Stuber Chapter 4

Question 1

anthropometry

Answer 1

literally “the measurement of man”

Question 2

antimiscegenation laws

Answer 2

laws under which marriage and sexual relations between members of different racial groups were penalized under

Question 3

apartheid

Answer 3

legally inscribed white supremacy into society - South Africa’s recent past is notably marked by this approach to race where it organized society around for governmentally defined racial groups

Question 4

blood quantum

Answer 4

refers to the proportion of ancestry of direct tribal descent - some tribes may use a blood quantum rule to establish tribal membership

Question 5

Carl Linnaeus

Answer 5

generally credited with developing the first racial taxonomy

Question 6

ethnicity

Answer 6

refers to a socially defined category based on a common culture or nationality - people with the same ethnicity typically share language, religion, symbols and traditions, and history

Question 7

eugenics

Answer 7

refers to scientific efforts to identify the best traits of humans and then promote reproduction in those with the most desired traits and inhibit the reproduction of those with less desired traits

Question 8

genetic analysis

Answer 8

can determine geographic origins, but not a person’s race (race lumps together geographic populations distinct from each other and ignores differences among them)

Question 9

genocide

Answer 9

the mass killing of an entire group of people - demonstrates the most destructive purposes that eugenics was used for

Question 10

hypodecent

Answer 10

also known as the “one drop rule,” anyone with a single drop of “black blood” was considered to be “black”

Question 11

miscegenation

Answer 11

interracial marriage - throughout the early 1900s, the study of eugenics influenced marriage laws by prohibiting this, under the assumption that reproduction across racial lines would “weaken” the “superior” race

Question 12

pencil test

Answer 12

used in South Africa’s apartheid - a person would be classified as Coloured after they shook their head and the pencil did not fall out

Question 13

phenotype

Answer 13

external observable physical traits that is the bass of racial categorization in many societies

Question 14

physiognomy

Answer 14

is the practice of assessing a person’s character or personality from their outer appearance

Question 15

pigmentocracy

Answer 15

those with the least melatonin and lightest populations “rule” - earn more money and are more likely to pursue a college degree

Question 16

race

Answer 16

a socially constructed label used to categorize people based on real or perceived biological and physical characteristics - it is a human creation, not a biological reality

Question 17

race-blind society

Answer 17

not recognizing the significance or existence of racial differences - e.g. France does not collect census data on racial characteristics of residents, nor does it implement policies that that provide targeted benefits to specific racial groups

Question 18

racial democracy

Answer 18

a place where various racial groups live and work side by side with few problems, and fewer laws enforcing racial segregation

Question 19

racialization

Answer 19

the process b which new racial meanings are applied to groups or social practices

Question 20

taxonomy

Answer 20

system of classification

Question 21

How does the essentialist perspective conceptualize race?

Answer 21

the essentialist perspective conceptualizes race as biological
- Carl Linnaeus’s four races that he assumed were “biologically distinct”
- Samuel Morton - measuring brains to determine what race has the largest brain capacity - used physiognomy to support the notion that outward physical differences between races correlated with different and unequal inner virtues

Question 22

How does the essentialist perspective explain the phenotypic and social differences between so-called racial groups?

Answer 22

• the essentialists believe that phenotypic and social differences among so-called racial groups are linked
• Linnaeus believed races had distinct natures or “humours”
• Blumenbach and anthropomentry - humans are a part of the same species, but supported degenerative hypothesis (non-white races “degenerated” over time do to environmental exposure)
• Morton and physiognomy
• “scientific” evidence was used to advance social and political goals… e.g. claimed that those of African descent had “limited intelligence”, “lazy character”, and were “weak and prone to sickness” to justify slavery

Question 23

How do understandings of race vary across cultures?

Answer 23

• South Africa’s apartheid - took into account skin color as well as socioeconomic and employment status, Black individuals were forced onto a system of reservations, and treated like migrant workers or illegal immigrants
• IN A NUTSHELL - in some cases, race is divided into relatively few categories, and assignment into categories may be an official process. once assigned, consequences may be vast… with substantial privileges given to whites, but not nonwhites
• based more on phenotype than descent

Brazil - census officially defines five racial groups, communities identify nearly third broad categories with over one hundred ways of describing race
- racial classification in Brazil is complex, fluid, and contextual, with more attention paid to subtleties in phenotype
- context shapes how a person is identified
- race is relational and emerges within conjunction with racial identities with those around them - e.g. easier to be white in areas where there aren’t many white people

Question 24

In what sense is race a “myth”?

Answer 24

• from a scientific and biological perspective, there is just one race… Homo sapiens
• there is more genetic variation within “racial” groups than between them
• phenotypes vary
• there is no boundary that makes a boarder between “racial” groups (some traits are environmental adaptations, not traits that make one group different from another… e.g. light skin tones facilitate the absorption of Vitamin D, and sickle-cell is a genetic mutation that emerged in areas where malaria was present, e.g. Sub-Saharan Africa)
• race is a social and political invention, not biological

Question 25

“money whitens”

Answer 25

suggests that a person’s race ad class cannot be separated from one another - demonstrates how a person dresses and their real or perceived social status can impact perception of their race

Question 26

blanqueamiento

Answer 26

the “gradual whitening” of the Brazilian population - American historian Carl Degler suggests that Brazil’s racial mixing can be viewed as a sign of racism - i.e. the Brazilian government invited migration from Europe to “whiten” the formerly enslaved Black population

Question 27

Baghat Singh Thind

Answer 27

was denied US citizenship because the courts rejected his argument that “white” was anyone of Aryan descent - judges used the legal system to construct the notion that race is “commonsense” and how a “reasonable person” would define it

Question 28

lines blurring between racial groups

Answer 28

• interracial marriage
• lines around racial groups are not blurring equally - Asians are more likely to marry outside their group than whites or blacks
• greater intermarriage means less social distance and greater contacts among groups