Race and Identity or Language, Status, and Identity

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Chapter Outline

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Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

1. Discuss the relationship between human biology and culture.

2. Explain the nature of contemporary human variation.

3. Explain how the idea of human races devel- oped and how human biological variation is understood today.

4. Discuss racism and its relationships with racial prejudice and racial discrimination.

5. Discuss the scientific errors and social prob- lems involved in the belief that social roles are caused by biology.

6. Explain the relationships between biology, culture, and intelligence.

7. Discuss the influence of culture on IQ test scores.

8. Discuss ethnicity and its politics.

Biology and Culture: Race and Ethnicity

3

3.1 Biology and the Capacity for Culture

• Race and Culture • Racialism • Racism

3.2 Race, Cultural Ability, and Intelligence

• Intelligence Testing

3.3 Ethnicity

• Race and Ethnicity • Ethnicity and Politics

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CHAPTER 3Section 3.1 Biology and the Capacity for Culture

In this chapter we consider the interplay of biology and culture. We will explore the concepts of racism, its functions in society, and its lack of scientific validity. We will also examine how ideas about differences between men and women influence the ways in which social roles are assigned. Not all cultures have assigned different social roles based on concepts of race. In such cases, differences are best understood as artifacts of culture rather than biology.

3.1 Biology and the Capacity for Culture

Human beings differ from other animals in their heavy reliance on culture as their means of adapting to their environment. Humans are, in short, cultural animals. Because this can be said of no other species, one might assume that human biol- ogy has distinctive characteristics that make it possible for us to acquire a culture. In other words, human biology makes culture possible, and the biological characteristics of our species may be seen as the reason why cultures, despite their diversity, nevertheless also have numerous universals.

However, to say that human biology makes culture possible does not imply that biology determines the specific characteristics of a culture. It is generally acknowledged that “human nature,” in the sense of our innate biological predispositions, does not consist of rigidly pro- grammed responses to stimuli. The human species is the product of evolutionary processes that resulted in a large brain with the capacity to learn and use both language and complex ideologies, which are passed down from one generation to the next through socialization rather than through biology itself. In this chapter, we will question ideas about biological determinism by exploring the interplay of culture, race, and ethnicity.

Race and Culture Humans are not a homogeneous species, but differ in some of their physical characteris- tics from one part of the world to another. It has become common throughout the world to use these differences to group people into a variety of races, groups that supposedly reflect closeness based on common ancestry. One major problem with the idea that humans belong to different races is that people who use the concept of “race” typically assume that there are clear-cut genetic boundaries between these groups. In reality, so-called racial characteristics vary in frequency from one part of the world to another, and changes rarely happen so abruptly that one can state with certainty that a clear boundary exists between an area where a characteristic is common and another where it is rare. Furthermore, the cluster of biological traits that are commonly thought of as distinguishing one race from another do not vary from one part of the world to another as a cluster. For instance, skin tone varies most markedly from dark to light as one moves further north or south from the equator, while other so-called racial differences vary east to west, from lower eleva- tions to higher ones, and from climate to climate (the tallest and slenderest humans being concentrated in hot, dry areas).

Overall, despite variation, the major human geographical groups around the world (which are commonly thought of as distinct races) differ in only about 0.5% of their genetic mate- rial (Levy, 2007), and all human populations have the capacity to learn and be socialized into a particular culture. Thus, the so-called human races are not actually separate groups

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CHAPTER 3Section 3.1 Biology and the Capacity for Culture

in the way they are commonly thought to be, and the differences that can be seen around the world are superficial differences when it comes to the capacity for culture. In short, the human “races” are best understood as cultural constructs rather than truly distinct biological subdivisions of our species.

In the early 1900s, Franz Boas (1911) emphasized the fact that whatever biological dif- ferences may exist between human races do not account for cultural differences. People of the same race may have quite different cultures, and people of different races may participate in the same culture. Normal individuals of every race have the same capacity to acquire any culture. The purpose of this chapter is to further explore this relationship between “race” and culture.

Racialism Racialism is the belief that clear-cut, bounded human races actually exist. It is an idea that developed in Europe as explorers and merchants began to travel to far-flung places around the world beginning in the 1500s and was furthered by the efforts of taxono- mists and natural historians in the 1700s to develop scientific categories that they hoped would describe recently discovered human biological variations. Unfortunately, these early taxonomies gave rise to the mistaken impression that human differences could accurately be described in terms of discretely different groups.

The Origin of Racialism Throughout most of history, people interacted only with close neighbors who differed very little from them biologically. When their cultures differed radically, an individual’s status was likely to be described in nonbi- ological terms, as a stranger. Those who held such sta- tuses might be treated ethnocentrically as social inferi- ors and expected to play inferior roles. But it was not until the peoples of distant parts of the world began to interact that the idea of race became a common way of identifying social contrasts among groups.

The belief that humankind is divided into several major races began during the age of European colonial expansion. European exploration of remote parts of the world brought people together from places where the most frequently observable biological traits such as skin color or hair texture differed enough to be read- ily noted by travelers. These physical contrasts became the basis for creating racial statuses when the politi- cal need arose. Colonial expansion was undertaken to obtain economic and political benefits for the home- land. Expecting members of the colonized societies to play subordinate roles to the colonizers supported this goal. The emerging racial ideology helped to maintain the distinction between “us” and “them,” and to justify European domination.

Everett Collection/SuperStock Throughout history there has been an effort to portray Caucasian people as superior to others. In the 1800s this took on a more evolutionary approach as shown in Ernest Haeckel’s 1868 popular illustrated book titled Naturliche Schopfungsgeschichte (English title, History of Creation).

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Even today, the criteria by which “races” are defined vary from culture to culture. Usually, these criteria include easily observable traits such as skin color, the shape of facial features, hair color and texture, or body stature. Less observable traits such as blood type would not allow quick and easy decisions about what social roles should be played between people. In North America, skin color and hair texture are often the main determinants of the “race” to which one is thought to belong. In Bolivia, on the other hand, nonbiological attributes such as clothing and dialect or accent may greatly influence one’s perceptions of another’s “race.”

That there is no precise number of human races is illustrated by the fact that the number of so-called human races differs from one culture to another. For instance, European scholars often spoke of three major racial groups, but American scholars commonly treated Native Americans as a fourth, supposedly distinct, race. In the American subculture in which I grew up in southern California in the 1950s, Americans of that area commonly added “Mexicans,” as if they were a distinct fifth race. The variability in social perceptions of racial categories indicates that “race” is really a cultural construct rather than a natural biological subdivision of our species.

