today as Native Americans. The extent and frequency with which peoples are subject to racial formation are such that no one escapes it.
Another example of racial formation from the 1800s was known as the “one-drop rule.” If a person had even a single drop of “Black blood,” that person was defined and viewed as Black, even if he or she appeared to be White. Clearly, race had social significance, enough so that White legislators established official standards about who was “Black” and who was “White.”
The one-drop rule was a vivid example of the social construction of race—the process by which people come to define a group as a race based in part on physical characteristics, but also on historical, cultural, and economic factors. For example, in the 1800s, immigrant groups such as Italian and Irish Americans were not at first seen as being “White,” but as foreigners who were not necessarily trustworthy. The social construction of race is an ongoing process that is subject to debate, especially in a diverse society such as the United States, where each year increasing numbers of children are born to parents of different racial backgrounds.
Recognition of Multiple Identities In 1900, in an address to the Anti-Slavery Union in London, scholar W. E. B. DuBois predicted that “the color line” would become the foremost problem of the 20th century. DuBois, born a free Black man in 1868, had witnessed prejudice and discrimination throughout the United States. His comment was prophetic. Today, over a century later, race and ethnicity still carry enormous weight in the United States (DuBois [1900] 1969).
The color line has blurred significantly since 1900, however. Interracial marriage is no longer forbidden by law and custom. Thus, Geetha Lakshmi-narayanan, a native of Ann Arbor, Michigan, is both White and Asian Indian. Often mistaken for a Filipina or Latina, she has grown accustomed to the blunt question “What are you?” (Navarro 2005).
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In the late 20th century, with immigration from Latin America rising, the fluid nature of racial formation became evident. Suddenly, people were speaking about the “Latin Americanization” of the United States, or about a biracial, Black/White society being replaced by a triracial one. In the 2010 Census, over 9 million people in the United States (or about 2.9 percent of the population) reported that they were of two or more races. Half the people classified as multiracial were under age 18, suggesting that this segment of the population will grow in the years to come. People who claimed both White and American Indian ancestry were the largest group of multiracial residents (Bonilla-Silva 2004; Humes et al. 2011).
This statistical finding of millions of multiracial people obscures how individuals are often asked to handle their identity. For example, the enrollment forms for government programs typically include only a few broad racial-ethnic categories. This approach to racial categorization is part of a long history that dictates single-race identities. Still, many individuals, especially young adults, struggle against social pressure to choose a single identity, and instead openly embrace multiple heritages. Public figures, rather than hide their mixed ancestry, now flaunt it. Singer Mariah Carey celebrates her Irish American background, and former President Barack Obama speaks of being born in Hawaii to a Kenyan father and a White mother from Kansas.
use your sociological imagination Using a TV remote control, how quickly do you think you could find a television show in which all the characters share your racial or ethnic background? What about a show in which all the characters share a different background from yours—how quickly could you find one?
Ethnicity An ethnic group, unlike a racial group, is set apart from others because of its national origin or distinctive cultural patterns. Among the ethnic groups in the United States are peoples with a Spanish-speaking background, referred to collectively as Latinos or Hispanics, such as Puerto Ricans, Mexican Americans, Cuban Americans, and other Latin Americans. Other ethnic groups in this country include Jewish, Irish, Italian, and Norwegian Americans. Although these groupings are convenient, they serve to obscure differences within ethnic categories (as in the case of Hispanics), as well as to overlook the mixed ancestry of so many people in the United States.
Man: ©Juanmonino/Getty Images; woman: ©SnowWhiteimages/Shutterstock
Today, some children of mixed-race families identify themselves as biracial or multiracial, rejecting efforts to place them in a single racial category.
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The distinction between racial and ethnic minorities is not always clear-cut. Some members of racial minorities, such as Asian Americans, may have significant cultural differences from other racial groups. At the same time, certain ethnic minorities, such as Latinos, may have obvious physical differences that set them apart from other ethnic groups in the United States.
