Race and Ethnicity

Question 1

Does race exist?

Answer 1

• As a social reality, yes

- As a genetic reality, no

Question 2

What does race depend on? (6 points)

Answer 2

• Physical traits
• People differ in terms of skin colour, hair type, eye shape, etc
• People believe that outward features are linked to internal differences, like cognitive and language and creativity and athletic differences.
• These internal characteristics are present in all racial groups
• The notion of race is SOCIAL NOT BIOLOGICAL
• Race changes across time and place, what counts has being “black” is the USA doesn’t track what is “black” in other countries.

Question 3

Is there Genetic evidence supporting the concept of RACE? (3 points)

Answer 3

• No, all races share the same genome.
• Any two unrelated individuals share a 99.9% or their genomes so only a 0.01% difference between people.
• Most of those 0.01% is not coded for any specific function.

Question 4

What are the differences between people? Are racial groups different in terms of the their DNA?

Answer 4

• DNA variation within a given group (or race) is greater than between groups (or races)
• Ex: Individuals from two different groups (or races) will be genetically more similar than any two individuals from the same group. two blacks are more different than a black and a white.

Question 5

Why are we all identical? (4 points)

Answer 5

• We call come from one race, the human race
• We share common ancestors
• We might look different on the outside, but below the skin we are identical
• We all originated from Africa

Question 6

Homo sapiens, what causes our DNA to be similar? (4 points)

Answer 6

• We all share the ancestor, apes
• Comparisons of our genetic material with that of chimps reveals that we are about 98.3 - 98.6% genetically identical to an African ape.
• It has been estimated that differences in only about 50 genes separated them from us.
• we share 60% of our DNA of a Banana Plant

Question 7

How is race a social construct?

Answer 7

• Social construction means society dreamed it up
• Society defines what race you belong to
• Different societies have different criteria used to allocate you to one race or another
• We all use skin colour, but how dark do you have to be to be considered black?

Question 8

If race is a humanly devised concept, why study it? (2 points)

Answer 8

• We want to study it because people believe race exists and thus they might treat people differently as a result
• Different treatment might lead to different outcomes, such as how much education you acquire, how much money you earn, what toe of job you can secure, you’re health and how long you live.

Question 9

If race doesn’t exist, why do we care about it?

Answer 9

• Race is important because people think its real
• It effects how other people treat you
• The dominant group in our western society (white) thinks they are superior to the other non-white groups
  EX: Aboriginals - Residential schools, Chinese - head tax to keep them out of Canada

Question 10

How does prejudice breed discrimination?

Answer 10

• Dominate groups hold negative attitudes towards other groups based on preconceived ideas
• Prejudice is often reinforced by stereotypes or overgeneralization about appearances, behaviour, etc.
• Prejudice involves thinking one group is superior than another.

Question 11

What is discrimination?

Answer 11

• the actions of a dominant group focused on a subordinate group, which may have harmful impact.
• EX: Canadas treatments of Aboriginals, Chinese, African Americans who came to Canada to escape slavery,

Question 12

What are the tree types of discrimination?

Answer 12

• Individual
• Institutional racism
• Systemic

Question 13

What is Individual discrimination?

Answer 13

Refers to the negative treatment of one person by another.

Question 14

What is Institutional racism?

Answer 14

Refers to practice that discriminate against racial minorities and that are built into the structure of politics, economic life, education, etc.

Question 15

What is Systemic discrimination?

Answer 15

Refers to laws and rules that exclude members of racial members of racial minorities without necessarily being underpinned by racist ideas.

Question 16

Is there evidence that race or ethnicity impedes ones life chances? (3 points)

Answer 16

• Porter studied how in Canada, ethnic groups possess different amounts of social and economic power, status and prestige.
• Some ethnic groups were at the top and others at the bottom
• Therefore race and ethnicity provide privilege or disadvantage, just like social class.

Question 17

What are Ethnic groups?

Answer 17

• A collection of people who, as a result of their shared cultural traits and a high level of interaction, regard themselves and regarded as a cultural unit

Question 18

What do ethnic groups share? (4 points)

Answer 18

• Culture, language, clothing, holidays, religious practices
• Share a sense of community
• Shared feeling of ethnocentrism
• Ascribed membership from birth
  Share distinct geographical area on the planet

Question 19

What is Multiculturalism? (6 points)

Answer 19

• in 1971 it became our approach to immigration
• Prior to that we assimilated immigrants, as they do in the US
• Is the belief that no one ethnic group is better or dominant
• It is the belief of cultural relativism
• Cultures are different, but not any one culture is superior
• Individuals immigrating to Canada are not discouraged from maintaining their cultural identity.

Question 20

How do you measure race or ethnicity? (3 points)

Answer 20

Race is Self-Reported

• Stats on race depend mostly on self reporting
• Self reporting of race is becoming more and more difficult as intermarriage increases
• Self- reporting race can be problematic, especially if the categories available are limited in number

Question 21

What is the Scapegoat theory?
(Frustration- Aggression Hypothesis)
(3 points)

Answer 21

• Blaming other people for your own troubles i.e Jews in Nazi Germany
• Jews were successful in pre-war Germany
• They were over represented in professional jobs

Question 22

What is the Authoritarian Personality Theory? (3 points)

Answer 22

• Adorno suggested authoritarian personality was created by authoritarian parenting style
• The authoritarian style creates aggression, frustration, and hatred which is then directed towards convenient scapegoats.
• Adorno believes personalities can not tolerate cognitive dissonance or any lack of closure. It therefore follows these people find it difficult to understand things and people different from their own mental set.

Question 23

What are some Characteristics of authoritarian personality?

Answer 23

• Pre-occupation with superiority & upmanship
• Intolerance of less able people
  Often sees things as black or white, right or wrong
• Superficially respectful of authority figures

Question 24

What is the F-Scale?

Answer 24

• Adorno created a measure of authoritarianism
• The F-scale had 30 items covering such issues as obedience and respect for authority, agression towards deviant groups such as homosexuals, and general ethnocentrism.

Question 25

What are some sample questions from the F-Scale?

Answer 25

(Answers range strongly disagree to strongly agree)

• Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn.
• The business man and the manufacturer are much more important to society than the artist and the professor
• Every person should have complete faith in some supernatural power whose decisions he obeys without question
• Nobody ever learned anything really important except through suffering.

Question 26

What is Authoritarianism and Xenophobia?

Answer 26

• Adorno reported positive correlation between authoritarian personality and prejudice
• Several subsequent studies have reported similar correlations
• Other studies have shown correlation between authoritarianism and xenophobia

Question 27

What is Cultural Theory?

Answer 27

Prejudice to one degree or another is found in everyone because it is embedded in culture itself

Question 28

What did Bogardus do?

Answer 28

He developed a social distance scale
- Measures how closely people are willing to associate with other groups
- I would marry or accept as a close relative TO I would not accept at all, even as a resident of my country.
Findings:
- Positive attitudes are related to high education and urbanism
- Found that Americans, British, and Canadians had similar views and deemed the similarity to be evidence of normative values.

Question 29

How do you eliminate Racism?

Answer 29

The contact Hypothesis

• Empirical Support
• Housing: Less prejudice in desecrated housing than in segregated housing.
• Merchant Marine, 1948
• Friendships: Heterosexuals who know at least one openly gay man or lesbian are less likely to hold negative views of gays or lesbians

Question 30

How does Inequality Breed Prejudice?

Answer 30

Problem undermining the elimination of racism:

• Ending prejudice while status inequality still exists will tend to be difficult, because in order for contact to matter, equal status must be a precondition
• Curtailing prejudice seems to require addressing inequality in treatment.