Wednesday, March 3, 1999
Announcements:

• Class is canceled on Friday – students instead must write a paper analyzing the movie Amistad using the six theories discussed in today’s lecture. The paper must be typed, double-spaced.

1. Problems of Race and Ethnicity

1. Race – a group of people who share biologically transmitted physical traits that are deemed to be socially significant. There are three categories of race: Caucasian, Negroid, and Mangoloid. Race causes conflict among many people all over the world.
2. Ethnicity – a shared cultural heritage of a distinct group of people. They share the same language, religion, music, lifestyle, etc. They are racially indistinguishable but culturally different. Arise out of cross-migration and inter-marrying. Race and Ethnicity are both social constructs, "pigments of our imagination"
3. Ethnic Cleansing – When one ethnic group decides to eliminate another ethnic group within a geographical area. Example: The holocaust, during which 6 million Jews were killed.
4. Theories of Prejudice (use to write the Amistad paper)

1. Primordalist Perspective – racial and ethnic stratification’s are a natural phenomenon of society. People innately favor people like themselves. They share a natural racial and cultural bond and naturally feel comfortable around one another.
2. Social-Psychological Theory – people’s situations and social experiences influence their beliefs

1. Authoritarian Personality Theory (Adorno) – People rigidly conform to conventional cultural norms and they are ethnocentric. They think they are superior to other groups of people. Racist people have little education and as children they have cold, authoritative parents. They vent this built up anger on other minority groups. Adorno derived this information from studying members of the KKK and Nazi Germans.
2. Scapegoat Theory – prejudice from frustration common among people who themselves are disadvantaged. Example: A single white female working at Wal-Mart who has 3 kids and is frustrated with her situation in life is likely to scapegoat other minority females who work there. Prejudice comes from powerlessness; people blame others for their own problems.
3. Projection Theory (linked to socialization) – Prejudice people are taught to see the world in black and white. They hide their own weaknesses and exaggerate the weaknesses of others. Example: A WASP male is greedy but he calls a Jewish businessman greedy to hide his own faults.

1. Social Learning Theory – socialization is a critical element in exploring prejudice and repetition of racism. People who grow up in a prejudice environment are very likely to become prejudice. Kids learn from their significant others how to act. By the age of 5 they imitate their parents and by the age of 9 they internalize their parents beliefs. Example: The professor’s child (brown skinned) played with a friend (white skinned) and they did not realize they were a different skin color until 3-4 years into their friendship. Example: During school one day the professors child came home and said that she saw a girl who could not open her eyes. Really the girl was just Chinese but her child was used to being around people with big, wide-open eyes.
2. Cultural Theory – social distance – we all live in cultural prejudice, it is embedded in our culture. Bogardus (a sociologist) said certain groups of people are favored more in society than others. Western Europeans are considered more valuable in society. African-Americans, Latin Americans, Mexicans, etc. are treated negatively.
3. Conflict Theory – most commonly used when analyzing prejudice

1. Internal Colonialism Theory – (colonization – economically, politically, and socially exploiting other countries) African Americans, Puerto Ricans, Native Americans, and Chicanos (Mexicans) are treated much like the foreign colonized nations in these ways:

1. Lower status than majority
2. Culture is weaker so they must adapt the majority’s dominant value profile
3. Subjected to Isolation
4. Excluded from decision-making positions
5. Forced to go through Anglo-conformity

1. Split Labor Market Theory – [involves three groups of people: High paid laborers (white majority), Lower paid laborers (minorities), and Employers (small group of people)] The high paid laborers demand from the employers that they discriminate against minorities so they have no competition for economic resources. Minorities are kept out of trade unions.
2. Marxist Theory – racism benefits the capitalists – By justifying racism they justify low wages for minorities. They create an ideology of prejudice (a rumor) to justify the capitalists keeping of minorities at low wages. Example: "We can’t pay them a lot of money because they are lazy and have no skills." Racism is a product of social conflict. The capitalists exploit workers by method of "Divide and Rule" – they divide the workers so they do not unite against a common grievance.

1. Race Consciousness – minorities themselves incite conflict. They use race consciousness as a political strategy to improve their conditions. They want special privileges and justify all their bad deeds by blaming them on society. Example: A professor from Uganda always blames the white males for her situation even though there is no evidence whatsoever to support her claim.