Transcript CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 10 RACIAL AND ETHNIC RELATIONS Section 1: Race, Ethnicity, and The Social Structure One of the best known classification systems sort people into three racial groups: • Caucasoids: fair skin, straight or wavy hair • Mongoloids: yellowish or brownish skin, distinct folds on the eyelids • Negroids: dark skin, woolly hair This classification system is no longer used because there are no biologically “pure” races. Race deals with physical characteristics Ethnicity deals with cultural characteristics Five characteristics that distinguish minority groups from other groups in society : Identifiable physical characteristics that differ from the dominate group Victims of unequal treatment at the hands of the dominant group Membership is an ascribed status Share a strong bond and a sense of group loyalty Tend to practice endogamy Section 2: Discrimination and Prejudice Discrimination involves behaviors • Range from name calling to acts of violence on an individual level • Legal discrimination and institutionalized discrimination on a societal level Prejudice involves attitudes • Sociologist generally focus on the negative forms of prejudice such as racism Robert K. Merton’s Patterns of Discrimination and Prejudice Active Bigot: is prejudice, does discriminate Timid Bigot: is prejudice, afraid to discriminate Fair-weather Liberal: is not prejudice, does discriminate All-weather Liberal: is not prejudice, does not discriminate SOURCES OF DISCRIMINATION AND PREJUDICE STEREOTYPING SCAPEGOATING SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT Patterns of Minority Group Treatment: Assimilation Cultural Pluralism Legal Protection Population Transfer Subjugation Extermination Section 3: Minority Groups in the United States The American Dilemma • Americans have not always practiced what they preached: Preach- equality, freedom, individual and inalienable rights… Practiced- segregation, population transfer of Indians to reservations, and the internment of Japanese during WWII • Standard by which minority groups were measured… how closely they adapted to the WASP (white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant) African Americans Second largest minority group as of the 2000 census. First brought to the U.S. as slaves Civil Rights Act helped them gain more power and status Election of 2008: First African American President of the U.S. Hispanic Americans Largest and fastest growing minority group in the U.S. as of the 2000 census Have gained increasing political power in recent years. Still lag behind non-Hispanic Americans in areas as education and employment