Reading Response "RACE" URGENT DEADLINE 4PM TODAY Please read the readings posted below. Then write a 200-400 response to the reading. Responses can consist of intelligent questions, disagreements wit

"Races" are socially constructed, defined in terms of contrasts perceived in particular societies. In the United States children of mixed unions, no matter what they look like, tend to be classified with the minority-group parent.

Other cultures have different systems of racial classification.

Environmental variables involving educational, economic, and social backgrounds provide better explanations for performance on intelligence tests by races, classes, and ethnic groups than do genetic differ­ ences in learning ability.

Most nation-states are not ethnically homogeneous. Multi­ culturalism contrasts with assimilation, in which minorities abandon their cultural traditions. Ethnicity can be expressed in peaceful coexistence, or in discrimination or violent con­ frontation. A dominant group may try to destroy ethnic prac­ tices (ethnocide) or force ethnic-group members to adopt the dominant culture (forced assimilation). 41.3 14.1% 12.1 .4.1 3.9 1.3 0.4 0.1 2.2 0.8 36.0 12.2 197.8 67.4 293.7 100.0% According to Fredrik Barth (1969), ethnicity can be said to exist when people claim a certain ethnic identity for themselves and are defined by others as having that identity. Ethnicity means identifica­ tion with, and feeling part of, an ethnic group and exclusion from certain other groups because of this affiliation. But issues of ethnicity can be complex. The "News Brief" describes how African Ameri­ cans who travel to Ghana to strengthen or reclaim an ethnic heritage are excluded from that heritage by many Ghanaians. Ethnic feelings and associated behavior vary in intensity within ethnic groups and countries and over time. A change in the degree of importance attached to an ethnic identity may reflect political changes (Soviet rule ends­ ethnic feeling rises) or individual life-cycle changes (young people relinquish, or old people reclaim, an ethnic background).

We saw in the chapter "Culture" that people participate in levels of culture. Groups within a cul­ ture (including ethnic groups in a nation) have dif­ ferent learning experiences as well as shared ones. Cultural differences may be associated with ethnic­ ity, class, region, or religion. Individuals often have more than one group identity. People may be loyal (depending on circumstances) to their neighbor­ hood, school, town, state or province, region, nation, continent, religion, ethnic group, or interest group (Ryan 1990, p. xxii). In a complex society such as the United States or Canada, people con­ stantly negotiate their social identities. All of us "wear different hats," presenting ourselves some­ times as one thing, sometimes as another.

In daily conversation, we hear the term status used as a synonym for prestige. In this context, "She's got a lot of status" means she's got a lot of prestige; people look up to her. Among social scien­ tists, that's not the primary meaning of "status." Social scientists use status more neutrally-for any position, no matter what the prestige, that someone 96 PART 2 Cultural Diversity r 19 12 occupies in society. In this sense, status encom­ passes the various positions that people occupy in society. Parent is a social status. So are professor, student, factory worker, Democrat, shoe salesper­ son, homeless person, labor leader, ethnic-group member, and thousands of others. People always occupy multiple statuses (e.g., Hispanic, Catholic, infant, brother). Among the statuses we occupy, particular ones dominate in particular settings, such as son or daughter at home and student in the classroom.

Some statuses are ascribed: People have little or no choice about occupying them. Age is an ascribed status; we can't choose not to age. Race and gender usually are ascribed; people are born members of a certain group and remain so all their lives. Achieved statuses, by contrast, aren't automatic; they come through choices, actions, efforts, talents, or accomplishments, and may be positive or negative (Figure 5.1). Examples of achieved statuses include physician, senator, con­ victed felon, salesperson, union member, father, and college student. Status Shifting Sometimes statuses, particularly ascribed ones, are mutually exclusive. It's hard to bridge the gap between black and white, or male and female. Sometimes, taking a status or joining a group requires a conversion experience, acquiring a new and overwhelming primary identity, such as becoming a "born again" Christian. hi. IAscribed statuses III Achieved statuses FIGURE 5.1 Social Statuses.

The person in this figure--ego, - or -(--occupies many SOCIal statuses. The green Circles indicate ascribed statuses, the purple circles representachieved statuses.

