Chapter 5: Race and Racism

Question 1

Race

Answer 1

a flawed system of classification with no biological basis that uses certain physical traits to divide human population into supposedly discrete groups

Question 2

Racism

Answer 2

individual’s thoughts and actions, and institutions patterns and policy that create or reproduce unequal access to power, privilege, and resources and opportunities based on imagined differences among groups

Question 3

How much of human DNA is genetically similar?

Answer 3

99.9%

Question 4

What percentage of genes do genetic variations such as skin color make up?

Answer 4

0.1%

Question 5

Genotype

Answer 5

inherited physical factors that provide framework for organism’s physical form

Question 6

Phenotype

Answer 6

way genes are expressed in an organism’s physical form as a result of genotype

Question 7

How many genes control traits such as intelligence, physical ability, etc?

Answer 7

Thousands - tens of thousands

Question 8

Colonialism

Answer 8

practice by which a nation-state extends political, economic, and military power beyond its own borders over an extended period of time to secure access to raw materials, cheap labor, etc.

Question 9

White Supremacy

Answer 9

belief that non-whites are biologically different, intellectually inferior, and not fully human; belief that whites are superior and biologically different from other races

Question 10

Whiteness

Answer 10

a culturally constructed concept originating in 1691 Virginia, designed to establish clear boundaries of who is white and who is not

Question 11

Jim Crow Laws

Answer 11

laws implemented after US Civil War to enforce segregation legally after the end of slavery

Question 12

Hypodescent

Answer 12

assignment of children of mixed couples to “lower race group”; aka one-drop of blood rule

Question 13

Nativism

Answer 13

favoring of certain long-term inhabitants, mainly white people, over new immigrants

Question 14

Racialization

Answer 14

process of categorizing, differentiating, and attributing a particular racial character to a person or group of people

Question 15

Individual Racism

Answer 15

personal prejudiced beliefs and discriminatory actions based on race expressed via a lack of respect or via suspicion, scapegoating, and violence

Question 16

Microaggressions

Answer 16

common, everyday verbal or behavioral indignities and slights that communicate hostile, derogatory, and negative messages about someone’s race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc

Question 17

Institutional Racism

Answer 17

patterns by which racial inequality is structured through key cultural institutions, policies, and systems

Question 18

Racial Ideology

Answer 18

set of popular ideas about race that allows discriminatory behaviors of individuals and institutions to seem reasonable, rational, and normal

Question 19

Intersectionality

Answer 19

analytic framework for assessing how factors such as race, gender, and class intersect to shape individual life chances and societal patterns of stratification