1. Race and Racism

2. Majority and Minority
In contemporary US Race Realtions, old forms of discrimination thrive alongside new patterns of inequality.
Majority group - holds superior power, use that power to dominate a less-powerful group.
Minority groups are dominated by more powerful groups.
Majority and Minority are words used to describe power differences. There might be more people in the minority group than in the majority group. The difference is in the amount of power each group holds.
Racial problems and racism have a basis in the structure of the United States. This structure has been established between the history of the majority and minority and the continuing domination of one group over others.

3. Quiz
In the article Something About the Subject Makes it Hard To Name – Gloria Yomato distinguishes between aware/blatant racism, aware/covert racism, unaware/unintentional racism, and unaware/self-righteous racism. Define two of these.
What is “White Privilege”?
Give one example of what might be in the White privilege backback.
What is the number one crime on Navajo Reservations?

4. Racial Formation What did we talk about the second week?
Is race biological or is it socially constructed?
What does socially constructed mean?
Society creates racial categories. Racial difference has been created by the majority, and they are used to oppress the minority.

5. The Black/White Binary
The way we talk about and deal with racism tends to be based on on understanding of race as a black and white thing.
Whites are usually seen as race-less. Race is seen as only being a problem for people of color.
White is neutral, normal. White is natural.
Black is evil, dangerous, suspect. Black is not normal, sub-human.
This “binary” is used to understand a lot of race relations in the US.
Why the Black-White Model for understanding racism? What does Elizabeth Martinez say about this?

6. Why the Black-White Model?
Numbers, Geography, and History
Due to African American history of slavery in the US, black people have been (until recently) the most numerous minority.
The darkness of Africans skin was part of the reason they were sought out as slaves. This was a calculated decision. Dark skin made it easier to identify slaves, so they would not be able to escape as easily.
Europeans and US society used that dark skin to define their own skin as light...as white.
Whiteness was used to make claims about blackness. One was superior, the other inferior.

7. Why the Black White Model?
In early US History, Asians, Mexicans, and Native Americans were not as much of a threat to white purity. Ranchero elites in Texas were of mixed Spanish blood.
These nationalities were seen as not white, but not black either.
The oppression and exploitation of Latinos and Asians is not as well known to most Americans.
US culture is self-centered. It does not acknowledge that it shares a hemisphere with mostly spanish speaking peoples. This is only now starting to register on the race radar, as the US immigrant population is growing.

8. Seeing More than Black and White
Treating race as only a black/white thing hides a lot of the complexity and extensiveness of race problems.
Martinez emphasizes that she is not bringing this up to contest that black folks have had it rough.
She wants to shift the attention from the black-white binary to the multiple contexts where and how racism occurs in the new global economy.
The goal is to identify commonalities between between people of color to fight white supremacy.
What are some of those commonalities?

9. Seeing More than Black and White
Commonalities:
European colonization, Neocolonialism, overall exploitation that goes along with both of these historical and economic contexts.
Contemporary Commonalities:
Poverty, violence (police brutality and hate crimes), inadequate schools, inadequate health care, segregation of communities...
These commonalities mean that the fight against racism can be won through alliances of people of color.

10. Race or Ethnicity
Race is used just to distinguish people by there physical features.
Ethnicity is a construction as well, but it is broader, and might include national origin, religion, or language to construct difference.
How is the construction of ethnicity by the dominant group to oppress the minority?
Anti-immigrant racism is a good example. Whiteness and citizenship are treated as an ethnicity that gives people the right to want to protect their borders.

11. Race or Ethnicity
Racial Ethnic Group- groups that are oppressed and remain culturally distinct in US culture.
African American, Asian American, and Native American are categories used to group people based on their common history, their culture, and their common identity.
These similarities depend on the racial hierarchy that has been constructed in US society.
The meaningfulness of cultural difference depends on the politics of race and oppression in US society.

12. Comparing Ethnicities and Races
The US population will continue to “brown” over the next century.
By 2050, whites will make up 53% of the population. People of color will make up about 47% of the population.
European immigrants made up 4/5ths of the population in 1900.
European immigrants did face ethnic troubles when the first came to the US; however, by the early 1900s, most European groups had achieved full participation in US politics and economy.

13. African Americans
Almost all AA in the US now are descendants of Africans that were forcibly brought to the US during the slave trade.
In 1890, 90% of all blacks lived in the South. 80% lived in rural areas.
When slavery was abolished, black people left the South in large numbers and migrated to cities in the Northeast.
They thought they would find a better life, but many found discrimination still existed in the form of housing and employment discrimination and forced segregation.

14. Latinos-as/Chicanos-as
US Latino population has passed the AA population.
69% of all Latinos are Mexican American;8.6% are Puerto Ricans; 3.7% are Cubans, 14.3% are Central and South American, 6.5% are other Hispanic.
The word “hispanic” was created – constructed – by statisticians, so that they could label all people from Spanish speaking countries.
Latinos from the various spanish-speaking countries have distinctive histories.
These histories set them apart, but histories with colonization, etc might bring them together...