f" TABLE 5.2 American Hispanics, Latinos, 2002 National Origin Percentage Mexican American 66.9% Puerto Rican 8.6 Cuban 3.7 Central & South American 14.3 Other Hispanic/Latino origin 6.5 Total 100.0% SOURCE, R. R. Ramirez and G. P. de 10 Cruz, "The Hispanic Population in the United States," Current Population Reports, 2003, P20-545. U.S. Census Bureau. "Hispanic" and "Latino" are ethnic categories that cross-cut Some statuses aren't mutually exclusive, but "racial" contrasts such contextual. People can be both black and His­ as that between panic, or both a mother and a senator. One iden­ "black" and "white." tity is used in certain settings, another in different Note the physical ones. We call this the situational negotiation of diversity exemplified by social identity. When ethnic identity is flexible these Latina teenagers and situational, it can become an achieved sta­ tus (Leman 2001). Hispanics, for example, may move through levels of culture (shifting ethnic affiliations) as they negotiate their identities. "Hispanic" is an ethnic category based mainly on language. It includes whites, blacks, and "racially" mixed Spanish speakers and their ethnically conscious descendants. (There are also "Native American," and even" Asian," Hispanics.) "Hispanic," repre­ senting the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States, lumps together millions of people of diverse geographic origin-Puerto Rico, Mex­ ico, Cuba, EI Salvador, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, and other Spanish-speaking countries of Central and South America and the Caribbean. 1 "Latino" is a broader category, which can also a1 include Brazilians (who speak Portuguese). The dl national origins of American Hispanics/Latinos U II~ in 2002 were as shown in Table 5.2. Mexican Americans (Chicanos), Cuban Amer­ oj icans, and Puerto Ricans may mobilize to pro­ ~~ mote general Hispanic issues (e.g., opposition to "English-only" laws) but act as three separate d interest groups in other contexts. Cuban Ameri­ cans are richer on average than Chicanos and ~ Puerto Ricans are, and their class interests and vot­ rl ing patterns differ. Cubans often vote Republican, 11i but Puerto Ricans and Chicanos are more likely to l:j favor Democrats. Some Mexican Americans whose ~ families have lived in the United States for genera­ ~ tions have little in common with new Hispanic immigrants, such as those from Central America. ~ Many Americans (especially those fluent in Eng­ ~ lish) claim Hispanic ethnicity in some contexts but ~ shift to a general" American" identity in others.

In many societies an ascribed status is associ­ ated with a position in the social-political hierar­ chy. Certain groups, called minority groups, are subordinate. They have inferior power and less secure access to resources than do majority groups (which are superordinate, dominant, or control­ ling). Often ethnic groups are minorities. When an ethnic group is assumed to have a biological basis (distinctively shared "blood" or genes), it is called a race. Discrimination against such a group is called racism (Cohen 1998; Kuper 2005; Montagu 1997; Scupin 2003; Shanklin 1995). RACE Race, like ethnicity in general, is a cultural cate­ gory rather than a biological reality. That is, eth­ nic groups, including "races," derive from contrasts perceived and perpetuated in particu­ lar societies, such as Ghana, as described in the "News Brief," rather than from scientific classifi­ cations based on common genes (see Wade 2002). It is not possible to define human races biolog­ ically. Only cultural constructions of race are possible-even though the average person con­ ceptualizes "race" in biological terms. The belief that human races exist and are important is much more common among the public than it is among scientists. Most Americans, for example, believe that their population includes biologi­ cally based "races" to which various labels have been applied. These labels include "white," "black," "yellow," "red," "Caucasoid," "Negroid," "Mongoloid," "Amerindian," "Euro-American," "African American," "Asian American," and "Native American." We hear the words ethnicity and race frequently, but American culture doesn't draw a very clear line between them. As an illustration, consider two 100 PART 2 Cultural Diversity _____________________ u so ie )s r­ )­ o e 1­ :i articles in the New York Times of May 29,1992. One, discussing the changing ethnic composition of the United States, states (correctly) that Hispanics "can be of any race" (Barringer 1992, p. A12). In other words, "Hispanic" is an ethnic category that cross-cuts "racial" contrasts such as that between "black" and "white." The other article reports that during the Los Angeles riots of spring 1992, "hun­ dreds of Hispanic residents were interrogated about their immigration status on the basis of their race alone [emphasis added]" (Mydans 1992a, American rules for assigning racial status can be even more arbitrary. In some states, anyone known to have any black ancestor, no matter how remote, is classified as a member of the black race. This is a rule of descent (it assigns social identity on the basis of ancestry), but of a sort that is rare outside the contemporary United States. It is called hypodescent (Harris and Kottak 1963) (hypo means "lower") because it automatically places the children of a union or mating between members of different groups in the minority group. Hypodescent helps divide American soci­ ety into groups that have been unequal in their access to wealth, power, and prestige. The following case from Louisiana is an excel­ lent illustration of the arbitrariness of the hypo­ descent rule. It also illustrates the role that governments (federal, or state in this case) play in legalizing, inventing, or eradicating race and eth­ nicity (Williams 1989). Susie Guillory Phipps, a light-skinned woman with "Caucasian" features and straight black hair, discovered as an adult that she was "black." When Phipps ordered a copy of her birth certificate, she found her race listed as "colored." Since she had been "brought up white and married white twice," Phipps challenged a 1970 Louisiana law declaring anyone with at least one-thirty-second "Negro blood" to be legally black. In other words, having 1 "Negro" great­ great-great-grandparent out of 32 is sufficient to make one black. Although the state's lawyer Chapter 5 Ethnicity and Race Tiger Woods in Texas for the EDS Byron Nelson Championship on May 14, 2004 The numberof inter­ racial marriages and children is increasing. which has implications for the traditional Amer­ ican system of racial classification What IS Tigers race? Map 7plats the distribution -of human skin calor in relation to ultraviolet radiation from the sun.

