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ESSENTIALS OF SOCIOLOGY, 7TH EDITION

CHAPTER 10: RACE, ETHNICITY, AND RACISM

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Please review the entire chapter to gain a more comprehensive view and understanding of the subject matter. Do not rely solely on this chapter summary.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

What Are Race and Ethnicity? • Ethnic groups have common cultural characteristics that separate them from others

within a given population. Ethnic differences are wholly learned, although they are sometimes depicted as "natural."

• Race refers to physical characteristics, such as skin color, that are treated by members of a community or society as socially significant—as signaling distinct cultural characteristics. Many common notions about "race" are based on myths and stereotypes. There are no distinct characteristics by means of which human beings can be allocated to different races.

Why Do Racial and Ethnic Antagonism Exist? • Racism is prejudice based on socially significant physical distinctions, such as skin tone

or hair texture. A racist is someone who believes that some individuals are superior, or inferior, to others as a result of racial differences.

• Displacement and scapegoating constitute psychological explanations of prejudice and discrimination. In displacement, feelings of hostility become directed against objects that are not the real origin of these anxieties. People project their anxieties and insecurities onto scapegoats. Prejudice involves holding preconceived views about an individual or group; discrimination refers to actual behavior that deprives members of a group of opportunities open to others. Prejudice usually involves stereotypical thinking—thinking in terms of fixed and inflexible categories.

• The social processes involved in discrimination involve three sociological ideas – ethnocentrism, group closure, and resource allocation.

• Four main models can be distinguished in the ways different societies have approached ethnic integration, stressing assimilation, the melting pot, pluralism, and multiculturalism. In recent years there has been a tendency to emphasize the fourth of these avenues, whereby different ethnic identities are accepted as equal and separate within the context of the overall national culture.

How Does Racism Operate in American Society Today? • Theories of institutional racism propose that racism is entrenched in societal structures

and pervades all of society in a systematic way. For example, targeted police brutality against racial minorities, especially Black men.

• Interpersonal racism includes blatant bigotry, but it is also complicated by seemingly benign instances of color-blind racism and microaggressions.

ESSENTIALS OF SOCIOLOGY, 7TH EDITION

CHAPTER 10: RACE, ETHNICITY, AND RACISM

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What Are the Origins and Nature of Ethnic Diversity in the United States?

• Beginning in the fifteenth century, global migratory movements resulting from exploration, colonialism, and slavery created multiethnic populations in various regions of the world, resulting in ethnic and racial antagonism. Today, migration appears to be on the rise as part of the process of globalization.

• An important distinction must be drawn between those minorities that came to America as willing immigrants and the colonized peoples who either were here already (Native Americans, Mexican Americans) or were brought by force (African Americans) and who were generally incorporated by violence.

How Do Race and Ethnicity Affect the Life Chances of Different Groups? • There are stark differences in the life chances of individuals of different races and

genders because of differences in levels of educational attainment, employment and income, health, residential segregation, and amount of political power.

How Do Sociologists Explain Racial Inequality? • One of the most controversial explanations for inequalities among racial groups has

been racial differences in IQ, but these have very little to do with the genetic makeup of the races and are much more influenced by social factors.

• Cultural explanations – which claim that the inequalities between Blacks and Whites are more determined by the cultures of different groups – for racial inequalities are controversial but have more adherents. Those who believe in cultural explanations argue that the wrong values are passed on from generation to generation.

• Many sociologists reject the economic explanations of racism, and point to the historical oppression of Black people which points to a strong case of anti-Black racial discrimination in the form of discriminatory hiring practices, and physical spaces known as ghettos.