Race and Ethnicity Flashcards
An enumeration of the population every ten years
Census
A system that humans created to classify and stratify groups of people based mostly on skin tone and other phenotypic characteristic, such as eye shape and hair texture
Race
Refers to common culture, religion, history, or ancestry shared by a group of people
Ethnicity
Many state laws used to declare that any person with any African ancestry at all was Black
One-drop rule
A concept that humans invented and gave meaning to in order to understand or justify some dimension of the social world
Social construct
The idea that we can actively improve the genetic profile of humans leading to forced sterilizations of groups of people labeled as unfit to reproduce
Eugenics
The set of our visible features or characteristics, like the color of our skin, hair, and eyes
Phenotype
A tendency to view things in a particular way, regardless of the details of the specific situation
Bias
The association our minds make between seemingly unrelated things; it is subconscious, and we may be entirely unaware of it
Implicit bias
Bias that we are openly and consciously aware of
Explicit bias
Occurs when a person belonging to a marginalized racial group associates their own group with negative evaluations
Internalized bias
Widely-shared perceptions about the personal characteristics, tendencies, or abilities of members of a particular group, like intelligence, personality, physical features, preferences, aggressiveness, or criminality
Stereotypes
Preconceived beliefs, attitudes, and opinions about members of a group
Prejudices
Prejudices can grow stronger if we begin to think of another group as an economic, political, or cultural threat- for instance, if the size of a racial or ethnic minority begins to grow in a neighborhood or a city
Group threat theory
A tendency to perceive undesirable characteristics or behaviors exhibited by members of another group as an innate or inherent part of their personality or essence- that is, any negative behavior is seen as just who they are
Ultimate attribution error
A psychological state in which our preexisting ideas do not match what we see with our own eyes
Cognitive dissonance
Helps explain how interaction with members of other groups affects prejudices
Contact theory
The applicants were perfectly matched according to all characteristics that would make them a more or less attractive option; the only thing that differed was their race
Audit study
The differential treatment of people based on their presumed racial group membership
Racial discrimination
Unfavorable and unjust treatment of a person based on their racial group membership
Negative racial discrimination
A set of beliefs, ideologies, or institutional practices that are based on the idea that one racial group is biologically or culturally inferior to another group and that reproduces racial domination and exploitation
Racism
A set of beliefs, ideologies, and institutional practices that position White people as superior to other racial groups
White supremacy
Refers to the ways that core institutions, like the law, education, and labor market, are embedded with racial biases and practices that reproduce racial inequality
Institutional racism
The formal policy or practice of political, legal, economic, and/or social discrimination against a particular group
Apartheid
Refers to a period in American history between the end of Reconstruction (following the Civil War) in the late nineteenth century and the end of the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-twentieth century
Jim Crow
A large-scale, Black-led social movement in the 1950s and ’60s centered around protest, civil disobedience, and legal battles
Civil Rights Movement
Referred to policies or programs that sought to redress past discrimination through active measures to ensure equal opportunity now
Affirmative action
Recognition of and compensation (typically financial) for past harm against specific people or groups of people
Reparations
The process whereby people who immigrate to the US from certain countries have a unique demographic profile compare to the people who stay behind in their home countries
Immigrant selectivity
A statistical measure of how long people can expect to live, on average
Life expectancy