The Belief in Distinct Races The human species is quite varied in the biological characteristics found from person to person, and the same physical traits are not equally found throughout the world. Instead, any given trait may vary in frequency from region to region. Because in particular envi- ronments a certain physical trait may confer some survival advantage on those who have it, advantageous traits eventually become more common in the environments in which they are of benefit. Thus, for instance, the largest lung capacity is most common among peoples who live at the highest altitudes, and the body shape that best conserves tends to be most common in the coldest climates. Nevertheless, enough interbreeding happens between neighboring groups that traits that have an advantage in a particular environ- ment are also passed from group to group, out of one environment and into others.

However, simple variation in the frequency of traits from one region to another does not mean that a species is made up of distinctly separate races or that races have clear bound- aries that separate them one from another. In fact, the number of human races that people believe exist depends on what they have been socialized to believe, and ideas about that vary from one culture to another. Human groups are simply not isolated enough from one another to have developed distinctive races characterized by clusters of genetic traits that disappear as one crosses a distinct boundary between them. The bottom line is that there is much more variation between the characteristics of individuals within any of the so-called “races” than there is between those “races.” This can be illustrated with mea- surements of genetic differences between human groups. A significant number of human genes and the variants of their alleles are unchanging. Hence, they are not subject to evo- lutionary pressures and are more or less common from one part of the world to another.

Biological anthropologist Richard Lewontin (1972; Lewontin et al. 1982, p. 123) compared genetic traits in individuals from seven different geographical areas of the world and determined that these genes are so widely distributed that if all human beings except those of any one of these “racial” groups, say sub-Saharan Africa, were somehow wiped out by a great catastrophe, only 6.7% of these variable human genes would be lost from the human species. More recent studies with improved methods for measuring genetic

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diversity have confirmed Lewontin’s conclusion that most human genes are shared by all so-called “races.” These studies show that only 6–10% of human variation can be explained by the “races,” and that about 94% of physical variation occurs within “racial” groups (AAA, 1998). Further, Yu et al. (2002) found that there are equivalent average genetic dif- ference between two individuals of the same race and two individuals of different races. Similarly, Jin and Chakraborty (1994) examined DNA markers among about 12,000 people from 59 different groups and found that up to 98.5% of genetic variation occurred within groups. As noted above, as much as 99.5% of human genes are found in each of the parts of the world that are commonly thought of as representing the major three or four human races. Thus, the way human traits are distributed around the world does not conform to the common idea that there is an objective number of clearly recognizable, distinct races.

Although some scientists who are interested in the biological diversity within our spe- cies also use the word “race,” their studies actually reveal something quite different from the common idea: The frequencies of human biological traits vary gradually from region to region without clear-cut boundaries between them. Neighboring human groups are constantly migrating and exchanging genes from group to group through mating, and no human groups are really isolated from their neighbors, even when rigid taboos exist. For instance, sociologist Robert Stuckert (1958, 1966) estimated that approximately 23% of persons classified as White in the United States in 1960 had at least one ancestor of African origin. This mixing occurred despite the very strong social taboos against inter- racial mating in the United States. The rates at which genes are passed from one human group to another throughout most of human existence are likely to be much greater than that which Stuckert calculated for Blacks and Whites in the United States prior to about 1960. In fact, population geneticist Mark Shriver and his colleagues at Penn State have found that about 30% of self-identified “White Americans” have some African ancestry, and between 17 and 18% of the ancestors of self-identified “Black Americans” were of European origin, and about 10% of these “Black Americans” are more than half European in their ancestry (Shriver, et al., 2003). Thus, the so-called “races” referred to in popular culture are not nearly so different from each other as people imagine.

Rather than think about “races” as discrete groups, it is more useful to think about bio- logical variation along a continuum of gradual (rather than abrupt) change. We see this, for example, with skin color, which varies along a gradient from one group or geographic region to another. In fact, much human variation is better explained by geographic dis- tance than by biology: Groups living close to one another tend to be more physically alike compared to those living farther away (Templeton, 1998). It is for these reasons that anthropologists (especially cultural anthropologists) think about “race” as a social con- struct. This is not to say “race” does not exist: It remains a commonly used classificatory system; it is integral to social interaction; and race and racism form part of people’s social experiences. However, “race” is based more on social and historical factors than on bio- logical facts.

Racism Since racial classifications are social conventions, they differ from culture to culture. The defined racial categories may include as few as two socially relevant categories or a mul- titude of them. Brazil, for example, reportedly has more than 500 racial terms. Despite the arbitrariness of racial classifications, they may seem quite real to those who have been

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CHAPTER 3Section 3.1 Biology and the Capacity for Culture

socialized into using them. The power of social beliefs in racial differences can be so great that people may be dealt with on the basis of the qualities that are culturally attributed to their race rather than the qualities they actually demonstrate as individuals. Stereotypes about differences between racial groups can lead to the assignment of somewhat differ- ent social roles to members of the different racial groups. These differences commonly involve the subordination of those of one racial status to those of another racial status. Such subordination has been supported at various times in different parts of the world by the force of law, as in the case of the post–Civil War United States when Black Americans were sometimes required by law to live under both geographically and economically seg- regated conditions. Even without the force of law, racial prejudices continued to play a role in such things as discriminatory hiring practices.

Especially when the roles that are commonly available to members of different racial groups involve a consistent ranking of one racial group over others, the differences in roles may be perpetuated by racial prejudices. Racial prejudice is an attitude made up of feelings of dislike and contempt for people who are thought of as belonging to a racial group different from one’s own. It may be learned from and supported by the ideology of a culture, and may be manifest in institutions such as laws, public policy, and corporate practices. Racial prejudice—as an antipathy that is felt by individuals—is translated into behavior when we treat members of other racial groups differently than we would treat members of our own. Such behavior is called racial discrimination. Although discrimina- tion may be evidenced by the way an individual manifests his or her racial prejudice (such as joking about minority races), it is also evidenced by institutional practices, such as a company policy of not hiring members of minority races, or a law forbidding marriage between members of different races. This kind of institutionally based discrimination is one of the components of racism, which is best understood as culturally mandated, insti- tutionally supported discrimination against members of minority races.

