Thus Christian humanism is as indispensable to the Christian way of life as Christian ethics and a Christian sociology.
Inequalities of Race and Ethnicity
by
Charles Lamson
The Meaning of Race and Ethnicity
How can we explain prejudice and racial discrimination and the inequalities they engender? And how can we measure their effects on individuals and social institutions? Many social scientists focus their research on why some groups in a society have been subordinated and the consequences of that subordination for them and their children. The effects of various forms of subordination, such as slavery, expulsion, and discrimination, on a society's patterns of inequality are at the center of the study of race and ethnicity.
Given the ever-changing diversity of the population, racial and ethnic relations in the United States are always complex and sometimes marked by overt conflict. No sooner does the society appear to be making some progress in combating prejudice and discrimination than new issues and problems appear.
The United States is not unique In the extent to which inequality and hostility among its ethnic and racial groups result in severe social problems.
Given its importance throughout the world, it is no wonder that the study of racial and ethnic relations has always been a major subfield of sociology. Most societies include minority groups, people who are defined as different according to the majority's perceptions of racial or cultural differences. And in many societies sociologists try to get at the origins of these fears and groundless distinctions that categorize people as different and influence their life chances, often in dramatic ways.
In the next couple of posts we first look at how race and ethnicity lead to the formation of groups that have a sense of themselves as different from the dominant group. Then we analyze patterns of inequality and intergroup relations. Finally we discuss cultural consequences, particularly in American society. This is followed by a presentation of social-scientific theories that seek to explain the phenomena of intergroup conflict and accommodation.
Race: A Social Concept
Of the millions of species of animals on earth, ours, Homo sapiens, is the most widespread. For the past 10 Millennia we have been spreading northward and southward and across the oceans to every corner of the globe, but we have not done so as a single people. Rather, throughout our history we have been divided into innumerable societies, each of which maintains its own culture, thinks of itself as "we," and looks upon all others as "they." Through all the Millennia of warfare, migration, and population growth, we have been colliding and competing and learning to cooperate. The realization that we are one great people despite our immense diversity has been slow to evolve. We persist in creating arbitrary divisions based on physical differences that are summed up in the term race.
In biology, race refers to an inbreeding population that develops distinctive physical characteristics that are hereditary. Such a population therefore has a shared genetic heritage (Graves, 2001, The Emperor's New Clothes; Marks, December, 1994. Black, White, Other. Natural History, pp. 32-35). But the choice of which physical characteristics to use in classifying people into races is arbitrary. Skin color, hair form, blood type, and facial features such as nose shape and eye folds have been used by biologists in such efforts. In fact, however, the distribution of these traits overlaps considerably among the so-called races. Human groups have exchanged their genes through mating to such an extent that any attempt to identify pure races is bound to be fruitless (Gould, 1981, The Mismeasure of Man; Graves, 2001). Thus, biologists Joseph Graves points out:
As far as distinct lineages, throughout history, we have had too much gene flow between so-called races. If sub-Saharan Africans only mated with sub-Saharan Africans and Europeans only mated with Europeans then there might be unique lineages. But that has not occurred, particularly in America. Here, because of our history of chattel slavery, individuals are still classified as black by means of the "rule of hypodescent," whereby one drop of black blood makes one black. However, there is no biological rationale for this rule. (quoted in Villarosa, January 1, 2002, A Conversation with Joseph Graves. New York Times, p. F5)
Yet doesn't common sense tell us that there are different races? Can't we see there is a Negro or black, race of people with dark skin, tightly curled hair, and broad facial features a Caucasian, or white, race of people with pale skin and ample body hair and mongoloid or Oriental race of people with yellowish or reddish skin and drop-eyelids that give their eyes a slanted look? Of course these races exist. But they are not a set of distinct populations based on biological differences. The definitions of race used in different societies emerged from the interaction of various populations over long periods of human history. The specific physical characteristics that we use to assign people to different races are arbitrary and meaningless---people from the Indian subcontinent tend to have dark skin and straight hair; Africans from Ethiopia have dark skin and narrow facial features; American blacks have skin colors ranging from extremely dark to extremely light and whites have facial features and hair forms that include those of all the others supposed races. There is no scientifically valid typology of human races; blood count is what people in a society define as meaningful. In short, race is a social concept that varies from one society to another, depending on how the people of that society feel about the importance of certain physical differences among human beings. In reality, as Edward O Wilson 1979 has written, human beings are one great breeding system through which the genes flow and mix in each generation. Because of that flux, mankind viewed over many generations shares a single human nature within which relatively minor hereditary influences recycle through ever-changing patterns, between the Sexes and cross families and entire populations p. 52.
Racism
Throughout human history, many individuals and groups have rejected the idea of a single human people. Tragic mistakes and incalculable suffering have been caused by the application of enormous ideas about race and racial purity. they are among the most extreme consequences all the attitude known as racism.
Racism is an ideology based on the belief that an observable, supposedly inherited trait, such as skin color, is a mark of inferiority that justifies discriminatory treatment of people with that trait. In their classic text on racial and cultural minorities Simpson and Yinger (1953, Racial and Cultural Identities) highlighted several beliefs that are at the heart of racism. The most common of these is the doctrine of biologically superior and inferior races (p. 55). Before World War I, for example, many of the foremost social thinkers in the Western world firmly believed that whites were genetically superior to blacks in intelligence. However, when the U. S. Army administered IQ tests to its recruits, the results showed that performance on such tests was linked to social class background rather than to race. And when investigators controlled four differences in social class among the test takers, the racial differences in IQ disappeared (Kleinberg, 1935, Race Differences).
There is much evidence that IQ tests are biased against members of minority groups and that something as complex and elusive as intelligence cannot be summarized by a single score on a test. The history of efforts to address inequalities in education shows that efforts to address inequalities in education shows that when they have access to high-quality educational programs, minority students quickly began to achieve at the same level as white students (William Kornblum, 2003, Sociology in a Changing World, 6th ed. p. 381).
The notion that members of different races have different personalities, that there are identifiable racial cultures, and that ethical standards differ from one race to another are among the other racist doctrines that have been debunked by social scientific studies over the past 70 years. But even though these doctrines have been discredited, they continue to play a major role in intergroup relations in many nations. Racist beliefs in the inferiority of populations that are erroneously thought of as separate races remain one of the major social problems of the modern world. And this tendency to denigrate socially defined racial groups extends to members of particular ethnic groups as well.
*ADDITIONAL SOURCE: SOCIOLOGY IN A CHANGING WORLD, 6TH ED., 2003, WILLIAM KORNBLUM, PP. 380-381*
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