Race & Ethnic Relations

Instructor: Alexis Álvarez

alexisalvarez@earthlink.netPlease put SOC in the subject or I may not receive your email.

Required Text

American Ethnicity, ISBN: 0073404217

The Autobiography of Malcolm X, ISBN: 0345350685

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Why take a course in sociology?

• To increase your knowledge of your world.

• To learn the essential tools to answer socially important questions on your own.

• To objectively interpret the everyday situations in your family, work, or social life.

• To better understand what is cultural and what is universal.

The Foundation of Sociology

Objectivity: the capacity to understand something based on its functions and consequences.

Subjectivity: judging something based on emotional reactions or cultural biases.

The Basis of Ethnocentrism

Insecurity

Immaturity

Ignorance

Need to feel important,good, smart, and normal

Supremacy

Ethnocentrism is the application of any subjective interpretation on something removed from one’s culture. Judging an attribute of a culture based on one’s own subjectivity, which almost inevitably leads to the perception of oneself as superior in comparison to the target culture.

Personal Culture: an individual’s learned behavior; the sum total of one’s knowledge, values and perceptions.

National Culture: the symbols and patterns of behavior most intimately associated with a state-level organization, such as the currency used, dominant language, prevalent religion, calendar, alphabet, measurement units, etc..

Ethnocentrism

The application of any subjective interpretation on something removed from one’s culture. Judging an attribute of a culture based on one’s own subjectivity, which almost inevitably leads to the perception of oneself as superior in comparison to the target culture.

Intersubjectivity

Similarity in values, beliefs, norms, accents, preferences, fears, calendar/holidays, etc. increases the overlap in the overall subjectivity between a speaker/writer and a listener/reader. This overlap is the amount of intersubjectivity among actors, and never reaches 100%.

Race = Face. One’s physical features resulting solely from genetic ancestry. May or may not include size and build. Racial typologies break down facial features into anywhere from 2 to more than 20 racial categories in rare cases. These are culturally—not scientifically—assigned categories.

Ethnicity: Socially constructed categories pointing to culture (learned behavior). Language, religion, music, table (or no table) manners, etc..

Nationality: One’s citizenship; the name of one’s country. Sometimes crosses over into ethnicity (Palestinian, Kurd, Navaho, Hmong, Okinawan, Sinhalese, Tibetan, Inuit, etc.).

Nativity: The act of being born somewhere.

Typology of Cultural Identity

Who are Americans?What cultural commonalities do Americans share?

Official Language: English Currency: US dollar

Measurement Units: English/Imperial (pounds, inches, Fahrenheit degrees, miles, etc.)

Normative Political Ideology: republican democracy

Normative Economic Ideology: capitalism

Primary Variable in Social Organization: race/face

Cultural Ancestry: English, Scotch-Irish, Dutch, German

Who are Venezuelans?What cultural commonalities do Venezuelans share?

Official Language: Spanish Currency: bolívar

Measurement Units: Metric (meters, liters, grams, centigrade/Celsius degrees)

Normative Political Ideology: social democracy

Normative Economic Ideologies: capitalism & socialism

Primary Variable in Social Organization: material

Cultural Ancestry: Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Yoruba, Dahomey, Senegalese, American (Cacique, Yanomamö, Caracas, etc.)

Who are Angolans?What cultural commonalities do Angolans share?

Official Language: Portuguese Currency: kwanza

Measurement Units: Metric (meters, liters, grams, centigrade/Celsius degrees)

Normative Political Ideology: social democracy

Normative Economic Ideologies: capitalism & socialism

Primary Variable in Social Organization: linguistic

Cultural Ancestry: Portuguese, Bolo, Diriku, Kongo, !ung-Ekoka, Kwanyama, Luyana, Maligo, Mashi, Mbukushu, Mbunda, Ngandyera, Nyaneka, Sama, Yombe.

Castism/Racism: The effect of someone’s facial or other inherited physical features on your behavior towards them. Often has a highly ethnic dimension. Characterized by few categories.

Colorism: Within groups that consider themselves to be racially or ethnically homogeneous, variable skin color affects resulting behavior. Characterized by many categories.

Nationalism: The effect of someone’s flag, citizenship, or allegiance to political groups on your behavior towards them.

Nativism/Colonialism: The effect of being (or not being) from the cultural setting in which an encounter takes place. Often has a highly ethnic dimension and is intertwined with racism.

Sexism: The effect of someone’s physical and/or behavioral aspects of their sexuality on your behavior towards them.

Typology of Discrimination

Colonialism and NativismColonialism is the control of one society by another. It takes shape along four evolutionary stages [and prevalent base of power]:

1) forced entry into colonized territory [coercive]

2) destruction of indigenous culture [coercive/admin]

3) domination of indigenous people by invaders [admin/material]

4) justification of colonization via highly biased indoctrination of colonizers and colonized [symbolic/admin]

Nativism is the maturation of colonialism to the 4th stage, in which the colonists replace the indigenous culture and become the new natives.

Institutionalizedracism

Normalizationof racism

Frequency and intensityof racist rituals

Propensity forracism at the

individual level

Racism in state-level societies

Differentiation

Conflict

Hierarchy

Oppression

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