Week 4 Ethnicity & Race

Deep within the word “American” is its association with race... American means white, and Africanist people struggle to make the term applicable to themselves with ethnicity and hyphen after hyphen after hyphen.

- Tony MorrisonPlaying in the Dark, 1993:47

Ethnicity and Race

Ethnic Groups and EthnicityHuman Biological Diversity and the Rac

e ConceptRace and EthnicityThe Social Construction of Race

Continued

Ethnicity

Ethnic Groups and EthnicityRaceThe Social Construction of Race &

EthnicitySocial StratificationEthnic Groups and NationalitiesPeaceful CoexistenceRoots of Ethnic Conflict

Ethnic Groups and Ethnicity

Ethnic group – members share certain beliefs, values, habits, customs, and norms because of their common background

Ethnicity revealed when people claim a certain ethnic identity for themselves and are defined by others as having that identity

Ethnicity: Primordial Identity & Loyalties

Frederick Barth: ‘When people claim an identity for themselves & are defined by others as having that identity’

The Concept of Race

Race is ethnic group assumed to have a biological basis

Race is a “cultural construction”.

Race has political purpose but not scientific basis

• Race is what others “do” to you... Ethnicity is what you do to yourself

Hardin Coleman, Ph.D.Univ. of Wisconsin

Tribe:

Meaning 1: A grp of persons forming a community & claiming descent from a common ancestor.

Meaning 2: A grp of people in a primitive or barbarous condition, under a headman or chief.

Used in public spheres, not much in cultural anthropology

Variations of Race & Ethnicity

America Race Ethnicity of “Amer Indian”

Hispanic Kumeyaay Asian Zuñi Pacific

Islander Navajo

American Indian

Gabrieliño/Tongva

Black Chumash White Seri Yuma

Variations of Race & Ethnicity

Race/Ethnic Identification in the United States, 2002

Ethnic Groups and Social Stratification

Status – various social positions that people occupy

– Ascribed status – Position in society that you receive at birth; little choice about occupying position in society

– Achieved status – gained through choices, actions, efforts, talents, or accomplishments. A situational negotiation of social identity...

• May be positive or negative

Social Statuses

Some statuses, particularly ascribed ones, mutually exclusiveSome statuses are contextual

Minority & Majority Groups

Minority Groups – subordinate group that does not constitute a politically dominant plurality of the total populationInferior power and less secure access to

resources than majority groups Majority Groups – dominant group that

does constitutes a politically plurality of the total population

Race

Better to use term “ethnic group” instead of “race” to describe social groups anthropologically

Cultural category rather than a biological reality

The Social Construction of Race

Ethnic groups assumed to have biological basis but actually defined in a culturally arbitrary, rather than scientific, manner

In theory, biological race a geographically isolated subdivision of a species

Race supposed to reflect shared genetic material

Early scholars used phenotype: organism’s evident traits

White Studies The privileges of

whiteness - Peggy McIntosh

‘White’ as unmarked, natural category to which others compare

“Passing”: People or ethnic groups who shift pass into social status as “white”

Race & Whiteness in Canadian Census

“...persons, other than Aboriginal peoples (a.k.a. First Nation in Canada, Native Americans in the United States], who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour

Canada’s visible minority population increasing steadily

• Canadian census asks about “visible minorities”

Canadian Visible Minority Population of Canada, 2001 Census

Source: Statistics Canada 2001

Americans Reporting They Belonged to Just One Race

Figure 6.2: Reproduction of Questions on Race and Hispanic Origin from Census 2000

Hypodescent: Race in the United States

Rule of Descent – assigns social identity on basis of ancestry

Hypodescent – automatically places children of a union or mating between members of different groups in the lower status or social classHelps divide American society into groups that

have been unequal in access to wealth, power, and prestige

• In American culture, one acquires his or her racial identity at birth

Hyperdescent

Claiming social status of dominant status parent, and being accepted by dominant society for that choice

Vanessa Hudgens, American singer & actressPhoto: Wikipedia

Ethnic Ambiguity & Status Shifting

Many celebrities these days are of a mixed ethnicity. Derek Jeter, Mariah Carey, Tiger Woods, Vin Diesel, Norah Jones...

Norah Jones, American Singer of European and Bengali descent photo:

i.realone.com