Racism is normally supported by racist beliefs, which involve the mistake of thinking that expected social roles are actually inborn racial characteristics. The belief that socially imposed racial differences are innate legitimizes the subordination of one racial group to another. Though inaccurate and demeaning, racist beliefs have evolved because they serve a variety of societal needs, such as supporting the political and economic goals of the dominant segments of society.

Economic and Political Roots of Racism The social applications of racism have consistently represented nonscientific and arbi- trary judgments that serve the changing, often ethnocentric, values of society. This is evi- denced by two scientifically untenable characteristics of racist standards. First, standards of racial classification have been highly arbitrary in biological terms, as they are socially directed to supporting the supposed “purity” of the dominant group. For instance, in the United States, anyone who admits to having even one Black ancestor is commonly classified by others and treated socially as a Black—regardless of physical appearance. It would be just as logical to classify someone who has a small amount of “White blood” as a White. But the function of racial classification historically in the United States has been to deny equal access to economic and political power to people who are not of northern European ancestry.

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The second major piece of evidence that racism grows out of the predominant social val- ues of the day is that racist ideas about the behavioral tendencies of the “races” change with the shifting winds of public and political sentiment. Thus, in the United States in 1935, the Japanese “race” was commonly viewed as progressive, intelligent, and industri- ous. Only 7 years later, in 1942 and within the context of World War II, the Japanese were widely viewed as an inherently cunning and treacherous “race.” In that year, an executive order by President Roosevelt was used to exclude Japanese Americans from the Pacific Coast, including all of California and much of Oregon. Japanese citizens were taken from their homes in those areas and confined to internment camps in Arkansas and in various West Coast and Great Basin states. After 1950, as political allies of the United States, the Japanese once again came to be viewed as hardworking and progressive. Similarly, when there was a labor shortage in California during the construction of the transcontinental railway line, the Chinese who provided cheap labor were described as a frugal, sober, law- abiding “race.” Then, when competition for jobs became severe and it became economi- cally desirable to exclude further immigration of Chinese laborers, the Chinese “race” suddenly became described as dirty, unable to assimilate, and even dangerous.

The racist approach has consistently failed to have any scientific validity. On the contrary, it supports social prejudices by claiming that socially created group differences are bio- logically determined and therefore unchangeable. Such an argument provides a political rationale for people to oppose attempts to change the current race-based limitations in access to social prestige and political and economic power. For that reason, the racist argu- ment has persisted for several centuries, even though it has never proven itself to be of any scientific value in explaining human social difference.

The arbitrariness of racial categorizations that function to legitimize differences in how people are customarily treated is well illustrated by the experience of a young American boy named Greg Williams. Born in 1944, he was reared in Virginia where he attended schools that only accepted White students and where he swam in segregated swimming pools for Whites. Greg inherited his father’s light skin tone, and he had straight black hair. This did not interfere with his being classified socially as “White.” However, at the age of 10, Greg’s father moved with him and his siblings to Muncie, Indiana, where his relatives were considered to be Black. His light-skinned father told him and his brothers that “[i]n Virginia you were White boys. In Indiana, you’re going to be colored.” But things weren’t quite that simple. As a teenager in Muncie, Greg was taunted by Black teens as “White,” and White people were upset when they saw him with White girls. On the other hand, as a university student, Greg Williams was classified as Black when the university reported the percentages of its students in different racial categories (Williams, 1996).

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CHAPTER 3Section 3.1 Biology and the Capacity for Culture

Slavery and Racist Beliefs Racism is essentially a modern phenomenon. The modern racist way of reacting to “out- siders” by claiming that they are biologically inferior and unable to learn the “superior” customs of the racist’s own group, came into existence as a way of protecting the 18th- and 19th-century institution of slavery when voices began to speak out against it. Defenders of slavery even claimed the institution was divinely willed. For example, in 1772 the Rever- end Thomas Thompson published a work entitled The Trade in Negro Slaves on the African Coast in Accordance with Humane Principles, and with the Laws of Revealed Religion, and in 1852 the Reverend Josiah Priest published A Bible Defense of Slavery.

Figure 3.1: Evolution toward greater civilization?

Source: Adapted from The March of Progress by Rudy Zallinger.

If cultural evolution was linear, why did man develop the best tools and a highly industrialized economy, yet struggle in countering social inequality, poverty, and war?

When the use of Africans as slaves began in the United States, there was little need to jus- tify it with racist arguments. Ethnocentric values sufficed as rationales for the institution of slavery. Slave owners could claim that their slaves were better off with them than as free persons within their own allegedly inferior cultures. It was supposed that they had been given the chance to learn a superior way of life, higher moral values, the true religion, and a more enlightened way of thinking, in addition to enjoying a higher standard of living, better medical knowledge, and a longer life expectancy than if they had been permitted to

Go back. We messed

everything up.

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CHAPTER 3Section 3.1 Biology and the Capacity for Culture

remain in their former state. In ethnocentric terms, it was said that one could not simply discharge a slave after a few years of service because releasing a slave to his or her own devices in a complex society would be “inhumane.” According to this argument, the complexity of the “superior way of life” would be more than a person taken into slavery as an adult could learn to cope with. Thus, it was the slavehold- ers’ burden to take care of these “innocents” for the rest of their lives. And, of course, it was only fair—so the argument ran—for them to work for their “bene- factors” in return for these acts of “kindness.” See Figure 3.1.

Such ethnocentric rationales were not so useful when applied to the second generation of slaves. If a slave’s children are exposed from infancy on to the way of life of the slave owner, they cannot be described as any less aware of how to live “prop- erly” than any other member of the society unless one adds a new rationale to the old ethnocentric one. To continue to rationalize slavery into the sec- ond and third generations, the slave-owning group had to develop the view that the group they held in bondage was somewhat inferior in that its members

were genetically unable to learn the new way of life adequately to participate on an equal footing in a “civilized” society.

With this change from a simple ethnocentric argument to a concept of an inherent incapac- ity of some non-White “races,” the old claim of inferiority took on an even stronger aura of inevitability. Although the old institution of slavery no longer may be used as the vehicle for the domination of one group by another, the concept of differences in the capacities of different “races” lives on as a rationale for the dominance of one culture over another or of one segment of a society over its other members.

