Chapter 11: Race and Ethnicity

Question 1

Race

Answer 1

A socially constructed category of people who share biologically transmitted traits that members of a society consider important.

Question 2

Ethnicity

Answer 2

A shared cultural heritage

Question 3

Minority

Answer 3

Any category of people distinguished by physical or cultural difference that a society sets apart and subordinates

Question 4

Prejudice

Answer 4

A rigid and unfair generalization about and entire category of people

Question 5

Stereotype

Answer 5

A simplified description applied to every person in some category

Question 6

Racism

Answer 6

The belief that one racial category is innately superior or inferior to another

Question 7

Discrimination

Answer 7

Unequal treatment of various categories of people

Question 8

Institutional prejudice and discrimination

Answer 8

Bias built into the operation of society’s institutions.

Question 9

Pluralism

Answer 9

A state in which people of all races and ethnicities are distinct but have equal social standing

Question 10

Assimilation

Answer 10

The process by which minorities gradually adopt patterns of the dominant culture

Question 11

Segregation

Answer 11

The physical and social separation of categories of people

Question 12

Genocide

Answer 12

The systematic killing of one category of people by another

Question 13

Be able to explain the difference between race and ethnicity and be able to provide an example of each in order to clarify the distinction

Answer 13

The difference between race and ethnicity is Race: Bio characteristics (In regions of intense heat, humans developed darker skin as protection from the sun)
Ethnicity: Cultural heritage and common ancestry (People of Italian descent are not viewed as Latin but “European”)

Question 14

Provide 2 pieces of evidence that there is no biological evidence to race; Be able to explain these pieces of evidence well; What does it mean that even though race is a social construction, race is still real? Describe at least one example

Answer 14

Two pieces of evidence that race is not a biological basis to race:
1. Color variation is due to sun (geographic location); Physical variations are superficial- tell us nothing about internal traits

2. Similar species (human) but not similar

Even though race is a social construction, race is still real in its consequences (as many other things)
Example: Internally personally skills)

Question 14

What is the largest minority category in the US population? What are the two important characteristics of minorities? How do minorities tend to compare in terms of income, occupational prestige, and schooling? Do minorities always make up a small proportion of a society’s population?

Answer 14

The largest minority category within the US population is white people; The two important characteristics of minorities are they share a distinctive identity and they experience subordination; Minorities always make up a small proportion of a society’s population

Question 15

Are both prejudice and discrimination always negative? Based on the social distance scale, how do US college students compare with students fifty years ago? To which categories did students express greatest social distance and to which did they express the least social distance?

Answer 15

Prejudices can be positive or negative; Discrimination can be positive or negative; College students compare with students fifty years ago is today’s students express less social distance from all minorities; Students expressed greatest social distance from Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians, and Turks; They expressed the least social distance from those from northern and Western Europe including English and Scottish people and Canadians;

Question 16

What does conflict theory state about prejudice?

Answer 16

Prejudice is used as a tool by powerful people to oppress others

Question 17

What is the difference my between prejudice and discrimination? How are banking, housing, and schooling examples of institutional prejudice and discrimination ?

Answer 17

Prejudice: A rigid and unfair generalization about an entire category of people

Discrimination: Unequal treatment of various categories of people; Banking is an example of institutional prejudice discrimination by they reject home mortgage applications from minorities at a higher rate than those from white people, even when income and quality of neighborhood are held constant

Schooling is an example of institutional prejudice discrimination by they will never provide equal education as long as our population is segregated with most white people and African Americans living in central cities and most white people and Asian Americans living in suburbs

Question 18

What is the Thomas Thereom and what is the example in your textbook?

Answer 18

The Thomas Thereom is situations that are defined as real become real in their consequences; Example: We understand how stereotypes can become real to people who believe them and sometimes even to those who are victimized by them

Question 19

Is the US truly pluralistic and why or why not? What are de jure and de facto segregation? Which continues today? What is hypersegregation and how extensive it?

Answer 19

The US is not pluralistic because few people want to live exclusively with others like themselves, our tolerance of social diversity goes only so far and people of various color and cultures do not have equal social standing; De jure: by the law; De facto segregation: “in actual fact”; Hypersegregation is having little contact of any kind with the people outside the local community

Question 20

How long had Native Americans inhabited this land before the first Europeans arrived and how did the arrival of the first Europeans affect the numbers of Native Americans in the Americas? When did Native Americans gain US citizenship? What was life like for African Americans in the 1600s-1800s? What did the 13th and 14th amendments do and when? What were the Jim Crow laws? What is the largest category of Asian Americans and what sparked the first wave of Chinese immigration in the mid- 1800s? How were the Chinese workers perceived then? What was the social and political response to people of Japanese ancestry after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941? What were the criticisms of this response? What are the three largest Latino populations in the US? How large is the region referred to as the “Arab world”? Explain that “Arab is not the same as “Muslim”; How have the stereotypes about (Arab and Muslim) Americans worsened in recent years?

Answer 20

Native Americans inhabited this land 15,000 years before the first Europeans arrived; When the first Europeans arrived, Native Americans numbered in the millions; The Native Americans gained US citizenship in 1924; Life for African Americans in the 1600s to late 1800s they were treated as slaves; The 13th amendment outlawed slavery; The 14th amendment given citizenship to all people born in the United States; The Jim Crow laws were plastic cases of institutional discrimination segregated US society into two racial castes; The largest category of Asian Americans is Chinese ancestery; Chinese immigration to the United States began in 1849 as a result of the economic boom of California’s Gold Rush; Chinese workers were young men who were willing to take difficult low status jobs that whites did not want; After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, President Roosevelt signed and unprecedented action designed to international security by detaining people of Japanese ancestry in military camps; The three largest Latino groups in the US are Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Cuban-Americans.; The region known as the “Arab world” includes 22 nations and stretches across northern Africa from Mauritania and Morocco on Africa’s west coast […]; Arabs (an ethnic category) and Muslim (a follower of Islam);

Question 21

From P. McIntosh’s “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”: What is white privilege? What does McIntosh compare white privilege to? Identify at least one condition she listed that impacted you and explain why/how it impacted you

Answer 21

White privilege is the various advantages a white person gets without even knowing it; She compares white privilege to male privilege; An condition that she listed was how a white person can go to the store without being stalked or harassed;