Read the Book(Uploaded) and write about the questions(each 1150~200 words)

picture, sociologists encourage us to examine institutional discrimination, that is, to see how discrimination is woven into the fabric of society. Let’s look at two examples.

Home Mortgages. Bank lending provides an excellent illustration of institutional discrimina- tion. When a 1991 national study showed that minorities had a harder time getting mortgages, bankers said that favoring whites might look like discrimination, but it wasn’t: Loans go to those with better credit histories, and that’s what whites have. Researchers then compared the credit histories of the applicants. They found that even when applicants had identical credit, African Americans and Latinos were 60 percent more likely to be rejected (Thomas 1991, 1992).

A new revelation surfaced with the subprime debacle that threw the stock market into a tail- spin and led the U.S. Congress to put the next generation deeply in debt for the foibles of this one. Look at Figure 9.2 (on the next page). The first thing you will notice is that minorities are still more likely to be turned down for a loan. You can see that this happens whether their in- comes are below or above the median income of their community. Beyond this hard finding lies another just as devastating. In the credit crisis that caused so many to lose their homes, African

272 C h a p t e r 9 R A C E A N D E T H N I C I T Y

The Racist Mind

S ociologist Raphael Ezekiel wanted to get a close look at the racist mind. The best way to study racism from the inside is to do participant observation (see

pages 133–134). But Ezekiel is a Jew. Could he study these groups by participant observation? To find out, Ezekiel told Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi leaders that he wanted to interview them and attend their meetings. He also told them that he was a Jew. Surprisingly, they agreed. Ezekiel published his path-breaking research in a book, The Racist Mind (1995). Here are some of the insights he gained dur- ing his fascinating sociological adventure:

[ The leader] builds on mass anxiety about economic inse- curity and on popular tendencies to see an Establishment as the cause of economic threat; he hopes to teach peo- ple to identify that Establishment as the puppets of a con- spiracy of Jews. [He has a] belief in exclusive categories. For the white racist leader, it is profoundly true . . . that the socially defined collections we call races represent fun- damental categories. A man is black or a man is white; there are no in-betweens. Every human belongs to a racial category, and all the members of one category are radically different from all the members of other categories. More- over, race represents the essence of the person. A truck is a truck, a car is a car, a cat is a cat, a dog is a dog, a black is a black, a white is a white. . . . These axioms have a rock- hard quality in the leaders’ minds; the world is made up of racial groups. That is what exists for them.

Two further beliefs play a major role in the minds of leaders. First, life is war.The world is made of distinct racial groups; life is about the war between these groups. Second, events have secret causes, are never what they seem superficially. . . . Any myth is plausible, as long as it in- volves intricate plotting. . . . It does not matter to him what others say. . . . He lives in his ideas and in the little

world he has created where they are taken seriously. . . . Gold can be made from the tongues of frogs;Yahweh’s call can be heard in the flapping swastika banner. (pp. 66–67)

Who is attracted to the neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan? Here is what Ezekiel discovered:

[ There is a] ready pool of whites who will respond to the racist signal. . . .This population [is] always hungry for activ- ity—or for the talk of activity—that promises dignity and meaning to lives that are working poorly in a highly competi- tive world. . . . Much as I don’t want to believe it, [this] move- ment brings a sense of meaning—at least for a while—to some of the discontented.To struggle in a cause that tran- scends the individual lends meaning to life, no matter how ill-founded or narrowing the cause. For the young men in the neo-Nazi group . . . membership was an alternative to at- omization and drift; within the group they worked for a cause and took direct risks in the company of comrades. . . .

When interviewing the young neo-Nazis in Detroit, I often found myself driving with them past the closed fac- tories, the idled plants of our shrinking manufacturing base.The fewer and fewer plants that remain can demand better educated and more highly skilled workers.These fa- therless Nazi youths, these high-school dropouts, will find little place in the emerging economy . . . a permanently underemployed white underclass is taking its place along- side the permanent black underclass.The struggle over race merely diverts youth from confronting the real issues of their lives. Not many seats are left on the train, and the train is leaving the station. (pp. 32–33)

For Your Consideration Use functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interac- tion to explain how the leaders and followers of these hate groups view the world. Use these same perspec- tives to explain why some people are attracted to the message of hate.

Down -to-Earth Sociology

institutional discrimination negative treatment of a minor- ity group that is built into a so- ciety’s institutions; also called systemic discrimination