Chapter 3

Racial and Ethnic Inequality

Key Objectives
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Understand the differences between race and ethnicity

Understand how race is socially constructed.
Know the consequences of classifying people into racial and ethnic categories.
Know the history of immigration in the United states
Understand the effects of immigration on the diversity that exists in the US today.
Understand characteristics of minorities: their visibility, their disadvantage, and their
numbers.
7. Understand patterns of majority-minority interaction: genocide, segregation, assimilation,
and pluralism.
8. Know the historical impact on social standing of minorities in American society today:
from Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic
Americans/Latinos/Latinas, and Arab Americans.
9. Understand the difference between prejudice and discrimination.
10. Know how stereotypes help to perpetuate disadvantage for less powerful groups.
11. Understand racism.
12. Understand the process of discrimination, including institutional discrimination.

Chapter Three
Racial and Ethnic Inequality as a Social Problem
Classifications as social constructions:
Race and Ethnicity are social categories that mark groups in dominant and subordinate
relationships based on subjectively chosen physical and cultural characteristics. Inequality by
race and ethnicity refer to the structure of advantages and disadvantages in society; dominant
groups are advantaged or privileged and have superior resources and rights (power) in society.
Subordinate group disadvantaged, and subject to unequal treatment by the dominant group.
These categories are often used interchangeably, though they refer to different things.
Race: Sociologists define a racial group as a category of people who have been singled out,
by others or themselves, as inferior or superior, on the basis of subjectively selected physical
characteristics such as skin color, hair texture, and eye shape (Kendall, 50).
W.E.B. DuBois, an early black sociologist, was the first to identify the social construction of
race, and he was correct. He argued that it was social discrimination that made the social
outcomes for blacks in America so devastating.
Ethnicity refers to our cultural affiliation and nationality refers to the country where we are a
citizen.
Feagin identifies five main characteristics of membership in an ethnic group. Those who share:
1) unique cultural traits, 2) a sense of community, 3) a feeling that ones own group is the best, 4)
membership from birth, and 5) tendency, at least initially, to occupy a distinct geographic area
(such as Chinatown, little Italy, Little Havana). Irish-American, Italian Americans and Jewish
Americans are examples of European ethnic groups.
Classification and Inequality:
When differences become the basis for social stratification and inequality? Suffer harm and
constraints because of these differences while some benefits are derived from race or ethnicity.
White privilege in relationship to disadvantages of non-white.
McIntosh (1995: 77)
White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, assurances, maps,
guides, codebooks, passports, visas, clothes, compass, emergency gear, and blank checks.
The advantages/disadvantage and power/exploitation relationships of dominant and
subordinate groups are deeply rooted in patterns of prejudice and discrimination.
Prejudice, Racism and Discrimination
Racism refers to the intolerance towards a socially defined race that is not your own; it is a set of
attitudes and practices used to justify the superior treatment of one racial or ethnic group and
the inferior treatment of another racial or ethnic group. Prejudice refers to a negative attitude
based on faulty generalizations about members of selected racial and ethnic groups; which is

rooted in ethnocentrism the assumption that ones own group is superior. Discrimination
refers to the unequal treatment (about action) of one group by another (individual and
institutional)
Individual discrimination consists of one-on-one acts by members of dominant group that harm
members of the subordinate group.
Institutional discrimination consists of the day-to-day, often taken-for-granted, practices of
organizations and institutions that have a harmful impact on members of subordinate groups.
(economy in terms of hiring, promotion, practices, schools and the legal system).
Positive and negative discrimination: legacy as a factor in admission to elite schools (criterion
for inclusion) versus factors such as race and gender as criterion for exclusion
There are four categories that each of us can fall into around prejudice and discrimination.
The prejudiced discriminator
The prejudiced non-discriminator
The non-prejudiced discriminator
The non-prejudiced non-discriminator
The prejudiced discriminator is someone who not only believes that another group is inferior, but
also treats that group unjustly. For example, prior to the late 60s in the south, it was socially
common for white business owners to refuse service to non-whites. It was also a prevalent belief
that non-whites were inferior to whites. So the shop owner who believed in white superiority
and who discriminated against non whites would fall into this category. Early Spanish
conquerors of the Central Americas believed that the indigenous population had no souls and
were therefore not human. This belief allowed them to treat those people as badly as they treated
livestock and beasts of burden. Dehumanizing of groups based on race or ethnicity. A similar
approach justified the treatment of Jews, Gypsies and other undesirables including mass
extermination (genocide) during the German Nazi era in the middle of the last century. Both
take discrimination to the extreme.
The prejudiced non-discriminator is an individual who believes that another group is inferior but
does not discriminate against that group. Today it is illegal to refuse service to anyone based on
their race. That does mean though that the store owner who refused service in the 60s is no
longer prejudiced. It just means that this store owner now waits on everyone to avoid
prosecution, but still believes that the other group is inferior. However, there still may be
differences in the kind of service provided. Non-whites may not be excluded from the store but
may be more likely to have to wait a long time for help, or are kept under surveillance because of
their skin color (we will return to this in a moment).
The non-prejudiced discriminator is someone who does not believe that the other group is
inferior but discriminates anyway. Imagine that you are a white shop keeper in the 60s south.
You dont believe that whites are superior to non-whites. However, if you serve non whites in
your shop, whites wont shop there. So you discriminate against non-whites for economic
reasons, even though you are not prejudiced. A less obvious form of this is a belief by
shopkeepers that being non-white they have less money to spend so non-whites get ignored as a
potential customerin this case the skin color is a signal about economic status.