Rationalizing Social Inequality Looking at human differences in a racist way holds that the traits that lie within a person are responsible for his or her behavior. Such inner traits include willpower, determination, ego, inborn potentials, intellectual capacities, and the like. This tradition has made it dif- ficult to convince many people of the value in viewing behavior as being affected by cul- tural factors that are outside the person. Racist thinking served as a way of rationalizing the inequalities from which the dominant members of society were benefitting. Unequal treatment of social minorities could be perceived as the result rather than the cause of the differences between the various segments of the society. Because it is an effective way of supporting the status quo, the racist approach to explaining human behavior became a common way of reacting to human behavioral differences and remains unquestioned by large segments of society today, two centuries after it originated.

Universal Images Group/SuperStock Once people accept that a particular group is unequal, it justifies their unequal treatment as well.

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CHAPTER 3Section 3.1 Biology and the Capacity for Culture

Legalized Racial Distinctions Often the racism of the politically dominant segment of a society receives official sanction through legislation. Since the politically dominant segment of the United States has generally been composed of Whites, laws about supposed racial differences have often been preju- diced by ethnocentrism that favored Whites. The “White way of life”—that is, northern- European–based, industrialized, capitalistic culture—was assumed to be the superior way of living and therefore the most deserving of protection by law. Because the ability to participate in a way of life was thought to be “in our blood,” it followed that the most effective way of preserving the “White civilization” would be to maintain as much separation of the races as possible. Thus, at one time over three quarters of the states in the United States had laws prohibiting interracial marriages. That is, people of non-White racial statuses were forbidden to marry Whites, although marriages between members of different non-White races were not consistently forbidden. Nineteen states still had such laws as recently as 1967 when they were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court as unconstitutional.

It was not just racial intermarriage that was illegal in the United States. A host of so-called “Jim Crow laws” continued to perpetuate racial segregation in the United States well into the second half of the 20th century. For instance, as late as 1971, Black students were still being bused from the school dis- tricts in which their families lived into predominantly Black school districts that were farther from their homes. In that year, the practice was finally declared unconstitutional, but even overturning laws that perpetu- ated racial segregation did not mean that segregation disappeared, as even without the force of law private prejudices have made it difficult for minorities to find employment and housing outside the areas in which they were born.

A recent example of a society built on the principle of racial segregation is South Africa, in which legal barri- ers prevented a non-White majority from achieving social equality with the dominant White minority until the system of apartheid (legal racial segregation) was dismantled between 1989 and 1994. South African law recognized the existence of four “races”: Whites, Africans, Coloureds, and Asians. Whites were those of European ances- try, mostly descendants of Dutch Boers and English settlers. Africans were native African Blacks. Asians were people of Indian descent whose ancestors came to South Africa in the 19th century. “Coloureds” were peoples of mixed descent. The rigid separation of the “races” was maintained by laws forbidding interracial marriages, the legal require- ment of segregated residence, separate systems of education, and unequal voting rights. Africans made up over 71% of the population but lacked voting rights that would give them a corresponding influence over the government. The government defined Africans as citizens of various “homelands,” reserves that had been set aside for their occupation. South African cities, on the other hand, were set apart by law for White residents only.

Everett Collection/SuperStock The effects of racism can be seen in the law, as was the case in the segregation of schools. In September 1958, Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas went on television to urge citizens to vote against school desegregation.

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Non-White laborers who worked in the cities resided in townships located outside the cities. Although Whites represented only 16% of the population, they received by far the greatest social benefits. For instance, while the African unemployment rate could be as high as 30%, White unemployment was below 10%. This was partly because the White- dominated government was the single largest employer of Whites; 40% worked for the bureaucracy. Thus, through control of the government, South African Whites maintained a system of political and economic privilege based on race. The first all-race election was finally held in 1994, when Nelson Mandela, an African, was elected president.

Economic and Health Costs of Racism Different ways of treating socially designated races are not without their cost. Consider this example: Based on U.S Census information, the White life expectancy was 79.0 years in 2010, 3.9 years more than that of African Americans. The difference can be attributed to a higher infant mortality rate among African Americans; inadequate access to medical treatment and hospital facilities; and the debilitating effects of their higher concentrations in poorer neighborhoods, lower-class jobs, and high unemployment rates. This difference was an improvement over conditions in the year 2000, when the difference between White and African-American life expectancy was 7.6 years. Still, under current conditions in every generation that lives 79 years, 3.9 years of life are denied to approximately 40 mil- lion African Americans, an equivalent of 136 and a half million years of human life wasted needlessly. See Figure 3.2 for more on the economics of inequality.

Figure 3.2: Racial divide and economic inequality

Based on U.S. Census Bureau. (2010). Wealth and asset ownership of households: 2010 [Data file]. Retrieved from http://www.census .gov/people/wealth/

After the Great Recession of 2007–2008, the average net worth of Whites was 22 times higher than the net worth of Blacks.

Net Worth

White

Asian

Hispanic

Black

$120,000$90,000$60,000$30,000$0

R a c e

$110,729

$69,590

$7,424

$4,955

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CHAPTER 3Section 3.2 Race, Cultural Ability, and Intelligence

These kinds of effects—such as lowered life expectancies and living standards among those who hold minority racial statuses—illustrate how racism makes itself felt in its most harmful way. To those who feel its effects, even more abhorrent than ethnocentrism or racial prejudice is the fact that these attitudes may become the basis of social policies, supported by the weight of law or custom, which then perpetuate arbitrary and harmful inequalities between peoples.

The First Black American President

In 2008 Americans elected their first Black president, certainly an indication that racial prejudice has declined significantly in American society. Nevertheless, there have been interesting signs that it has not completely vanished from American politics. One of these is the so-called Birther Movement, a widespread effort to question whether Barack Obama was even qualified to have been elected. The Birthers assert that President Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States and, there- fore, fails to meet the Constitutional requirement of being a citizen by birth to be elected to the office of President. Despite the fact that Hawaiian officials have certified that his birth records show him to have been born in that state, the movement remains vocal.

Interestingly, even though Obama was baptized in the United Church of Christ and has long wor- shiped in Southern Baptist services, other detractors insist that he is secretly a Muslim rather than a Christian, and that his middle name is Mohammed (it is, in fact, Hussein). In so doing, they portray him as religiously nonmainstream and even un-American. Related false rumors continue to circulate that when he took the oath of office, he placed his hand on a Quran (the key religious text of Islam) rather than a Bible, that he was educated in an Islamic Madrassa (a religious school). Politically, even President Obama’s oath of office has been brought into question by those who make the claim that the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court misspoke when administering the oath. No other Ameri- can president has been inundated with such widespread questioning of the legitimacy of his holding the highest executive office in the country. This strongly suggests that it is race and racism that is at the bottom of these efforts to cast in doubt the legitimacy of the U.S.’s first Black president.

