Transcript Racism, Prejudice and Discrimination

Racism, Prejudice and
Discrimination
Sociology 102
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INGROUP AND OUTGROUP
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The circle that includes “us” (the in-group)
excludes “them” (the out-group).
In-group bias
When we’re part of a small group surrounded by
a larger group, we are also more conscious of
our group membership
 not just our personal identity (our sense of our
personal attributes and attitudes) but our social
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identity.
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Historically, race is a cultural invention that has
been used in a wide variety of ways
 In sociological terms, a race is a socially defined
category of people who are thought to share
biologically distinctive traits.
 People show so great a mixture of physical
characteristics - in skin color, hair texture, nose
shape, head shape, height, eye color, and so on
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The world’s gene pools are mixed to the point
where only general groupings can be
distinguished
Racism is behavior, in word or deed, that is
motivated by the belief that human races have
distinctive characteristics that determine abilities
and cultures
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The Meaning of Minority
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Five characteristics that determine
minority status in society
1. Minority groups are subordinate
segments of a complex society
2. Minority groups have traits that set
them apart and are devalued by dominant
segment of the society
3. Subordinate groups develop a sense of
group consciousness “we feeling”
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The Meaning of Minority
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4. Involuntary status; one is born into it
5. Subordinate and dominant group
patterns of interaction lead to patterns of
endogamy
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Prejudice is a negative attitude toward an entire
category of people, often an ethnic or racial
minority
Discrimination is “the differential treatment of
individuals considered to belong to a particular
group”
 Prejudiced attitudes should not be equated with
discriminatory behavior
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Defining Racism, Prejudice, and
Discrimination
The relationship between prejudice and
discrimination is complex
 Robert Merton’s study and typology of the
relationship between prejudice and discrimination
 Four patterns
 1. Unprejudiced nondiscriminatory – integration
 2. Unprejudiced and discriminatory – institutional
discrimination
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Defining Racism, Prejudice, and
Discrimination
Four patterns
 3. Prejudiced and nondiscriminatory –
latent bigotry
 4. Prejudiced and discriminatory – outright
bigotry
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Origins of Prejudice and
Discrimination
Prejudice and Bigotry in Social
Structures
 Exploitation theory - prejudice is rationally
and economically motivated on the basis
of self interest
The dominant group benefits
from prejudice in that it is rooted
within the subordination and
exploitation of a group
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Frustration, Conflict,
Competition, Aggression
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Frustration-Aggression – when one feels or
experiences frustration due to blocked needs, it
is common to displace that frustration onto a
scapegoat
- scapegoat a person or group that is incapable
of offering resistance to the hostility or
aggression of others
- Anger and frustration is often taken out on
subordinate groups
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When two groups compete for jobs, housing, or
social prestige, one’s group fulfillment can
become the other group’s frustration
Projection- the tendency to project one’s
own undesirable traits onto a subordinate
group
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Psychological Theories
Authoritarian Personality
Rigid, thinking adherence to conventional values
 Strong feelings about ideas of right and wrong
and have a low tolerance for uncertainty.
 intolerant of any divergence from what they
consider to be the normal (which is usually
conceptualized in terms of their religion, race,
history, nationality, culture, language, etc.)
 displaced aggression, directing their hostility
against a powerless group to compensate for
their feelings of insecurity and fear
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Need for Status and Belonging
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To perceive ourselves as having status, we need
people below us.’
People tend to be more hostile toward others
when their security is threatened.
Prejudice is often greater among those slipping
on the socioeconomic ladder
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Cultural Factors: Norms and
Stereotypes
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Most prejudice is learned early in the socialization
process.
Normative approach - prejudice is patterned into the
cultural norms and values of a group or society
Prejudice is learned and is a function of conforming to
the norms of a group
Children often adopt their parents’ prejudices as
naturally as anything else.
