ANTH 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Hortense Powdermaker, Institutional Racism, Racial Profiling
What is race?
Race: a concept that organizes people into groups based on specific
physical traits that are thought to reflect fundamental and innate
differences
-
"Historical research has shown that the idea of 'race' has always carried
more meanings than mere physical differences; indeed, physical
variations in the human species have no meaning except the social ones
that humans put on them"
-
Naturalization: the social processes through which something, such as race,
becomes part of the natural order of things
Since the 18th century, European and American scientists have attempted
to divide human variability into subspecies or "races"
-
Racial typologies share a fundamental flaw: there are no diagnostic genes
or genetic traits that belong to only one "racial" group and no others
-
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840) identified five human races
-
Similarly, American folk taxonomy divides people into vibrant "colors"
-
Carl Linnaeus identified 4
-
Futile attempt to account for the true variability of our species
-
Race as Adaptations
An adaptational approach to race links physical traits with environment.
-
For example, there is a general correlation between latitude and skin
pigmentation
The strength of this approach is that it identifies actual biological
patterning
○
The weakness is that skin pigmentation varies along a continuum.
Any lines placed on that continuum to designate where one "race"
ends and another begins are completely arbitrary.
○
-
The Problems of Racial Thinking
These typologies rarely describe any actual individual, and they do not
characterize whole groups of people
-
Racial thinking assumes that one visible trait (e.g., skin color) correlates
with complex behavioral attributes like intelligence, athletic ability, or
personal character.
-
Each one of us is an expression of thousands of genetically based traits.
The ones we (still) use to determine "race" aren't especially important,
but they share one common characteristic: they are visually obvious!
-
We divide humans into groups based on blood type or fingerprint
patterns that make biological sense, but we do not give them "racial"
significance
-
Race is biologically meaningless (but real!)
Race does have biological and, most definitely, cultural consequences
-
For example, there are significant differences in rates od disease and
average life span between different racial groupings in the United States
-
These discrepancies can be attributed, at least partially, to racism and
discrimination
-
Racism: the repressive, practices, structures, beliefs, and representations
that uphold racial categories and social inequality
-
Discrimination: the negative or unfair treatment of an individual because
of his or her membership in a particular social group or category
-
How is race culturally constructed?
Cultural processes make artificial seem natural. This is true of race, as
with other cultural constructions
-
As obvious and natural as American ideas about race seem (to Americans,
at least) they were learned at some point.
"How Africans Became "Black" and Europeans Became "White" in
Seventeenth-Century Virginia"
○
-
A primary cause is racialization: the social, economic, and political
processes of transforming populations into races and creating racial
meanings
-
Other Social Classifications
Ethnicity, class, and caste may be naturalized in much the same way as
race to justify social hierarchies.
-
"Race" and "ethnicity" are sometimes used interchangeably, but the
terms have distinctly different meanings.
-
Ethnicity: belonging to a group with a particular history and social status
and ancestry
-
Race is assumed to have some biological reality tied to physical
appearance. Ethnicity may be based on any number of cultural traits:
language or dialect, clothing, foodways, etiquette, or bodily modifications
such as tattoos or piercings
-
Class: the hierarchical distinctions between social groups are usually based on
wealth, occupation, and social standing
The socioeconomic "accident of birth" has profound consequences for
education, occupation, class mobility, and place of residence
-
In earlier times, there was less recognition of the "luck" factor. Americans
equated lower socioeconomics status with biological inferiority and lesser
intelligence, thus naturalizing wealth and the capacity to acquire it.