3.2 Race, Cultural Ability, and Intelligence

Discriminatory treatment of socially defined “racial” groups is generally rationalized by the idea that different races are biologically endowed with different abilities. Yet there is no scientific evidence that any racial group is superior or inferior to any other in its innate cultural abilities. Neither is there any evidence of racial differences in individuals’ abilities to learn and adequately participate in any cultural system when they are given an equal opportunity to learn the necessary skills.

Anthropological researchers who have studied human ways of life around the world have reported again and again that biological differences seem to be no barrier to sharing a way of life. They report that common ways of living, customs, and values are sometimes spread over several regions occupied by peoples of different biological backgrounds. How people go about their lives is determined by their experiences in life and their opportuni- ties to implement what they learn through that experience. A child of British parentage

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whisked away at birth and raised by adoptive Chinese foster parents will learn and value the customs of his or her Asian peers and speak an Asiatic language with the same accent as his or her Asian playmates. Nothing in the biological makeup of such a child would impel him or her to value the British political system or to speak with a British accent.

Intelligence Testing As early as 1911, anthropologist Franz Boas (1911) critiqued the biases inherent in intel- ligence tests and debunked the myth that “primitive” people were culturally or intel- lectually inferior to White people. Instead, he emphasized panhuman shared traits and cultural relativity. Yet the argument continues to arise that some races are inherently less capable of full participation in a particular society. In the United States, the form of logi- cal thought that is measured by intelligence tests is a highly valued social skill, and much has been made of the fact that some so-called “races” seem to score higher on these tests than others. When IQ (intelligence quotient), the scores on intelligence tests, are grouped by race, there is a difference of approximately 15 points between the averages of Blacks and Whites on most tests of intellectual skills commonly used in the United States. In this section, we will look closely at nonbiological factors that may influence this discrepancy in test scores, including differences in education, language, socioeconomic background, motivation, and cultural biases in the tests themselves.

The Instability of Test Scores Contrary to popular belief, an individual’s IQ score is far from a stable measure of an unchanging trait. In fact, anthropologists, psychologists, and others fail to agree on what even counts as intelligence. Intelligence can include various cognitive abilities: verbal, linguistic, mathematical, spatial, even social; and each ability may reflect a particular kind of intelligence, some of which are required in some cultural contexts more than others.

Nevertheless, beginning in the early 20th century in the United States, there was a quest to measure intelligence differences, particularly between Blacks and Whites. Such efforts built upon the misguided efforts of the previous century, when scientists likes Samuel Morton tried to show that the skulls of White people were larger, and thus that their brains were larger than other “racial” groups. Such work was based on flawed science, poor sam- pling, and the erroneous belief that skull size correlates with intelligence (it does not).

More recently, studies have shown how social context and environment affect intelligence. For instance, during World War I, when the U.S. Army carried out a massive intelligence- testing program of personnel from many civilian backgrounds, it found that Blacks in some northern states scored higher on IQ tests than did Whites in some southern states. Several studies have demonstrated that environmental factors are able to affect IQ scores by much more than 15 points in individual cases. In one study of 12-year-old Black New York City schoolchildren, most of whom had come from southern states, it was found that those who had lived in the city for more than 7 years scored 20 points higher on IQ tests than those who had lived there for 2 years or less (Downs & Bleibtreu, 1972). It has also been demonstrated that our IQ continues to rise while we attend school and begins to decline again when we leave the academic setting. The school environment keeps stu- dents actively engaged in the use of precisely those skills that are called on when they take an intelligence test. A group’s average IQ score is therefore influenced by the quality and length of its education.

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CHAPTER 3Section 3.2 Race, Cultural Ability, and Intelligence

The fallacy that IQ test scores reflect an inborn level of mental ability is best illustrated by the rapid changes that have occurred in average IQ test scores throughout the world in the past half century. Data has shown that IQs worldwide have increased by about 0.3 points per year since IQ tests began to be administered. Does this mean that we are all getting smarter? Actually, accord- ing to James R. Flynn (2009), the gains in intelli- gence primarily reflect people’s ability to perform better on a specific group of questions: questions about similarity (e.g., “how are dogs and rabbits alike?”). Such questions test our ability to think in terms of abstract categories, which is arguably more a product of modernization than a product of increased intelligence.

Flynn also addresses racial disparities in intelli- gence. He finds that the cognitive testing of Black and White infants shows no differences in intel- ligence. But, by age 4, the average Black IQ is 95.4, which is 4.5 points lower than the average White IQ. Between ages 2 and 24, Blacks lose 6⁄10 of a point each year, such that by age 24, their IQ scores have

dropped to 83.4. This change does not reflect a decrease in “innate” intelligence; rather, it is better understood as the product of particular school and domestic environments, eco- nomic circumstances, and social conditions (including racism). In effect, IQ tests can be said to simply measure performance on those tests, and not true intelligence.

Language Effects on IQ Scores Dialect or language differences may be another important variable affecting the average intelligence test scores of different groups. Even when tests are not specifically about one’s knowledge of spelling and grammar, taking intelligence tests requires the use of language skills simply to read any written instructions or understand the test questions. It is only to be expected that immigrants whose native languages differ from the one in which the tests are written would perform poorly on such tests, regardless of race.

Chandler and Platkos (1969) clearly demonstrated the language bias in intelligence testing in one California school district by reevaluating the intelligence test scores of its Spanish- speaking children with a Spanish-language intelligence test. Most of the children who had previously been classified as “educable mentally retarded” on the basis of the earlier Eng- lish-language tests achieved a normal score, and some of them achieved above-average scores. In the United States, the centuries of social segregation of Blacks from Whites has led to the development of a distinctive Black English vernacular that differs greatly from the Standard American English that is rewarded with high grades in schools and invari- ably used in tests of intelligence. Since the Standard American English has much more in common with the dialects spoken by most Whites than it does with the Black English vernacular, there is a strong linguistic bias against Black students built into intelligence tests used today.

Exactostock/SuperStock Stereotypes assert that all members of a group share the same attributes. Often, even positive attributes can be racist.

