Lauren Hedrick October 24th 2013 Racial and Ethic Discrimination Mechanisms of racial ethnic inequality o Prejudice o Discrimination o Racism Minority Groups o Five properties of minority groups Experience discrimination from dominant group and lacks power to change situation Self conscious social group sense of group identity Distinguishes physical or cultural traits Generally not voluntary Typically endogamous o Not all five traits have to be satisfied but most of them do o Which of the properties is most critical Experience discrimination from dominant groups and lacks power to change situation Prejudice attributes of aversion and hostility towards members of a group because they are presumed to conform to negatively stereotyped description of the group o All members of the same category are assumed to be the same o Social class sex sexual orientation age political affiliation physical disability race ethnicity etc o Seeds of prejudice Lazy processing Apply what we believe to be true of a whole group to each individual of the group We do not take time to process what we know about an individual because that would take too long Involves a lot of bias and inequality Group conflict Groups compete for limited resources and we can o Cognitive component There are differences in individuals and o Affective component How close one group feels with another o Behavioral component Discrimination how we act on our prejudices o Bogardus Social Distance Scale 1925 Asks people to rate how you feel about a certain groups Scale of 1 7 that you rate groups on 1 I would be happy to be a close relative of this group by marriage 7 I d exclude this group from my country Overtime the racial and ethnical prejudices have decreased since the creation of this scale o Social Structure theory of prejudice Prejudice is a cultural mechanism emerging out of competition and conflict between groups Lauren Hedrick October 24th 2013 Intergroup attitudes When interests coincide vs when they diverge Can be an important factor enabling a single group to achieve and maintain dominance Discrimination The process in which members of one or more groups or categories in society are denied the privileges prestige power legal rights equal protection of the law and other societal benefits available to members of other groups o Prejudice is an attitude discrimination is an action o Can discrimination occur in absence of prejudice Racism When discrimination targets a certain racial or ethnic group o Individual Racism Belief that some racial groups are naturally superior and others are inferior The Bell Curve Biological or environmental Tells us that there is an idea that some racial groups have higher IQs than other racial groups o Biological Some people are naturally born to be a smarter race than others o Environmental How and where someone is raised and the education that they receive from an early age o Environmental influence is much more important than the biology aspect One on one acts to members of a subordinate group or their property o Institutional Racism Discriminatory policies and practices that result in unequal outcomes for members of different racial groups More resistant to change than Individual Racism Institutions function to produce unequal outcomes for different groups Gatekeeping Decision on which people are admitted to offices and positions or privilege prestige and power within a society Example National Association of Real Estate s 1924 Code of Ethics stated A realtor should never be instrumental in introducing into a neighborhood members of any race or nationality or individuals whose presence will clearly be detrimental to property values in that neighborhood Bertrand and Mullainathan 2003 Are Emily and Greg more employable than Lakisha and Jamal o Half of the people were given resumes with stereotypically white names and the other half were given identical resumes with stereotypically black names to test call back rate Lauren Hedrick October 24th 2013 Turned out that the call back rate for the stereotypically white names was higher than the call back rate for the stereotypically black names The Functional Approach There are different positions in a society that require different people to fill those positions o Majority Welfare Some positions are more rewarding than others In order to make sure people are okay with where their position is in society racial boundaries are often a way to divide the society and it seems to be justified and less likely to be questioned o Group Cohesiveness If the dominate groups believe that they are superior then they are more likely to bond and work better together and achieve a common goal for society this also works within the minority group because they believe that they all share the same fate and they have that in common which allows them to work better together for a common goal o Leads to Dysfunctions Because Conflict Theory on Discrimination Always the main conflict is the conflict between capitalists and workers a battle for power that does not always operate along racial lines o Profit is the name of the game in conflict theory o Split Labor Market Theory Promote conflict among minorities because this would ultimately lower the price of labor and then the capitalists would benefit more so than the minorities In the end the upper class always benefits o Who is more likely to discriminate the upper class or the lower class Groups are more likely to be discriminative when they are competing for the same resources so according to conflict theory the lower class is more likely to discriminate against racial and ethnic minorities because they are competing more closely for the same resources whereas this does not have as much of an immediate effect on the upper class Symbolic Interaction on Racism o Symbolic Racism Can be useful in sustaining racism over a long period of time because o PC Language Politically Correct Language For example the word black is typically associated with something negative whereas the word white is typically associated with something positive Usually very subtle but over a long period of time this can easily become engrained in someone s head o Socialization When a baby is born they do not know the difference between races and ethnical differences but as they grow older they adapt the beliefs that they were raised around