Race Flashcards
Positionally
Acknowledging where you stand as your identity, when speaking of a topic that you may or may not relate to. For example, when prof acknowledged her position as someone with a Chinese background and that although she is part of a racialized group, not all experiences of racism and inequities are the same
Historical background of Race and Health - Structural Functionalism and Conflict Theory
- Dominated sociological inquiry in 1960s which siloed research into examining the ways macro-level forces modernized societies, institutions, and cultural values and class relations
- Consequently also meant that there were not many impacts in literature for race, gender, etc.
Historical background of Race and Health - Symbolic Interactionism
Challenged the supposed objectivity and scientific neutrality of the biomedical model when we saw other factors come into play (although has been criticized for negating power structures and power/hierarchy influences)
Historical background of Race and Health - Was there a complete absence of race in science
No, although we did not acknowledge race, did not mean we did not take race into research and there are early forms of systematic data available on race and health can be found as early as the 1800’s in North America
Historical background of Race and Health - The Black Deficit
- Although in the 1800s life expectancy was low and morbidity rates high, people of colour in NA were still overrepresented in almost all categories of disease, illness & death helping create culture of biological determinism and scientific racism
Historical background of Race and Health - Race’s variability w/in health research
- Major variable both in social and medical fields
- Globally, racially dominant groups are healthier and live longer than racially subordinate groups
- Definitions of race have shifted throughout the decades - now seen as a socially constructed category rather than a biological one, bringing out the history aspect of how we define and view things and how this impacts conducting research and resource allocation
Historical background of Race and Health - Definition of Race
- Race is understood by most as a social categorization of groups ppl are based off physical attributes like skin colour
Historical background of Race and Health - Ethnicity
Ethnicity often includes aspects such as language, history, religion and customs
Historical background of Race and Health - Race vs Ethnicity
Race is inherited vs Ethnicity is learned (through schools, govt, economy, institutions, etc.
Historical background of Race and Health - Stereotyping
- These beliefs may be less explained in terms of biological traits, but are often justified through flawed social & cultural values
- Weird mix between the biological/physical and morality, like the idea that skin colour leads to different moralities especially when compared to the dominant group
- Causes increases in institutionalized/structural racism (policies, Red Lining, Eugenics)
Historical background of Race and Health - Impacts of stereotyping and racism
- Regardless of race being widely accepted as a social construction, the damaging impacts of stereotyping are still prevalent for POC
- Facing racism has been found to have (-) health impacts on POC, such as with economic mobility/SES, as it determines who and how certain services are accessed, cultural capital building, cultural norms surrounding health, wage gap, etc.
Historical background of Race and Health - Social Stress Paradigm
- In health sociology, aligns with the stress from experiencing or the existential threat of experiencing racism
- Argues that when groups of people are at a social disadvantage (living in a society built on struc.rac.) they are more likely to be vulnerable to stress and stress induced health risks (mental illness, heart disease)
- Self-esteem, self-worth, and the sense of mastery over life have been pointed out as increasing factors for illness
Historical background of Race and Health - Stressors included in Social Stress Paradigm
Strain/stress, institutionalized, structural, polite/nice racism
Historical background of Race and Health - Racism
Chronic stressor for POC, especially Black and Indigenous people
Historical background of Race and Health - Nice Racism
- A form of micro aggression
- Ignorant behaviour where ppl try to seem not ignorant & instead are racist
- Implicit, formulated under premise of not meaning to be racist, does not have to be malicious to be racist
Historical background of Race and Medical Science - Origins
When Black slavery became more institutionalized, the theory that African Americans being innately inferior to white Europeans became more widely accepted and because of this it embedded itself in practice of health and medicine, resulting in high exploitation of black ppl for economic gain of white medicine
Historical background of Race and Medical Science - In Medicine
- Black individuals were often compared to apes, therefore seen as less human, less intelligent and uncivilized
- Medical sciences at this time often justified this through pseudo-scientific theories, such as “the great chain of being”
Historical background of Race and Medical Science - The Great Chain Of Being
Progression amongst human groups, with the lowest being simple and animal like and the most progressed being civilized beings, human and… white
Historical background of Race and Medical Science - The Great Chain of Being’s biological “facts” about Black ppl
- Larger body parts
- Sexually Deviant
- Strong body odor
- High tolerance for pain
- As well as Chronic Leprosy, lockjaw and difficult parturition were known as Black disease