101 admitted that Phipps "looks like a white person," the state of Louisiana insisted that her racial clas­ sification was proper (Yetman 1991, pp. 3--4). Cases like Phipps's are rare, because "racial" and ethnic identities are usually ascribed at birth and usually don't change. The rule of hypodes­ cent affects blacks, Asians, Native Americans, and Hispanics differently (see Hunter 2005). It's easier to negotiate Indian or Hispanic identity than black identity. The ascription rule isn't as definite, and the assumption of a biological basis isn't as strong.

To be considered "Native American," one ancestor out of eight (great-grandparents) or four (grandparents) may suffice. This depends on il whether the assignment is by federal or state law p or by an Indian tribal council. The child of a His­ n panic may (or may not, depending on context) at claim Hispanic identity. Many Americans with an fe Indian or Latino grandparent consider them­ bE selves "white" and lay no claim to minority­ group status. otl {.-~ C Perceptions of Race and Skin Color on an American College Campus 1!!8ACKGROUND INfORMATION fmlDlln:

Gretchen M. Haupt !!SUl'EllVISING PROFESSOR: Donna Hart SotooL:

University of Missouri-St. Louis YIAR IN SCHOOL/MAJOR: Junior/ Anth ropology FUTURE PLANS: Complete a master's in library science and pursue research as a librarian in an academic setting. PRoJKT Tm£: Perceptions of Race and Skin Color on an American College Campus For her senior honors thesis, Gretchen Haupt plans to buildon the research pro­ ject described here. To demonstrate that Americans' perceptions of race, in relation toskin color, are arbitrary and socially constructed, Haupt asked asample of 30 students, Euro-Americans and African Americans, to complete a task: place 30 pigment chips inorder from darkest to lightest. Having done so, they were then asked to identify the dividing line between "black" and "white." How much unifor­ mity do you expect shefound in their responses? Read the essay tofind out. T here is no such biological reality as separate human races. Extensive research conducted on the subject of variation within our species has only served to confirm that the biological definition of race is not applicable to humans. Despite this, people continue to put the global population in neat, concise little groups (or at least they attempt to). Inevitably, the dividing lines between geographic and/or eth­ nic groups cannot be genetically sup­ ported since there are no specific sets of alleles correlated with the common divisions of white, black, red, brown, or however many racial categories are postulated. While Homo sapiens manifests variation in physical charac­ teristics related to a population's origi­ nal geographic environment, the most commonly used method for catego­ rization and race assignment in the United States is skin color. Conse­ quently, I chose to focus my research on the assumptions Americans make about race and skin color. Through this research project I wanted to test my hypothesis that the point on a continuum at which an indi­ vidual labels skin color "white" or "black" is arbitrary and subjective, therefore supporting the idea that pig­ mentation does not translate into per­ ceived races. I collected data from thirty individuals on the University of Missouri-St. Louis campus by means of surveys using thirty skin-tone color chips, from deep brown to pale cream. The chips were paint samples mounted on a white index card, ran­ domly assigned a letter or symbol.

Each participant was asked to place the color chips in order from darkest to lightest and then identify where "black" ended and "white" began. By forcing individuals to choose a dividing point, I was able to evaluate hidden percep­ tions. They were also asked to select a color they thought most closely matched their own skin tone, where they placed their ancestry geographically, and where they would place their chosen skin color geographically.

Even though a person may intellec­ tually accept that there are no biologi­ cally distinct races, it is my opinion that they will still evaluate every other person they encounter and attempt to assign them to one of a minimum of two groups. This illustrates how race is a socially constructed concept rather than one based in scientific fact. For the purpose of my research, I limited the group designations to African descent and European descent. My research found considerable variability in color placement (no one placed the chips in the same order) and the point of division.

My research sub­ jects were asked to select the point on their constructed color continuum (the order in which they had placed the color chips) indicating where "white" skin color ended and "black" skin color began. The most commonly chosen division point was between positions 19 and 20 (smaller numbers indicate darker; larger numbers, lighter skin tone). This point was chosen by 9 of the 30 people I surveyed. The choices of the other 21 spanned between posi­ tions 15/16 and 26/27. To prevent bias, I kept track of the colors by means of letters and symbols on the back of each chip. Letters were assigned randomly. On closer examina­ tion of the actual color chips chosen by the nine people who selected 19/20, I discovered that they had not chosen the same colors. Where one person had placed chip "Y" as number 19 (indicat­ ing s/he felt that was a black skin tone) and chip "X" as 20 (indicating s/he felt that was a white skin tone), the next had chosen different color chips-"J" and "R" (for example) for the same positions.

There were even instances where the choices were complete reversals (one person chose "Y" as white and the next chose "Y" as black).

I plan to continue this research as my senior thesis (devoting a total of ten academic credit hours to the project), and expand my data collection to include individuals belonging to other ethnicities (e.g., Native American and Asian) to determine further the degree to which race is socially constructed. Chapter 5 Ethnicity and Race 103