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CHAPTER 3Section 3.2 Race, Cultural Ability, and Intelligence

Social Background and IQ Scores Those who hold different racial statuses in the United States historically have had unequal opportunities to achieve highly valued social positions and high-income occupations. As a result, the races are socially and economically stratified in the United States. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Whites possess a disproportionate share of the higher socioeco- nomic statuses, and non-Whites are disproportionately relegated to low socioeconomic positions. Because intelligence tests are generally designed by well-educated, well-paid professionals, such as psychologists who have doctoral degrees, those who do best on such tests are generally those who have the most in common with the authors of the tests. By contrast, social groups who have been strongly segregated and otherwise denied par- ticipation in the mainstream of U.S. culture tend to receive lower scores on such tests.

If socioeconomic class differences are held constant when evaluating IQ scores—that is, if persons of similar social, educational, and economic backgrounds are compared—all socially designated races generally achieve equivalent IQ scores. For instance, Zena Blau (1981) carried out a study of 579 Black and White mothers and their fifth- and sixth-grade children in Chicago area communities. When she compared Black children with White children of similar social and economic rank, the difference in the average scores of the two groups was reduced by 40% to a difference of only 4 points. Among high-socioeco- nomic–status Protestants and nondenominational and nonreligious children, there were no IQ score differences between Black and White children. Religious background is a major factor in IQ differences. In particular, the anti-intellectualism and opposition to sci- ence and to secular education of the more conservative religions have a negative impact on IQ test performance. Although the Black–White IQ gap has grown smaller over time, Black Americans remain more likely to be affiliated with the historically more conserva- tive and evangelical denominations than are White Americans. This religious influence on Black–White IQ differences remains an important one.

Cultural Bias in IQ Tests IQ tests themselves are not flawless. For most of their history, intelligence tests have been popularly perceived as scientific measures of an individual’s innate intellectual poten- tial. Yet from the beginning, they have contained questions that assumed knowledge of societal experiences, practices, values, and ways of thinking that were characteristic of the higher socioeconomic classes. For instance, an intelligence test once used to measure the mental abilities of grammar school children included question: “Pick the word that doesn’t belong: (a) cello, (b) harp, (c) drum, (d) violin, (e) guitar.” Some 85% of the high socioeconomic class children recognized that “drum,” the only nonstringed instrument, was the item that “did not belong.” However, 45% of the low socioeconomic class chil- dren, who were less likely to have ever seen a cello or a harp, failed to answer this ques- tion in the way the testers perceived as correct. The test authors had not recognized this potential class bias in the question.

Similarly, during the economic Depression of the 1930s, elementary schoolchildren of poor families in the United States were said to be less intelligent than children of families with higher incomes, when in response to an intelligence test question “The color of milk is: (a) white, (b) black, (c) red, (d) blue,” they selected the answer “blue.” According to the psychologists who prepared the test, that was an incorrect response. Yet these children were simply describing reality as they had experienced it: From economic necessity, poor

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CHAPTER 3Section 3.2 Race, Cultural Ability, and Intelligence

families during the Depression were apt to be consumers of skim milk that does, in fact, have a slightly bluish cast. In the dialect of the day, skim milk was called “blue John.” Thus, their answer was not incorrect, based on their own experience. A few years ago, a colleague working in the African state of Malawi found the following item on a test that was being used to assess the intelligence of Malawi students: “If ten crows are sitting on a fence and you shoot one, how many will be left?” The response “nine,” based on the arith- metic operation of subtracting one from ten, was scored as the correct response and was considered evidence of a student’s intellectual skill. It was finally noticed, however, that many of the children who were tested failed to answer this seemingly simple arithmetic problem correctly and that they tended to respond with the same “incorrect” response of “zero.” The reason for their “error” was their rural background, which gave them a more realistic appraisal of the behavior of birds—which fly away when shot at—than was held by the author of the test, who had selected the answer based purely on an academic frame of reference. One could not ask for a better example of the effects of different life experi- ences on the ways of interpreting a test question.

Intelligence Labeling as Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Scores achieved on tests of intellectual skills are often used as criteria for making judg- ments concerning schoolchildren that may influence their future academic careers. They may, for instance, lead to assigning students either to accelerated classes or those for “slow learners.” Once assigned, the original categorization of students as “superior” or “slow” may continue for years. Such labeling may later influence teachers’ expectations about students.

It is not difficult to imagine how labels such as “slow learner” or “superior student” may hinder or aid their bearers through their school careers. Students who are labeled “above average” are apt to receive endless encouragements to “live up to their potential” and enroll in intellectually valued subjects that lead to a college career and highly valued occupations. Students labeled “below average,” on the other hand, are more likely to be encouraged to enroll in subjects that are less intellectually stimulating; when they fall behind in their work, they are less likely to be pushed because it is believed they will grow “frustrated” if more is demanded of them than they are capable of doing. These students are likely to end their scholastic careers earlier and with less training. Thus, intelligence tests, which lead to labeling and expectations, may serve as vehicles for inhibiting social and economic mobility.

The Impossibility of Culture-Free Testing Recently, psychologists and educators have attempted to salvage the use of intelligence tests by redesigning them to minimize their most obvious cultural biases. They have hoped to create so-called “culture-free” intelligence tests. However, even if the specific items in a test do reflect knowledge available to one segment of society, their life experi- ences may lead to differences in the ways they respond to the tasks. Cultural learning affects the way we perform any task. If one style of response is regarded as more appro- priate than others, even a “culture-free” test will result in higher scores for members of the society who respond in that style, similar to the biases of older so-called “intelligence” tests. It is impossible to create a measure of pure, environmentally uninfluenced, biologi- cal intelligence, as all human beings are raised in a social environment that will influence their behavior. Culture, in other words, is not just in the tests; it is in the test takers as well.

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CHAPTER 3Section 3.3 Ethnicity

What happens if we remove the influences of U.S. culture on the performance of Black and White children? Klaus Eyferth (1959) carried out an interesting study of children born in Germany after World War II to German mothers and fathers from the occupation troops. Because the children were reared in Germany, the differences between Black and White U.S. subcultures were not present. When Eyferth compared the IQ scores of biracial chil- dren whose fathers were Black with those whose fathers were White, he found that the two groups were virtually identical in their IQ test performance. This study strongly indi- cates that U.S. Black–White IQ differences are not racial in origin, but are rather the results of being reared in different U.S. subcultures.