Despite categorization problems, sociologists continue to feel that the distinction between racial groups and ethnic groups is socially significant. In most societies, including the United States, socially constructed physical differences tend to be more visible than ethnic differences. Partly as a result of this fact, stratification along racial lines is more resistant to change than stratification along ethnic lines. Over time, members of an ethnic minority can sometimes become indistinguishable from the majority— although the process may take generations and may never include all members of the group. In contrast, members of a racial minority find it much more difficult to blend in with the larger society and gain acceptance from the majority.
Prejudice and Discrimination Looking at the United States in the 21st century, some people wonder aloud if race and ethnicity are still relevant to social stratification. After all, African Americans have served as secretary of state, secretary of defense, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and, most notably, president of the United States; the office of attorney general has been held by both an African American and a Hispanic. As historic as these leaders’ achievements have been, however, in every case their elevation meant that they entered an overwhelmingly White government department or assembly.
At the same time, college campuses across the United States have been the scene of bias-related incidents. Student-run newspapers and radio stations have ridiculed racial and ethnic minorities; threatening literature has been stuffed under the doors of minority students; graffiti endorsing the views of White supremacist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan have been scrawled on university walls. In some cases, there have even been violent clashes between groups of White and Black students. In 2018, students staged protests, sit-ins, and hunger strikes over incidents such as prejudiced statements by college leaders, hassling of Black students by campus police, fraternities issuing invitations to “white girls only,” and human feces on bathroom walls in the form of swastikas.What causes such ugly incidents?
Prejudice Prejudice is a negative attitude toward an entire category of people, often an ethnic or racial minority. If you resent your roommate because he or she is sloppy, you are not necessarily guilty of prejudice. However, if you immediately stereotype your roommate on the basis of such characteristics as race, ethnicity, or religion, that is a form of prejudice. Prejudice tends to perpetuate false definitions of individuals and groups.
Sometimes prejudice results from ethnocentrism—the tendency to assume that one’s own culture and way of life represent the norm or are superior to all others. Ethnocentric people judge other cultures by the standards of their group, which leads quite easily to prejudice against cultures they view as inferior.
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One important and widespread ideology that reinforces prejudice is racism, the belief that one race is supreme and all others are innately inferior. When racism prevails in a society, members of subordinate groups generally experience prejudice, discrimination, and exploitation. In 1990, as concern mounted about racist attacks in the United States, Congress passed the Hate Crimes Statistics Act. As a result, hate crimes are now beginning to be reported and investigated in much the same way as conventional crimes against property and people.
©Paul Bereswill/Getty Images
Even successful members of minority groups, like Jeremy Lin, point guard for the Brooklyn Nets, are subjected to ethnic slurs. “Chink in the Armor” proclaimed a headline on ESPN’s website in 2012 after Lin, who had spearheaded a multigame winning streak, had a bad night. The network later apologized for the remark.
Prejudice comes from a number of sources, including the open expression of prejudiced views and the idea that taking advantage of some other group may help one’s own group to advance. In Box 31-1, we see the results of an experiment where White college students were given the opportunity to make recommendations for college scholarships and how the recipient’s race affected their decision.
Prejudice is also rooted in racial and ethnic stereotypes—
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unreliable generalizations about all members of a group that do not recognize individual differences within the group. The dominant or majority group creates these stereotypes through the process of racial formation. As the interactionist William I. Thomas noted, the dominant group’s “definition of the situation” is often so powerful, it can mold the individual personality. That is, people respond not only to the objective features of a situation or person, but also to the social meaning that situation or person carries. Thus, the false images or stereotypes created by the dominant group can become real in their consequences (Thomas 1923).
BOX 31-1
Sociology on Campus Bias in Awarding Scholarship Money In this study, a team of social psychologists asked college students to evaluate portfolios of incoming art students who they were told were competing for a scholarship. Each White student was shown four portfolios containing artwork samples and background information that contained the purported applicant’s picture (three applicants were White, one African American).