-
Caste and Casteism
Social stratification (the classification of people into unequal groupings)
may be formalized as caste (the system found in Indian society that
divides people into categories according to moral purity and pollution)
-
Based on hindu texts
-
Major social categories called VARNAS
Brahmans (priests)
○
Kshatriyas (warriors and rulers)
○
Vaishyas (merchants/traders)
○
Shudras( labourers/artisans/servants)
○
Beneath these four varna groups are the Dalits, or outcasts,
untouchables
○
-
Caste
Each varna and the Dalit contain hundreds of locally named groups called
jatis
-
Frequently named after their occupations (famer. Saltmaker)
-
Varna divisions are more theoretical and jati are the more significant
terms in most local villages
-
Jatis are ascribed status groups (born into them) and all of them within
each varna are also ranked
-
Involves several mechanisms that maintain it
-
Marriage rules
Strictly enforce jati endogamy, with marriage outside of one's jati, is
cause for serious punishment
○
-
Spatial segregation
Functions to maintain the privileges of the upper castes and to
remind lower castes of their marginal status
○
Dalits may live in complete isolation
○
-
Ritual
Only certain priests can perform certain ceremonies
○
-
Notion of purity
Certain foods and occupations
○
Jatis are ranked on a scale - purest to most polluted
○
Ranked highest are the vegetarian Brahmins
○
-
The lowest ranking jatis are unclean meat eaters and include
stoneworkers and basketweavers (who eat pork) and leatherworkers
(who eat pork and beef)
-
Occupations that involve slaughtering animals or touching polluted things
are themselves polluting
-
Social mobility within the caste system has traditionally been limited, but
there is upcasting.
-
Many Indians, especially those in urban settings, are promoting the
decline of the caste hierarchy via democracy and affirmative action
programs
-
However, formal legislation against discrimination and the actual end of
everyday discrimination are very different things.
-
Are prejudice and discrimination inevitable?
Is prejudice (preformed, usually unfavorable opinions about people who
are different) an unavoidable result of living in a world of "others"?
-
Most forms of prejudice (whether based on race, ethnicity, religion,
sexual orientations, etc.) are acquired as part of our enculturation - from
trusted elders, authority figures, media, and peers
See "Classic Contributions: Hortense Powdermaker on Prejudice"
○
Creation of false generalizations.
○
-
Learned behavioral patterns can be unlearned.
-
Explicit and Disguised Discrimination, unearned privilege
Explicit discrimination is easier to identify because it makes no effort to
hide and is an accepted norm, evident in institutions and laws.
-
Disguised discrimination may live on well beyond the "official" end of its
explicit source.
-
Perhaps the most disguised, or unrecognized, aspect of discrimination is
unearned privilege: an unnoticed and underappreciated lack of
discrimination against certain groups.
Light-skinned people may do everyday things without additional
attention or judgment directed at them.
○
Racial profiling.
○
Media.
○
Fighting discrimination requires the recognition and efforts of both
those who are discriminated against and those who aren't.
○
-
Systemic Racism in Canada
Systematic racism includes the policies and practices entrenched in
established institutions, which result in the exclusion or promotion of
designated groups. It differs from overt discrimination in that no
individual intent is necessary.
-
Institutional racism - individuals carrying out the dictates of others who
are prejudice.
-
Structural racism - inequalities rooted in the system-wide operations of a
society that excludes certain members from significant participation.
-
Education - a white story with color added in.
-
Hiring and Advancement Practices - looking for the right 'fit'.
-
Access to Sports/Recreation - system designed for middle class
professional white families.
-
Apples and Indians
-
From the DVD First Stories Volume 1
-
Available on YouTube https://youtu.be/DpWli1Q5CVc
-
Summary: Forms of Social Inequality
Race, ethnicity, caste (and gender)
-
Share characteristics with each other and class-based systems
Relegate large number of people to particular levels of entitlement
to livelihood, power, security, esteem and freedom.
○
Dominance.
○
Seek to maintain position.
○
Instances of rebellion do occur.
○
-
Watch: Suggested Video - People Like Us: Social Class in America -
https://vimeo.com/122468054
Race,
Ethnicity,…
Week 8, Lecture 13
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
What is race?