3.3 Ethnicity

When one society includes peoples of diverse cultural heritages, it is possible for these differences to be the basis of important social statuses and groups. A group whose social identity is based on shared customs and a shared cultural heritage is called an ethnic group. Ethnic groups may include conquered peoples who have been incorporated into the conquering society or immigrant peoples who have maintained a cultural unity within their new homeland. The separate identities of ethnic groups are commonly supported by distinctive customs, religion, food, clothing, and sometimes by the perpetuation of a distinctive language or by the belief that they are racially different from other groups.

An interesting aspect of ethnicity is that membership in an ethnic group is not fixed and unchanging. Rather, the ethnic identity of an individual can change. For instance, an indi- vidual may gain membership into an ethnic group through marriage and by adopting its customs. Also, the ethnic identity that a person communicates to others is partly a matter of context and situation. For instance, someone who identifies as an Irish American in the United States might be thought of simply as an American when visiting Ireland. In this way, one’s ethnic identity can be multiple and contextual, not singular or fixed.

Ethnic identity can motivate members of the group to work together in support of com- mon goals. This can have a survival advantage when membership in an ethnic group is a minority status within a larger society, but it can also be a source of conflict between competing ethnic groups.

Race and Ethnicity Once it is understood that a person’s “race” is actually a culturally defined social category rather than a natural biological subdivision of the human species, it can be seen that labeled racial groups are similar to ethnic groups. While races are thought of (by those who use the concept) as groups that exist because of shared biological char- acteristics, ethnic groups are seen as social categories defined by common cultural heri- tage and traditions. Ethnic groups are often composed of immigrant people who wish to maintain an awareness of their ancestral cultural roots. To do so, they may dress in similar ways and may join together in celebrating their heritage at social events such as festivals, parades, and other events. Self-identification with a particular racial or ethnic group can function to enhance the solidarity of the group. While such self-identification can be a means of maintaining a connection with the past, the resulting group solidarity

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CHAPTER 3Section 3.3 Ethnicity

The Census: Shifting Ideas About Race and Ethnicity

Social perceptions of race and ethnicity are revealed by the way governments count and categorize their populations in national censuses. For example, in the United States, the census taker used to determine a citizen’s race based on appearance. That changed in 1970, when citizens began to fill out the census on their own and thereby self-identified as a member of a particular racial or ethnic group. Yet the groups recognized by the U.S. government have changed over time. In 1850, the “color” categories included: White, Black, and Mulatto. In 1950, the “race” categories expanded to include: White, Negro, American Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, and Other race, attesting to an increased recognition of the nation’s diversity. In the 2000 Census, more categories were added, and a distinction was made between “race” and “ethnicity” (which largely referred to persons of Spanish/Hispanic/Latino descent, who may be of different “races”). The “racial” categories included:

(continued)

can also serve to counter discrimination experienced by racial or ethnic minorities. This may be done by fostering economic cooperation within the group, enhancing coop- erative political influences within the broader society, and replacing prejudicial stereo- types with more positive images. For instance, Polish Americans were once stigmatized in ways that created barriers to economic betterment and social acceptance. Today, in parts of the country where Polish Americans are numerous, other Americans are more aware of their ethnic contributions to American society due to the public imagery of such events as the New York Polish Film Festival and the yearly Polish Festivals in Syracuse, New York, and in Portland, Oregon.

Because socially defined racial groups and ethnic groups are both connected by a common geographical heritage, the two categories frequently overlap, and members of an ethnic group may partly define themselves in racial terms rather than in strictly cultural ones. So, in practice, the two categories may sometimes have fuzzy boundaries and blend into one another. For instance, being an “African American” may imply some mix of physi- cal characteristics such as skin color and facial characteristics and/or a sense of shared cultural characteristics, such as innovative names for children, and traditions, such as the celebration of Kwanzaa. Similarly, the ethnic identity of “Native American” often includes some biological elements among those who self-identify with this social category, a fact that continues to be fraught with political implications when it comes to obtaining formal membership in a legally recognized Native American tribe. The point here is that although the social concepts of “race” and “ethnic group” can be usefully distinguished (as in the purpose of pointing out the scientific errors that often accompany the concept of “race”), both categories are cultural constructs rather than fixed realities, and distinguishing one from the other may be impossible in terms of how they play out in society.

Finally, it should be pointed out that neither racial nor ethnic group classification is homo- geneous. As in the case of Greg Williams (described earlier in the chapter), whether a person is viewed by others as a member of a specific “racial” group may differ from one setting to another. This is also true of ethnic group membership, as when there are dis- cussions among members of a recognized ethnic group about whether someone may be considered a member of that group based solely on marriage to a member and respect for their spouses’ cultural heritage, rather than on having a shared cultural background.

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CHAPTER 3Section 3.3 Ethnicity

The Census: Shifting Ideas About Race and Ethnicity (continued)

White; Black, African American, or Negro; American Indian or Alaska Native; Asian Indian; Chinese; Filipino; Japanese; Korean; Vietnamese; Native Hawaiian; Guamanian or Chamorro; Samoan; Other Pacific Island; Other Asian; Some other race. Along with this proliferation of categories, people were (for the first time) allowed to select more than one race. In the 2000 Census, 72% of the popula- tion identified as White only, and 2% identified as White and one or more races. While about 97% reported being of one race, the actual number of mixed race people is likely higher (Hixson, 2011).

In many ways, the option of selecting more than one race better reflects people’s social experiences, given the considerable racial intermixing that has occurred. Further, it is data on the social experi- ence of race—rather than data on the biological category of race—that the Census actually collects. This is acknowledged by the U.S. Census Bureau, which states, “The race categories included in the census questionnaire generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country and are not an attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically, or genetically” (Hixson, 2011, p. 2). Certainly, the Census data is still flawed, due to ongoing disagreement about what “race” and “eth- nicity” are, and to ambiguity surrounding multiracial identities. Moreover, the “racial” categories— including White—group people of very different cultural and geographic backgrounds. Yet Census data matters, in both a political and material sense. The results are used to determine congressional seats, electoral votes, and government funding. It is for this reason that some racially based groups, like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, oppose the introduction of a “multiracial” category, which they worry will decrease the number of Black people and hence their political power.