Common prejudices are taken from ethnic stereotypes
Stereotyping-generalizing a trait to a group is another
source of prejudice
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Some Consequences of Prejudice
and Discrimination
1. Prejudice and discrimination have
harmful effects on the personality of its
victims
 2. Prejudice and discrimination are
sources of strife and conflict between
groups
 3. Prejudice and discrimination and subtle
racism are directed toward upper-class
minorities
 4. Hate crimes
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Institutional Discrimination
Discrimination that is normative and routine part of the
economy, educational system or some other social
institutions
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Institutional discrimination is different from other types
of discrimination since it is not always a conscious intent
to discriminate
Housing
Restrictive Covenants – attachment terms to property
deeds
Racial Steering – practice in which real estate brokers
refuse to show house outside of specific areas to
minority buyers
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Institutional Discrimination
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Racial Profiling refers to the practice by
which law enforcement officers select
people for investigation on the basis of
race
Racial profiling is a form of institutional
discrimination in that law enforcement
agencies use race as policy for selecting
someone out for further scrutiny
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Institutional Discrimination
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Education
Minority educational achievement lags behind
the dominant group
In 2003, almost 15 percent of Whites aged
twenty five and over had not completed high
school
Forty three percent of Hispanics aged twenty
five and over had not completed high school
Twenty percent of African-Americans aged
twenty five and over had not completed high
school
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Institutional Discrimination
Unequal Access to High-Quality
Schooling
 Minority segregation in poor schools
 Brown v. Board of Education and patterns
of de jure segregation
Segregation by law or policy was
ruled unconstitutional
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Institutional Discrimination
Unequal Access to High-Quality
Schooling
 De facto patterns of segregation of today
Housing patterns
Economic inequalities
Gerrymandered school districts
Middle-class flight from
communities
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Busing has been the primary policy over the
years to achieve desegregation
 Primarily of minority students
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Institutional Discrimination
Harvard Project on School Desegregation
has found a pattern of resegregation of
schools
 Harvard Project Findings:
 1. Enrollment of Hispanic students have
increased by 218 percent with 75 percent
attending predominantly minority schools
 2. Majority of White students are
attending schools that are 80 percent
White
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Institutional Discrimination
Harvard Project Findings:
 3. Enrollment for African-American
students has increased but they are likely
to attend predominantly minority schools
 4. Schools with large minority populations
are concentrated in poor areas
 5. Poverty compounds school segregation
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Institutional Discrimination
Housing
 Housing segregation is related
Poverty
Prejudice
Racial steering by real estate
brokers
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Ways to reduce housing segregation
 Conduct audit research on practices
that cause segregation
 More enforcement of anti-bias
legislation
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Institutional Discrimination
 Employment
and Income
Employment discrimination in part is
related to past educational discrimination
 Statistics show that whites are more than twice
as likely as African Americans or Latinos to work
as managers or professionals
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Institutional Discrimination
Employment and Income
 Income gap has been narrowing
 Asset gap has been widening
 William J. Wilson - the growing gap
between the middle-class and poor is
widening
Decline in manufacturing jobs for
inner city residents
Inadequate schools
Racist employers
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Table 7-2 (p. 238)
Mean Earnings by Highest Degree Earned
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Politics and Social Policy
Job Training
 Government budget concerns, corporate
downsizing will make job training
programs a issue
 Affirmative Action
 Originated out of the 1964 civil rights
legislation prohibiting discrimination on
the basis of religion, national origin, race
and sex
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Politics and Social Policy
Affirmative Action
 Affirmative action requires educational
and economic organizations to have
programs to increase the hiring of
minority applicants and promotion policies
 California (1996) and Proposition 209 it
eliminated Affirmative action in higher
education and government jobs
Decline in minority enrollment in
higher education
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Politics and Social Policy
Affirmative Action
 Critics argue affirmative action is a form of
reverse discrimination
 Affirmative action will continue to be an
area of controversy
 Education for Equality
 Enforcement of anti-discrimination
legislation in education
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Politics and Social Policy
Education for Equality
 Head Start – federally funded preschool
program and nutrition program for
children from poor families
 Flaws in the Head Start program
 1.What should be taught
 2. Does too little, too late
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Justice
Two premises of the American justice system
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Justice is blind
2.
Innocent until proven guilty
These two premises fall short
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Higher arrest rates of minorities
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Bail system and inequality in accessing the
system
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