chapter 7 racism, prejudice, and discrimination. © 2012 pearson education, inc. all rights...

Chapter 7

Racism, Prejudice, and Discrimination

© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

The Social Construction of Minorities

• What is race?– What is the basis of race?

• Biology or Genetics?• Is it blood?• The law? • Or is it social?

• What about ethnicity?


The Social and Political Construction of Race and Ethnicity

• There are no biological or legal foundations that prove that “races” are distinct categories of people.

• Evidence from the historical, anthropological, and sociological record indicates that “race” and ethnicity are socially and politically determined categories that change over time and place, and which, are arbitrary and subjective.


The Social Construction of Minorities

• What are Minorities?1. Subordinate segments of a complex society

2. Tend to have special physical characteristics that are seen as undesirable by the dominant segments of society

3. Develop a group consciousness, “we”

4. One is born into it

5. Tend to practice endogamy

– Does not refer to a group’s numerical strength


The Continuing Struggle for Minority Civil Rights

• Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Civil Rights Act, & subsequent legislations – The discrepancy between legal equality and

actual inequality has remained in society

• The terrorist attacks on the US in 2001

• Immigrant groups highlight the problems of minority status in the United States


Defining Racism, Prejudice, and Discrimination• Racism

– The belief that human “races” have distinctive characteristics that determine abilities and culture… Also involves a belief in the superiority of one’s “race”

• Prejudice– An irrational attitude

• Discrimination– Differential treatment of

individuals who belong to a particular social group


Institutional Discrimination

• Stems from ongoing routines of societies’ social institutions -work or education– Is different from other types of discrimination-

not always a conscious intent to discriminate

• Harvard Project on School Desegregation found a pattern of schools’ resegregation


Institutional Discrimination• Racial Profiling• Education

– Dejure Segregation and Defacto Segregation

• Unequal Access to High-Quality Schooling– Jonathan Kozol

• Housing– http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/business/aclu-to-sue-morgan-stanley-over-mortgage-lo

ans.html?src=twr&_r=0

• Employment and Income– Race, Wealth, and Intergenerational Poverty



• Justice– Imprisonment and Employment Discrimination– Racial inequalities in Capital Punishment

• Political Discrimination– Felony Disenfranchisement



• Anti-Voter Fraud Campaigns– Civil rights groups note that recent state & federal

efforts to investigate voter fraud & institute new – systems of voter identification can be seen as

attempts to block higher minority voter turnouts


Table 7-2: Mean Earnings, by Highest Degree Earned


Table 7-3: Black-White Segregation in 30 Metropolitan Areas


Figure 7-3 & 4: Median Net Worth of Families; Effect of a Criminal Record


Some Consequences of Prejudice and Discrimination

Is Affirmative Action necessary?


Figure 7-5: Fighting for a Piece of the Pie


Table 7-4: Most Rapidly Black/White Resegregating Districts, 1986–2000


Table 7-5: Most Rapidly SegregatingDistricts, Latino/White, 1986–2000

chapter 7 racism, prejudice, and discrimination. © 2012 pearson education, inc. all rights...

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