Race: a concept that organizes people into groups based on specific
physical traits that are thought to reflect fundamental and innate
differences
-
"Historical research has shown that the idea of 'race' has always carried
more meanings than mere physical differences; indeed, physical
variations in the human species have no meaning except the social ones
that humans put on them"
-
Naturalization: the social processes through which something, such as race,
becomes part of the natural order of things
Since the 18th century, European and American scientists have attempted
to divide human variability into subspecies or "races"
-
Racial typologies share a fundamental flaw: there are no diagnostic genes
or genetic traits that belong to only one "racial" group and no others
-
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840) identified five human races
-
Similarly, American folk taxonomy divides people into vibrant "colors"
-
Carl Linnaeus identified 4
-
Futile attempt to account for the true variability of our species
-
Race as Adaptations
An adaptational approach to race links physical traits with environment.
-
For example, there is a general correlation between latitude and skin
pigmentation
The strength of this approach is that it identifies actual biological
patterning
○
The weakness is that skin pigmentation varies along a continuum.
Any lines placed on that continuum to designate where one "race"
ends and another begins are completely arbitrary.
○
-
The Problems of Racial Thinking
These typologies rarely describe any actual individual, and they do not
characterize whole groups of people
-
Racial thinking assumes that one visible trait (e.g., skin color) correlates
with complex behavioral attributes like intelligence, athletic ability, or
personal character.
-
Each one of us is an expression of thousands of genetically based traits.
The ones we (still) use to determine "race" aren't especially important,
but they share one common characteristic: they are visually obvious!
-
We divide humans into groups based on blood type or fingerprint
patterns that make biological sense, but we do not give them "racial"
significance
-
Race is biologically meaningless (but real!)
Race does have biological and, most definitely, cultural consequences
-
For example, there are significant differences in rates od disease and
average life span between different racial groupings in the United States
-
These discrepancies can be attributed, at least partially, to racism and
discrimination
-
Racism: the repressive, practices, structures, beliefs, and representations
that uphold racial categories and social inequality
-
Discrimination: the negative or unfair treatment of an individual because
of his or her membership in a particular social group or category
-
How is race culturally constructed?
Cultural processes make artificial seem natural. This is true of race, as
with other cultural constructions
-
As obvious and natural as American ideas about race seem (to Americans,
at least) they were learned at some point.
"How Africans Became "Black" and Europeans Became "White" in
Seventeenth-Century Virginia"
○
-
A primary cause is racialization: the social, economic, and political
processes of transforming populations into races and creating racial
meanings
-
Other Social Classifications
Ethnicity, class, and caste may be naturalized in much the same way as
race to justify social hierarchies.
-
"Race" and "ethnicity" are sometimes used interchangeably, but the
terms have distinctly different meanings.
-
Ethnicity: belonging to a group with a particular history and social status
and ancestry
-
Race is assumed to have some biological reality tied to physical
appearance. Ethnicity may be based on any number of cultural traits:
language or dialect, clothing, foodways, etiquette, or bodily modifications
such as tattoos or piercings
-
Class: the hierarchical distinctions between social groups are usually based on
wealth, occupation, and social standing
The socioeconomic "accident of birth" has profound consequences for
education, occupation, class mobility, and place of residence
-
In earlier times, there was less recognition of the "luck" factor. Americans
equated lower socioeconomics status with biological inferiority and lesser
intelligence, thus naturalizing wealth and the capacity to acquire it.
-
Caste and Casteism
Social stratification (the classification of people into unequal groupings)
may be formalized as caste (the system found in Indian society that
divides people into categories according to moral purity and pollution)
-
Based on hindu texts
-
Major social categories called VARNAS
Brahmans (priests)
○
Kshatriyas (warriors and rulers)
○
Vaishyas (merchants/traders)
○
Shudras( labourers/artisans/servants)
○
Beneath these four varna groups are the Dalits, or outcasts,
untouchables
○
-
Caste
Each varna and the Dalit contain hundreds of locally named groups called
jatis
-
Frequently named after their occupations (famer. Saltmaker)
-
Varna divisions are more theoretical and jati are the more significant
terms in most local villages
-
Jatis are ascribed status groups (born into them) and all of them within
each varna are also ranked
-
Involves several mechanisms that maintain it
-
Marriage rules
Strictly enforce jati endogamy, with marriage outside of one's jati, is
cause for serious punishment
○
-
Spatial segregation
Functions to maintain the privileges of the upper castes and to
remind lower castes of their marginal status
○
Dalits may live in complete isolation
○
-
Ritual
Only certain priests can perform certain ceremonies
○
-
Notion of purity
Certain foods and occupations
○
Jatis are ranked on a scale - purest to most polluted
○
Ranked highest are the vegetarian Brahmins
○
-
The lowest ranking jatis are unclean meat eaters and include
stoneworkers and basketweavers (who eat pork) and leatherworkers
(who eat pork and beef)
-
Occupations that involve slaughtering animals or touching polluted things
are themselves polluting
-
Social mobility within the caste system has traditionally been limited, but
there is upcasting.
