Transcript ANT 2410 Fall 2015 RACEx

RACE: THE POWER OF AN ILLUSION
Recap: Social Construction of Race
 Race = arbitrary category used to designate an ethnic
group that is identified by common phenotypical features
(skin color, hair facial features)
 Biological human “races” do NOT exist.
 Racial classifications are based on phenotypes, not
genotypes, and are therefore NOT scientifically valid.
 Ethnic group is a more inclusive term than race
 Racism = discrimination based on one’s assumed race
The Social Construction of Race
 Hypodescent rule – children of a union between members of
different groups are automatically placed in the minority
group
 Hypodescent has been used throughout US history to
discriminate against people with any African-American
heritage.
 State laws banning ‘racial mixing’
 Nazi Germany (1935-1945)
 US (anti-miscegenation laws until 1967)
 South Africa (apartheid system until 1985)
 Growth of interracial/biracial/multiracial categories
Genotype and phenotype
 Genotype: the
genetic makeup of
an individual.
 Phenotype: the
observable
characteristics of an
individual.
Genotype ≠ Phenotype
Do Biologically Separate Races Exist?
 Fuzzy Boundaries in a WellIntegrated Gene Pool
 The Wild Goose Chase: Linking
Phenotype to Genotype
 Classification
 Why Not Construct Race on the
Basis of Earwax?
An experiment:
An experiment:
 1. Americans are still prejudiced against black
people.
An experiment:
 1. Americans are still prejudiced against black
people.
 2. Americans still make less money than white
people.
Race in Japan
10% of Japan = ethnic
minorities
Burakumin – stigmatized
group of 4 million; similar to
‘untouchable’ caste in India
Based in historical system of
stratification from Tokugawa
Period (1603-1868)
Face discrimination in housing,
education, and jobs in Japan
Anti-discrimination movement:
http://blhrri.org/index_e.htm
Race in Brazil
Categories in Brazil are
more fluid and allow
people to change their
racial classification easily
More than 500 categories
exist.
No hypodescent rule ever
existed to separate whites
and blacks like in US.
What is Racism?
 Definition:
“Racism is a complex system of power
that draws on the culturally constructed
categories of race to rank people as
superior or inferior, and to differentially
allocate access to power, privilege,
resources, and opportunities.” -Guest
What is Racism?
 Definition:
 Types of Racism
 Individual Racism
 Institutional Racism
 Racial Ideology
 Resisting Racism
 Race, Racism, and Whiteness
De jure and de facto discrimination
 Discrimination – de facto and de
jure
 Racial profiling and de jure
discrimination
 1992 Rodney King riots in LA
 1999 Amadou Diallo murder by
NYPD
 Ferguson riots
Hypersegregation (de facto
discrimination)
 Six metropolitan areas
defined as
hypersegregated in recent
study (Wilkes and Iceland,
Demography 2004: v41n1)
 Chicago
 Cleveland
 Detroit
 Milwaukee
 Newark
 Philadelphia
http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/5010391741/in/set-72157624812674967/
Tampa and St Pete; both maps derived from census data
Housing segregation: de jure…
 Before 1900, blacks and whites
were largely residentially
integrated; a shared social
world, frequent interaction
 Early 20th century: blacks move
into industrial areas; white flight
into whiter and whiter suburbs.
As stable industrial jobs
disappear, inner city ghettos
left behind
 Segregation legally enforced
through zoning ordinances,
deliberate housing policies
Housing segregation: …and de facto
 Beginning in the 30s, the
federal government subsidizes
low-cost home loans, creating
the possibility of home
ownership and middle-class
aspirations for millions of
Americans
 But neighborhoods marked as
“in decline” are redlined, and
deemed ineligible. It just so
happens that black and
integrated neighborhoods are
almost all redlined.
 Result: Of the $120 billion in
home loans underwritten by
the federal government
between 1934 and 1964, 98%
went to white homeowners.
De facto segregation continues
 Around 1930, most black Americans
in Northern cities were in
neighborhoods that were about
30% black.
 By the 1960s, those neighborhoods
were 74% black. Today, over 85% of
suburban whites live in communities
where the black population is less
than 1%.
 Today only 44% of blacks own their
own home, as compared to 71% of
whites. The average black
household that makes $75,000 a
year lives in a poorer neighborhood
than the average white family that
makes $40,000 a year.
Who goes to prison? De facto
discrimination
 70% of the incarcerated
population is of color
 The fastest growing imprisoned
demographic is black women
 Native Americans are the largest
imprisoned group per capita
 But in reality, people of color are
no more likely to use or sell drugs
than whites
 Despite this, the War on Drugs is
waged almost exclusively in
poor communities of color
Race, prison and the drug war
Drug convictions account for about 2/3 of the increase of the
federal prison system and more than half of the increase in the
state system between 1985 and 2000.
America has the highest
incarceration rate on earth
 We have over 7.2
million people in
prison, jail or on
probation (3.1% of
American adults)
 Black Americans are
incarcerated at rates
roughly six times that
of white Americans
 Yet crime rates in
black-dominated
cities and in whitedominated cities are
about the same
And crime rates are going down
Who goes to prison in the U.S.?
The New Jim Crow

“Our system of mass incarceration operates
more like a system of racial and social control
than a system of crime prevention.”
–Michelle Alexander

Felons experience many of the very same
legalized restrictions and discrimination as
blacks did in the Jim Crow South:
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Employment discrimination
Housing discrimination
Limited access to education, public benefits
Ineligible for food stamps
The right to vote, temporarily or permanently
Enormous debt- fees, court costs, etc.
 Many states (including Florida) make
you pay back the cost of your
incarceration… and make paying all of
these debts a condition of your parole
The New Jim Crow
 It is almost impossible to overstate
the extent to which the drug war
has driven the mass incarceration
of poor people of color
 Florida:
 14% black
 80-90% of all drug offenders sent to
prison are black
 The result: blacks are actually a
majority (54%) in Florida prisons
Race: The Power of an Illusion
 Most of human variation is nonconcordant: skin color and eye
color do not correspond with
height or weight, and they
definitely do not correspond with
traits for musical ability or athletic
ability
 There is no gene for athletic
performance. There would be
dozens of genes, interacting with
cultural aspects, social and
environmental factors (like
motivation, opportunity, and
training)
 Kalenjin in Kenya, either by
selection or drift, do seem to have
a certain set of genetic traits that
make them amazing runners… but
they are not a race!
Long before African-Americans
came to dominate the sport, Jews
were the original hoop dreamers