The non-prejudiced non-discriminator is the last category. This is the person who believes that all
people are equal and treats everyone equally.
Now that we have anti-discrimination laws, racism and discrimination have become more covert.
As I mentioned above shop employees sometimes follow non-white customers and monitor them
for potential shoplifting. While it is illegal, there are subtle employment differences. For
example, in many restaurants the wait staff that deal with customers are white and the kitchen
staff likely to be hidden are non-white. Recently there is much made of racial profiling that is
manifest through the high likelihood of black commuters being pulled over in white
neighborhoods despite the fact that they have not broken a traffic lawother than the crime of
driving while black. These examples are well documented, and in the case of the DWB
phenomenon, are under investigation by the federal government. A recent study of traffic stops
on 8-Mile here in Detroit found that non-whites driving east (and therefore technically within the
City of Detroit) were stopped much less often than those driving west (and therefore technically
in Eastpointe). The NAACP sued the City of Carmel, Indiana for discriminatory ticketing of
non-whitesand what won the suit for them was evidence that non-white workers, on their way
to a call center (a low-wage employer hiring poor non-whites from Indianapolis) had a tag on
their license plates signifying they worked in Carmel, were hardly ever stopped by the police.
These are all examples Institutional racism, where discrimination gets woven into the fabric of
our social institutions making inequality the norm for society.
Scapegoat theory argues that when things are not going well in your life, you look for someone
else to blame. If you are poor and struggling to get and hold a job, you are likely to blame
another group for your failures. The example of Vincent Chen applies here. The Detroit
autoworkers were looking for a scapegoat to blame for the failing auto industry. Rather than
blaming the quality of their product (Japanese cars were better built) or the government for not
controlling imports, they blamed the Vietnamese man that they believed to be Japanese. It is
easier to blame a scapegoat who outwardly looks different or acts different than you. In his case
he paid for it with his life. Another form of this can be seen in studies of union versus non-union
counties in the coal mining regions of West Virginia. When there was no union, white workers
saw the problem as one of cheap Black workers looking to steal jobsbut the outcome was
that even though whites earned much more than Blacks, overall wages were low. In strong union
counties, workers all understood that the problem was with the mine owner so overall wages
were higher, even though because of discrimination Black workers still earned less money
(though closer to parity).
Minority groups are often the target of discrimination. A minority group is not necessarily the
group with the smallest numbers (note colonialism was the rule of a small number of Europeans
over the population such as the Africaans of Dutch origin in South Africa where they set up
institutionalized racism in the system of apartheid, including the Bantustan policy). It is always
the group with the least social power. Minority group status changes over time as well. For
example, during the Great Immigration, from 1865 to 1914, the newest immigrant group was the
targeted minority, and each group took its turn. The Irish, the Germans, the Polish, the Italians,
all took their turn as the minority group of the day until they assimilated. At the turn of the 20th
Century, nativists accused the new immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe of
endangering and diluting English culture. Benjamin Franklin feared that his fellow white

Pennsylvanians would be overwhelmed by Germans, who he was quoted as saying that the
Germans will soon so our number us, that all of the advantages we have will not in my opinion
be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious (cited in A
National of None and All of the Above, The New York Times, Sam Roberts, August 17, 2008,
WR6). Assimilation is easier if you are distinguished by language and culture only, and not also
by race.
Today, no northern European group is classified as a minority. Like most social problems we
revisit the same issues over and over again. Buchanan argued that immigrants were taking jobs,
overtaxing our resources and could be a danger to our communities. Lou Dobbs even accused
illegal immigrants of bringing disease into the country even though there is no evidence of this
and the claim was refuted by the Center for Disease Control. This is the same argument that the
nativists used during the Great Immigration. We have a movement to deport all illegal
immigrants from Mexico as well, using the identical arguments.
We should remember that racial categories are social categories, invented by society to
explain or label one group as being substantively different than the rest of society.
Sometimes the consequences are more or less benign, sometimes that can cost people their lives,
but never is it justified by science and is always artificially motivatedand hence clearly a
social problem.
Political institutions shape social problems: The government (including the courts), either
through the enactment of laws, interpretations by the courts, or by doing nothing, influence
racial/ethnic inequality. Segregation can be enforced de jure (by law), which occurred in the
South or de facto (in fact) through residential patterns.
Direct effects in terms of immigration laws, restrictions on citizenship, voting rights,
Brown v. Board of education of Topeka (1954) overturned the legal doctrine of separate but
equal, but did not end racial segregation.
1661 Virginia enacted first slave law,
despite the declaration that the slave trade was illegal in 1808, 1865 Congress banned slavery
with the 13th Amendment to the Constitution and in 1868, 14th Amendment reversed the Dred
Scott decision, giving citizenship to all people, regardless of color born in the US.
Voting Rights Act of 1965, banning voting requirements that disenfranchised many African
Americans, Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting segregation in employment and public
accommodations, and the amendment of 1968 outlawed discrimination in housing.
Native Americans
From the 16th century through 20th century, displacement of native peoples from their land, taken
by force and by fiat. In 1871, American Indians defined as wards of Federal Government, and
only gained full citizenship in 1924. Today high rates of poverty rates among Native Americans,
while recent business ventures enrich a few.