-
Many Indians, especially those in urban settings, are promoting the
decline of the caste hierarchy via democracy and affirmative action
programs
-
However, formal legislation against discrimination and the actual end of
everyday discrimination are very different things.
-
Are prejudice and discrimination inevitable?
Is prejudice (preformed, usually unfavorable opinions about people who
are different) an unavoidable result of living in a world of "others"?
-
Most forms of prejudice (whether based on race, ethnicity, religion,
sexual orientations, etc.) are acquired as part of our enculturation - from
trusted elders, authority figures, media, and peers
See "Classic Contributions: Hortense Powdermaker on Prejudice"
○
Creation of false generalizations.
○
-
Learned behavioral patterns can be unlearned.
-
Explicit and Disguised Discrimination, unearned privilege
Explicit discrimination is easier to identify because it makes no effort to
hide and is an accepted norm, evident in institutions and laws.
-
Disguised discrimination may live on well beyond the "official" end of its
explicit source.
-
Perhaps the most disguised, or unrecognized, aspect of discrimination is
unearned privilege: an unnoticed and underappreciated lack of
discrimination against certain groups.
Light-skinned people may do everyday things without additional
attention or judgment directed at them.
○
Racial profiling.
○
Media.
○
Fighting discrimination requires the recognition and efforts of both
those who are discriminated against and those who aren't.
○
-
Systemic Racism in Canada
Systematic racism includes the policies and practices entrenched in
established institutions, which result in the exclusion or promotion of
designated groups. It differs from overt discrimination in that no
individual intent is necessary.
-
Institutional racism - individuals carrying out the dictates of others who
are prejudice.
-
Structural racism - inequalities rooted in the system-wide operations of a
society that excludes certain members from significant participation.
-
Education - a white story with color added in.
-
Hiring and Advancement Practices - looking for the right 'fit'.
-
Access to Sports/Recreation - system designed for middle class
professional white families.
-
Apples and Indians
-
From the DVD First Stories Volume 1
-
Available on YouTube https://youtu.be/DpWli1Q5CVc
-
Summary: Forms of Social Inequality
Race, ethnicity, caste (and gender)
-
Share characteristics with each other and class-based systems
Relegate large number of people to particular levels of entitlement
to livelihood, power, security, esteem and freedom.
○
Dominance.
○
Seek to maintain position.
○
Instances of rebellion do occur.
○
-
Watch: Suggested Video - People Like Us: Social Class in America -
https://vimeo.com/122468054
Race,
Ethnicity,…
Week 8, Lecture 13
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Document Summary
Race: a concept that organizes people into groups based on specific physical traits that are thought to reflect fundamental and innate differences. "historical research has shown that the idea of "race" has always carried more meanings than mere physical differences; indeed, physical variations in the human species have no meaning except the social ones that humans put on them" Naturalization: the social processes through which something, such as race, becomes part of the natural order of things. Since the 18th century, european and american scientists have attempted to divide human variability into subspecies or "races" Racial typologies share a fundamental flaw: there are no diagnostic genes or genetic traits that belong to only one "racial" group and no others. Johann friedrich blumenbach (1752-1840) identified five human races. Similarly, american folk taxonomy divides people into vibrant "colors" Futile attempt to account for the true variability of our species. An adaptational approach to race links physical traits with environment.