The student evaluators were told that the university had allocated a total of $100,000 for the four scholarships and asked to recommend how much each applicant should receive. Before the experiment, the artwork had been evaluated to be so similar that worthiness of talent was irrelevant. The only real difference between applicants was their race.
The outcome was striking. If race did not matter, the average allocation among the over one hundred students looking at the portfolios would be about $25,000, or $100,000 split four ways. Instead, the average scholarship recommendation for the Black applicant was under $19,000—a significant difference.
The researchers argued that the scarcity of the reward (the limited amount of money available and the fact that the applicants were in fact competing for it) invited the unsuspecting students to show bias. To have awarded more to the Black applicant would have disadvantaged the White applicants.
In a variation of this experiment, another group of student evaluators was asked to recommend scholarship amounts based on their review of the art portfolios, but this time the total scholarship funds were not limited: giving more to one applicant did not necessarily mean giving less to another. Still, the African American applicant was awarded less money than his or her White counterparts.
Resources in society are not evenly distributed, and certainly this is something that college students appreciate with respect to scholarship money. So when given the chance to help out other students, what did the White student evaluators do? Did they allocate funds equally between Whites and Blacks? No. Did they, out of some sense of “White guilt” or desire to help members of a group they know to be disadvantaged, award more to the would-be Black college art student? No. Instead, White evaluators typically awarded more money to White applicants than to Black applicants.
Resources in society are not evenly distributed, and certainly this is something that college students appreciate with respect to scholarship money.
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L E T ’ S D I S C U S S
1. What do you think the results would have been if the races of the evaluators and applicants had been reversed? If other groups, such as Asian Americans, had been included as evaluators or applicants? Why?
2. What are some other situations in which this kind of bias might affect the life chances of members of a minority group?
Source: Krosch et al. 2018.
Color-Blind Racism Over the past three generations, nationwide surveys have consistently shown growing support among Whites for integration, interracial dating, and the election of minority group members to public office—including the presidency of the United States. How can this trend be explained, given the persistence of residential segregation and the commission of thousands of hate crimes every year? The answer, to some extent, is that prejudice and discriminatory attitudes are no longer expressed as freely as they once were. Often, they are couched in terms of equal opportunity.
Color-blind racism is the use of the principle of race neutrality to defend a racially unequal status quo. Proponents of race neutrality claim they believe that everyone should be treated equally. However, the way they apply the principle to government policy is anything but neutral. Proponents of this approach oppose affirmative action, public welfare assistance, and to a large extent, government-funded health insurance, all of which they see largely as favors to minority groups. Yet they do not object to practices that privilege Whites, such as college admissions criteria that give preference to the relatives of alumni. Nor do they oppose tax breaks for homeowners, most of whom are White, or government financial aid to college students, who are also disproportionately White. Though race neutrality is not based on theories of racial superiority or inferiority, then, the idea that society should be color-blind only perpetuates racial inequality.
Color-blind racism has also been referred to as “covert racism.” Although its proponents rarely speak of racism, other indicators of social status, such as social class or citizenship, tend to become proxies for race. Thus, many White people can convince themselves that they are not racist—nor do they know anyone who is—and yet remain prejudiced against “welfare mothers” and “immigrants.” They can conclude, mistakenly, that racial tolerance, or even racial and ethnic equality, has been achieved.
Researchers who have surveyed White attitudes toward African Americans over the past several decades have reached two inescapable conclusions. First, people’s attitudes do change. In periods of social upheaval, dramatic attitudinal shifts can occur within a single generation. Second, less racial progress was made in the late 20th and early 21st centuries than in the relatively brief period of the 1950s and 1960s.
Today, economically disadvantaged groups such as African Americans and Latinos have become so closely associated with urban decay, homelessness, welfare, and crime that those problems are now viewed as racial issues, even if they are not labeled as such. The tendency to blame the victims of these social ills complicates their resolution, especially at a time when government’s ability to address so
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