Racial Inequality and Racism

1
Racial Inequality and Racism

• Structures of Group Inequality
• (10/29)

2
What does it mean to say that racism is
systemic?

1. It does not mean that most people in the society
   are prejudiced, though they may be.
2. The inequality between slaves and slaveowners
   cumulates it does not end with the death of the
   slaveowner or the abolition of slavery.
3. The system changed its form but not its nature.
4. It involves many interdependent characteristics.
5. The Northern elite benefited indirectly.
6. The relations to Native Americans, Hispanics,
   Asian Americans or white ethnics are part of a
   system whose distinctive US traits are racist.

3
What is a race, sociologically

• A race is any group that is considered (by itself
  and by others) to be a race.
• Races are socially constructed.
• Visible differences are neither necessary nor
  sufficient for sociological races.
• Therefore relations between ethnic and religious
  groups may become or may stop being treated as
  racial.
• E.g. Cherokee, South Phil., Israel, U.S. Army
• Access to resources is a main part of those
  relations.

4
The one drop rule in the US.

• Traditionally, U.S. black-white race relations
  have been governed by the unusual rule that one
  is black if any of ones ancestors is black.
• This was necessitated by the unique set of
  social, legal and political structures of slavery
  and Jim Crow.
• i.e. govt mandated segregation when most
  blacks had white ancestors.

5
What are the racial regimes?

1. Genocide the attempted extermination of an
   entire people.
2. Expulsion the forced transfer of a population to
   another area or to camps.
3. Subjugation the creation of a second class
   citizenship.
4. Segregation systematic social separation.
5. Assimilation social melting pot.

6
What have been the regimes in the US?

• All five regimes appear in American history.
• The text suggests that the elimination of most
  Native American tribes was unintended. I
  disagree.
• Chattel slavery was a unique institution,
  although all forms of slavery are extremely
  degrading and destructive of the family, etc.
• And Jim Crow was a nearly unparalleled
  institutional subjugation.

7
How much is U.S. race is a matter of black v.
white?

• Often the central issue is how similar
  black/white relations are to ethnicity.
• Feagin argues that they are dissimilar, but
  black/ white relations are central because
• relations of Europeans to Native Americans,
  Chinese, and Hispanic Americans were shaped by
  slavery.
• Immigrant groups struggled to define themselves
  as not black by separating themselves from
  blacks.
• Sociology, Micro, Macro and Mega spends about 4
  times as much space on other groups.

8
Peculiarities of U.S. slavery

• Race relations in the US have a distinct dynamic
  largely because slavery was unique.
• Unlike Latin America, in the U.S. the definition
  of slaves as property was not checked by any
  structure of family or other kinds of rights.
• And it was often accompanied by rituals of
  dehumanization.
• E.g. slaves eating from a trough,
• female slaves as fair game, and
• slave testimony or rights as impossible.
• Laws against teaching slaves to read.

9
But isnt that ancient history?

• Many people say that that was then and this is
  now blacks should get over it.
• For Feagin, if Fred has stolen money from Joe,
  Fred can ask Joe to Get over it only after he
  has given back the money.
• One index of how a society has progressed is who
  it honors.
• Who is the American that has the most monuments
  to his memory?
• Bedford Forrest founder of the KKK.
• Why?

10
The dynamic of race today

• Table 21.4 (p.406) details four centuries of
  legal progress and setbacks.
• different people conceive of that dynamic in
  different ways.
• There has been a sharp decline of views such as
  There should be laws against intermarriage,
  (though 10 to 20 of the white pop. still agrees
  with such items.)
• But there has also been a decline in support for
  reducing existing inequalities.

11
The relation of racial inequalities

• Myrdals argument was that group advantages
  reinforce each other,
• often as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Resources
Access to further resources

• Example A businessman who cannot get credit,
  is likely to go out of business, and therefore,
  he is a bad risk.
• Other examples health, education, crime, social
  contacts, addictions, neighborhood quality, work
  responsibility, work commitment,

12
What is the relation between prejudice and racial
inequality

• Myrdals argument was that racism and racial
  inequality reinforce each other.

Racism
Racial Inequality

• This is sometimes wrongly interpreted to mean
  that racism is the individual sentiment that
  produces discriminatory behavior.

13
Myrdal vs. Feagin

• Feagin criticizes Myrdal as proposing a model
  that seems to suggest an attitudinal model
• Prejudice Discrimination Racism
• Feagin, as the theorist of institutionalized
  discrimination, argues that the relations go
  Race inequality Discrimination Prejudice
• For example, profiling has an equally strong
  effect whether or not it is based on fact.

14
Implications of Cumulative Causation for Myrdal

• The system is pervasive
• It creates a cascade of pervasive differences
• that appears as second nature,
• but is socially produced
• The system is modifiable
• Such systems are unstable
• and amplify interventions.
• But only by broad spectrum interventions
• It has the inertia of an avalanche
• These qualitative dynamic conclusions follow even
  when one cannot estimate specific component paths.

15
Institutional discrimination and systemic racism

• Feagin suggests that over American history,
  racism, as a pervasive institutional system has
  maintained itself as a structure of inequality
  and privilege.
• Racism is not a matter of prejudice.
• It is can be maintained by relatively little
  individually prejudiced action (except opposition
  to change efforts).

16
How much racial inequality is there?

• Feagin Racism directly or indirectly costs the
  average black American about 10 of their life
  span 40 of their income and 90 of their
  wealth.
• Sociology, Micro, Macro and Mega 1990
• White Black Hispanic
• 4 yrs col. 22 11 9
• in poverty 11 32 28
• Median income 36,915 21,423 23,431

17
Individual, Institutional and Cultural racism

• Individual racism is individual prejudice and/or
  discrimination
• Institutional racism are institutionalized
  structures that disadvantage a group, and which
  are often maintained for reasons having little to
  do with prejudice.
• Cultural racism is a belief in the superiority of
  European culture.

18
Can blacks be racist

• Obviously anyone can be individually racist or
  prejudiced.
• But if racism is defined as the use of or
  connection with a monopoly of societys
  institutionalized power, then you can only do
  that if you have that monopoly.
• Pit bull liability is not a matter of intent

19
The relation between prejudice and
discrimination LaPierre

• In a classic study (from 1934) LaPierre p.398
  found almost no correlation between the
  willingness of hotels and restaurants to
  discriminate in practice and their saying that
  they would do so.
• Situational constraints and pressures were more
  important than set individual motives.

20
Merton on the relation between prejudice and
discrimination

• Mertons typology p.398
• Situational pressures may produce all four cases

Prejudice No prejudice
Discrimination Active Bigot Fair weather liberal
No Discrimination Timid Bigot All weather liberal