While governments around the world collect census data for various political purposes, the catego- ries they use differ. In Brazil, a multiethnic country, the “race” question focuses on color: White, Black, Yellow, Brown, Native, and Undeclared. In Mexico, the question focuses on the indigenous population and simply asks one yes or no question: “Are you Náhuatl, Mayan, Zapoteco, Mixteco, or of another indigenous group?” In Bulgaria, the question is framed in terms of “ethnicity” (not race) and the choices include Bulgarian, Turkish, Gypsies, and Other (AAA, 2013). These differences in racial/ethnic categories are the product of each nation’s unique history and politics, which contrib- ute to distinctive and dynamic ideas about “race” and “ethnicity.”

Ethnicity and Politics As with race, ethnicity can be an important factor in political conflict. Indeed, in the world today, the concepts of race and ethnicity often overlap and are not always clearly distin- guishable by politicians or the media.

In the second half of the previous century, at least half of civil wars were based on ethnic conflicts (Fearon & Laitin, 2000), and smaller-scale conflicts are common around the world today. For instance, in northeastern India, conflicts between Muslims and indigenous Bodos (who are mostly Hindus) have recently displaced nearly a million people. In Africa in the 1990s, ethnic conflict between the Tutsi who had long held political power, and the larger, subordinated Hutu, who viewed themselves as enslaved by the Tutsi, resulted in at least 800,000 deaths. And in Europe, the breakup of Yugoslavia led to ethnic warfare between Serbs and Croats that resulted in over 100,000 deaths and the displacement of

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CHAPTER 3Section 3.3 Ethnicity

2.2 million people. Such conflicts are not new. Nazi Germany’s “Final Solution” involved the systematic killing of over 6 million European Jews, along with other minorities.

On a smaller scale than civil war, ethnicity is often still an important fact of politics even when it is not overtly discussed, since ethnic groups have an interest in achieving equality in political influ- ence or even political dominance within the larger society of which they are a part. For instance, in U.S. history, various immigrant groups were viewed as a cheap source of labor by corporate groups that generated income based on hired workers. New immigrants were often willing to work for lower wages than were established citi- zens of U.S. society, a fact that very naturally led to political conflicts between the newer and more established groups. Adopting an ethnic identity as a source of individual and group pride instead of simply letting it be forced upon one, along with stereotypes that justified a group’s exploita- tion, was often a major political step on the road to achieving social equality. For instance, initially male Irish immigrants were stereotyped as vio- lent, unintelligent, and prone to alcoholism— characteristics that made it difficult for them to obtain work in positions other than hard physical labor. Irish women were also viewed in negative terms as unkempt, lazy, and unintelligent, which made it difficult for them to find any employment except in the most basic low-paid positions such as seamstresses. Despite the overt contradiction, Irish girls were stereotyped as industrious and strictly moral, which justified their being hired as domestic workers into the homes of economi- cally better off households, where they were often targets of sexual exploitation by their employers. These kinds of stereotypes—which emphasize perceived differences between an immigrant group and mainstream society and construe immigrant groups as best suited to low social standing and low-paid occupations—have been a repeated element in imposed ethnic statuses.

As exploited ethnic groups have attempted to overcome the negative effects of the ini- tial stereotypes that were imposed upon them, they have often transformed their ethnic identities into sources of social pride and motivation for positive social change. Social discrimination and economic exploitation caused the Irish to be at the forefront of efforts at economic change. The “Molly Maguires” of the 19th century protested exploitation in coal mines, and the Irish formed the Knights of Labor, the first American labor union to combat their poor labor and income conditions. Similar histories played themselves out among immigrants from Italy, Greece, and, more recently, Hispanic countries. Most recently, ethnic differences, as sources of positive imagery, have expanded with an empha- sis on their contributions to the positive diversity of the larger society as displayed, for example, in yearly ethnic pride activities and multicultural events in which the larger public is invited to participate.

Visions of America/SuperStock In the United States, President Obama is considered black. However, in Ghana he would not be considered black because he is of mixed ancestry. This demonstrates the way racial categories are culturally derived and not biologically determined.

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CHAPTER 3Discussion Questions

Chapter Summary 1. Although human biology makes culture possible, the content and characteristics

of cultures are not biologically determined. 2. The human species is not divided into discrete racial groups. 3. The social belief in distinctly different human races arose outside the arena of

science during the era of European colonial expansion. 4. Racial prejudice and discrimination function to perpetuate the subordination of

one group by another based on socially imposed racial identities. 5. Western racism arose as a justification for the perpetuation of slavery beyond the

first generation of slaves. 6. Racism confuses the social roles played by minority groups with biology as a

cause of behavior. 7. Racist thinking prevents group members from having equal access to economic

and political power. 8. The role expectations that accompany minority group status have little or no

relationship to our innate characteristics; they are cultural phenomena, socially learned and enforced.

9. Racism has a tremendous cost in human life. 10. Intelligence test scores are influenced by culture. 11. Truly “culture-free” intelligence tests are impossible to construct because the

behavior of test takers is always influenced by their cultures.

Discussion Questions 1. What does it mean to say that biology makes culture possible but does not

determine its content? 2. What is racialism, and what is the fundamental error in viewing race as simply a

biological category? 3. What historical events led Europeans to the belief that there were distinct races

within the human species? 4. What is racism, and how does it relate to racial prejudice? 5. How do experiences such as those of Greg Williams demonstrate the arbitrari-

ness of social concepts of race? 6. In what sense can racism be more harmful than individual racial prejudice? 7. What evidence is there that racist stereotypes are based on economics and politics

rather than on scientific facts? 8. How does culture influence IQ test performance? 9. What is meant by the term “culture-free” intelligence tests? Why can culture still

influence IQ scores, even on a “culture-free” test? 10. How are race and ethnicity similar, and how do they differ?

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CHAPTER 3Key Terms

Key Terms

“culture-free” intelligence tests Rede- signed intelligence tests that are meant to minimize obvious cultural biases.

Ethnic group A group whose social identity is based on shared customs and a shared cultural heritage.

IQ (intelligence quotient) The scores on intelligence tests.

races Groups that supposedly reflect closeness based on common ancestry.

racial discrimination Behavior, based on racial prejudice, whereby members of other racial groups are treated differently than members of one’s own group.

racial prejudice An attitude made up of feelings of dislike and contempt for people who are thought of as belonging to a racial group different from one’s own.

racialism The belief that clear-cut, bounded human races actually exist.

racism Culturally mandated, institution- ally supported discrimination against members of minority races.

racist beliefs The mistaken thinking that expected social roles are actually inborn racial characteristics.

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