Chapter 5 - Race & Racism

Race & Racism: - - - - Anthropologists view race as a framework of categorizing created to divide human population Ace is not scientifically real - Contemporary studies of human genetics show NO biologically distinct human groups Skin color is only 0.1% of person's genetic code Skin color is adaptable to the environment Genotype is what we inherited genetically Phenotype is way genes are expressed Racial categories are human constructs, not found in nature Colonialism became the centerpiece of economic activity - Classification of people based on phenotype created a hierarchy - After ww2, colonial-racism changed very much over the last century Brazil was last to end slavery They had words like: pure white, off white, pinkish white, light darkish white, dirty white, coffee colored They never banned interacial marriage One drop of blood rule in US says if you have one black ancestor, you are black - Not present in brazil Race in brazil is not just color of skin - includes wealth, land ownership, & education determine social status Even after slavery ended, there were domestic workers - Not as bad as slavery, but workers were physically, mentally, and sexually abused Race construction in US - It is on forms, school applications, birth certificates, in media - Race shapes political, economic, religious, educational, & cultural institutions - # of categories in the US census have expanded from 1850 - In 1850- white, black, mulatto - 1870- white, black, mulatto, chinese, and indian (native american) - 1940 - white, black, indian, chinese, japanese, filipinos, hindu, & korean - 2010 you could choose multiple - Racial system developed in a mix of slavery and european coming to North America - New land was very big, and they didn’t have enough labor, so they began to import slaves - Susie Phipps in 1982 changed the law - She looked white, but her birth certificate said black - If your ancestry was 1/32, they will be considered black \ Race & immigration - 19th century, boundaries of whiteness have been a big deal - Nativism - the desire to favor native inhabitants over the new immigrants - Chinese immigrants arrived in large numbers in the 1850s to work in california's gold mines, farms, and railroad constructions, european laborers saw them as competitors for jobs - Irish, Italian, Greeks, and Eastern Europeans (like Jews) were not considered white because they were not anglo-saxon protestants - It is not only about “race” - They became white by moving upward in class GI bill of rights - Provided many benefits and programs to male white soldiers - Preference in hiring, financial support, etc. - This helped italian & irish white people move up in class Middle Easterners - After 9/11, we see another border in the race debates in US - But middle easterners are still considered white Types of racism - Individual - Expressed through beliefs & discriminating actions - Making negative assumptions about their appearance - Institutional (structural) - Patterns of inequality based on race & appearance protected & enforced by policies of cultural institutions & systems - In 2003, public schools w/ proportions of POC students received about 10,000; but schools with proportions of white students received 13,000 Racial ideology - Believe thaht discriminatory behaviors of individuals and institutions are reasonable or normal - US is supposedly meritocracy, which means they view people as products of their own efforts and hard work, not color -