15. Latinos-as/Chicanos-as
Some Mexican Americans are indigenous to the Southwest. They lived in this area when it was forcibly annexed by the US. Other Mexican Americans have been migrating and immigrating since the 1800s.
Puerto Rico is a US commonwealth. It is controlled by the US.
Cubans immigrated to the US as political refugees between the 1960s and 1980s.
With global trace policies as they are, Salvadorans and Guatemalans have been migrating to the US more recently.

16. Asian Americans
When we say Asian, we are referring to a vast number and variety of people in the US.
22% of Asian Am are Chinese, 20% are Filipino, 9.2% are Japanese, 10% are Vietnamese, 10% are Korean, and 16% are Indian.
Most Asian Americans come from recent immigrants, but some can trace their families history back 150 years in the US.
There is a long period of US history that where Asian immigrants were specifically targetted in anti-Asian laws.
Chinese Exclusion Act was from ; 1879 California Constitution barred hiring of Chinese laborers.

17. Native Americans
Native Americans comprise about 1.5% of the US population.
As many as 7 million Natives lived in the US settlers arrived.
In one of the greatest genocides in history, all but 250,000 were killed...through warfare and intentional and unintentional spreading of disease.
Indians were forcibly removed from their lands, and relocated to less fertile and productive lands.
The Indian Removal Act was signed in 1830.
17,000 natives were forced to leave their homes and settlements – called the “Trail of Tear”. 8,000 people died.

18. Native Americans
When isolating Native Americans on reservations was achieved, the US government adapted a policy that would “ease” Indians into extinction. They would assimilate them into culture. Boarding schools were established; they were issued European style clothing; banned from speaking their native language; and expected to convert to Christianity. They were to become “civilized”.
The Indian New Deal – allowed tribal self governance.
Termination and Relocation – legislation that sought to terminate the reservations and relocate Indians in to cities, etc.

19. Theories that are used to explain the differences btw Ethnicities
Biological Deficiency – there are certain traits that people of color possess that make them genetically flawed.
Cultural deficiency- The lifestyles of minorities are the problem. They have no moralityty. This is why they suffer from poverty, etc.
Bias Theories – blame individuals from the majority for prejudice. If individual bigots would change their behavior, race problems would go away.

20. Structural Discrimination Theories
Racism is embedded in the structures of society.
Distinguishes individual racism from institutional racism.
a. History and society’s institutions defined and enforced norms and role relationships that
were racially distinct.
b. Discrimination can occur without conscious bigotry; racial discrimination is the “normal”
outcome of the system.
c. Institutional discrimination is more difficult to prove or locate than individual
discrimination.
d. Institutional racism is reinforced because institutions are interrelated; their effects (i.e.,
inequality) are cumulative.

21. Race and Discrimination
Having a middle class that is comprised of people of color does not prevent racism.

22. Race, Income, Wealth
In 2003, the median income of Black households was about $30,000; for Hispanics $33,000; and for Whites $48,000.
The racial wealth gap, consisting of racial differences in home ownership, pension funds,savings accounts, and investments, is generational–it gets passed on as assets (or negativewealth) to each generation.
Blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans are three times more likely to be poor than Whites.

23. Race, Income, Wealth
While homeownership for racial minorities has gone up, racial discrimination in employment, housing, and insurance preserves racial inequality.
Most poor people are White.

24. Race, Education, and Segregation
The 2004 high school graduation rates for Whites is 90%, compared with 86% for Asian Americans, 80% for African Americans, and 58% for Latinos.
In 2002, 81% of college students across the U.S. were White followed by 12% African American and 12% Latino.
General movement against taxes leads to educational funding problems negatively affecting minority areas the worst.
even with a college degree, African Americans and Latinos had far higher unemployment rates than their White counterparts.
Racial minorities, regardless of their education levels, are underpaid compared with Whites
of similar education.

25. Race, Education, and Segregation
A college educated White male will earn 30% more than college educated Black and Latino males and 40% more than educated White females.

26. Work and Structural Racism
In 2004, the unemployment rate for Latinos was 7%, compared with 10% for African Americans, and 5% for Whites.
Minorities are over-represented in jobs whose pay is least likely to lift a family of four abovethe poverty line.
Sociological research shows that race is related to workplace recruitment, hiring, firing, and promotion.
The new economy of low-paying, low-skilled jobs is increasingly made up of people of color.

27. Racism and Health Care
Environmental racism is the disproportionate exposure of some racial groups to environmental toxic substances.
Race is the strongest predictor of hazardous waste facilities in the country, even after adjustment for social class.
African Americans are 23% more likely to die from all types of cancer than Whites, Latinos are almost twice as likely to die from diabetes as are Whites, White men live about 7 years longer than Black men, and White women live about 5 years
longer than Black women.