Immigration Law, more or less restricted, and backlash,

1924 Immigration Act established a quota system for various nationalities
1965 ended quota, Bracero Program to attract workers from Mexico to work in agriculture
1986 Immigration Control and Reform Act, prohibited hiring of undocumented immigrants
Asian
1840s influx of Chinese and some Japanese to work on the railroads, many as indentured
servants
1882 Chinese Exclusion Act diminished the flow of Chinese immigration
1908 target the Japanese
1920 California, then followed by other states, banned inter-racial marriages, directed against
Asians.
WWI internment of more than 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry
1943 ended the ban on Chinese immigration
Backlash against immigrants, particularly during economic downturns, scapegoats for ills in
society.
The election of President Baraka Obama generated increasing rates of voting: In July, 2009, the
Census Bureau released a new analysis of the 2007 president results, finding that increased
among minority voters accounted for virtually all the five million additional votes cast in
comparison to 2004. Black women had a higher turnout rate than any other group, and young
blacks turned out at a higher rate than young whites (Frank Rich, Small Beer, Big Hangover,
The New York Times, August 2, 2009 WR8).

The Case: A Battle Over Low-Income Housing Reveals Post-Hurricane Tensions

(from article of the same name, Campbell Robertson, The New York Times, Sunday, October 4,
2009A12,18).

The parish of St. Bernard, a largely middle-class, mostly white suburb just east of
New Orleans, initially opposed the development of housing for low-incoming
families.
The Issue: providing housing for low-income families in the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina. The hurricane disproportionately destroyed domiciles for lowincome renters.
Background information: The city demolished four big public housing complexes
in New Orleans in 2007 because of storm damage. In St. Bernard, nearly every
one of the 26, 000 houses were severely damaged or destroyed, 93% were owned
by white residents.
In September 2006, The Parish Council passed a law that prohibited owners of
single-family residences from renting to anyone except blood relatives, except by
special approval by the Council. The rationale given for passage of the ordinance
was that it would guarantee that neighborhoods consist largely of owner-occupied
homes with some accommodation for current residents.
Resolution: St. Bernard officials dropped the ordinance after a lawsuit by the
greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center
Was the ordinance racist or based on class bias, or both, or neither?

The Results:
Race and class combined in complicated ways in the region. Proposed low- or mixed-income
developments have met with opposition all over New Orleans, in both predominately white
suburbs and black neighborhoods in the city limits.
Class animosity might be at the root of much of this anger, though discrimination against the
poor is not a violation of the Fair Housing Act. It is illegal to discriminate against minorities,
however, and given that a disproportionate number of those who need affordable housing in the
area are black, these arguments almost inevitably involve race.
Although this involved a few hundred apartment units, a federal judge had to order the parish to
allow the building of these units. In this case, a federal judge in New Orleans has ruled that the
parishs actions were simply camouflaged racism and last month ordered that the parish move
forward on the development or face steep daily fines.
Postscript on Fair Housing: (The New York Times Editorial)
In June 2015, the US Supreme Court, by a vote of 5-4, ruled that the Fair Housing Act allows
plaintiffs to challenge government or private policies that have a discriminatory effect, without
having to show evidence of intentional discrimination.
Explicit, legally sanctioned racial segregation in housing may be over, Justice Kennedy wrote,
but its vestiges remain today, intertwined with the countrys economic and social life. From
discriminatory lending practices to zoning laws that favor higher-income home buyers, persistent
patterns work to hurt minorities and other vulnerable groups the law was written to protect.
And over the long term, the effects of housing segregation can alter future incomes and
opportunities. A Harvard study released in May found that young children whose families had
been given housing vouchers that allowed them to move to better neighborhoods were more
likely to attend college and to attend better colleges than those whose families had not
received the vouchers. The voucher group also had significantly higher incomes as adults.