Lesson 9 Inequalities of Race and Ethnicity

Learning objectives for Chapter 9

What are the key ideas concerning race and ethnicity from the stand point of Conflict Theory, Functionalist Theory, and Symbolic Interactionalist Theory?

Learn to appreciate others from different cultures

What are the six patterns of intergroup relations?

What differences were there in the experiences of White Europeans, African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and Native Americans in the United States?

What would it mean to make reparations to African Americans because of slavery?

Vocabulary to learn from Chapter 9

affirmative action

discrimination

ethnicity

ethnic work

immigration

institutional discrimination

minority group

multicultural society

prejudice

race

self-segregation

Discussion

This author’s late mentor, Dr. Daniel Gallegos taught that the future American worker would need three languages to succeed:

1-     English, the language of business.

2-     Spanish, the language that will be required due to 21^st century demographic shifts.

3-     Computer literacy, the skills and abilities to work in the information age.

Furthermore, he stressed the need to learn and accept diverse peoples and recognize racial and minority concepts that will exist in every day life from about the mid 21^st century.  He was, as he put it, “four distinct kinds of Hispanic” and he was married to a woman who was “four kinds of white.” He often discussed the difficulty of a mixed race marriage due to prejudice and discrimination. Even when he worked outside in his own yard, passers by often thought he was the white woman’s gardener and asked him if she would be hiring any more Hispanic help. Of course, he said that his children did not feel that they belonged in either the Hispanic culture or the white culture in Utah.

     Dr Gallegos was born a poor "share-croppers" son. Yet the changes of the last part of the 20^th century altered his life and his chances for success in the American Dream. Indeed, his life story is rich and he often used his personal experiences to illustrate the difficulty for minorities to climb to the American Dream. Even as a full tenured professor, he still faced discrimination when he was off campus in Ogden, Utah.

     He especially tried to help the diverse Hispanic students in his class with this true story:

     When he was very young, he was isolated from seeing any other racial groups and did not know any skin color but brown. He says one day he was looking across the railroad tracks and caught a glimpse of a person who seemed very ill due to very pale skin. He ran home and asked his mother about what he had seen. She told him that he had seen a white person, and proceeded to help him understand by telling him this story:

     “When God created man, He had a little trouble timing His oven just right. You see, He made some dough and formed the shape of man, then popped him into the oven. But He took man out of the oven the first time too early, and man wasn't fully cooked: those are white people my son. On the second try, He left man in the oven too long and burnt him: those are black people my son. But the third try He timed man just right and brought him out a perfect ‘golden brown:’ you are that, my son.”

Prejudice is the "inward" feeling of being superior over another group while discrimination is the "outward signs" (behavior) of contempt directed towards that group. It is possible to have a great deal of prejudice built up before discrimination bubbles over in some overt act (usually due to the societal norms discouraging such actions). The opposite is also true, an individual may take part in a discriminatory act (to belong to his peer group) but have little actual personal prejudice.  India has a caste of people have been labeled as "untouchable," and even the shadow of these people, should it fall on one "higher born," is "dirty" and will cause "ritualistic pollution" (leaving the need for special cleansing of the unfortunate well-born who had the shadow touch him).

However the labeling is accomplished, prejudice robs any society of the potential and the human capital of the group so labeled as inferior. Discrimination goes further to victimize the minority and to lead the majority into a false sense of reality (they blame the minority for things the minority have nothing to do with, and thus miss the real cause for the problem).

Ethnicity: All the cultural universals, age, gender, health status and race make up your socialization or culture. They affect your "life chances."

Race: ONE of the ethnic measures. It's original meaning: "kinship." Today’s most common meaning is defined physical characteristics. There is NO agreement on how many races exist. There are probably few or NO "pure races" left in the world. There is NOT a "superior race." We are all of the same species.

Minority: relative powerlessness on ANY of the ethnic measures. Every one has a minority status somewhere.

Multiple Jeopardy: multiple minority statuses that primarily impact jobs and educational opportunities

Cultural Universals: According to anthropologist George Murdock (1945) there are general traits shared by all current societies and all past societies. The following list are some of those universal traits. It is very important to note that the specifics of a trait vary greatly from culture to culture and over time.

Additional:

28- war                          

29- dress (formal & informal), a part of "bodily adornment"

30- language (spoken, written, body language: mannerisms)  

Movies assigned

Chapter 9 Race & Ethnicity

Videos that you can rent which are based upon some of the principles of this lesson:

Malcom X

Billy Jack

Dances with Wolves

Quigley Down Under

Alien Nation