Race and ethnicity  (Page 6/22)

De facto discrimination

De facto discrimination is practical factual discrimination. It is a situation in which minority group members are discriminated against as a day-to-day occurrence even when laws exist that prohibit such behavior. Such behaviors include indirect institutional discrimination, which is the differential and unequal treatment of a group that is deeply embedded in social, economic, and political institutions; and structural discrimination, which is built into the very structure of the society. Structural discrimination is the most insidious form because, although racism is not the intent, it is the result.

Overcoming discrimination

Even with such horrific legal atrocities as those discussed by Harrison and Bennett, the United States, since the early 1950s and particularly in the mid 1960s to mid 1970s, has worked very hard at overcoming, if not our racism, at least our discriminatory behavior toward minorities. Once again we turn to Harrison and Bennett: 1952 the McCarran-Walter Act overturned all of the Asian exclusionary acts and permitted Asians to emigrate to the U.S. and to become US citizens; 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka overturned the Plessy decision and declared that segregation was inherently discriminatory and unconstitutional; the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibited any race/ethnicity-based discrimination in hiring and employment practices; the 1965 Voting Rights Act prohibited any race/ethnicity-based discrimination in allowing minorities to vote; in 1965 Congress passed the Immigration Act which removed national quota systems permitting an influx of immigrants from Mexico Latin American and Asia; and in 1968 the Fair Housing Act was passed prohibiting any race/ethnicity-based discrimination in housing. These signaled a change in the way in which the U.S. saw itself, and although this decision and these acts did not overcome all forms of discrimination, they were nonetheless an indication that America would no longer think of itself as a racist society. Harrison and Bennett, “Racial and Ethnic Diversity” in Farley, State of the Union: America in the 1990s Volume Two: Social Trends .Reynolds Farley, Ed. New York: Russell Sage 1995. pp. 157-164,&pp. 141-210. Farley, Reynolds. The New American Reality: Who We Are How, We Got There, Where We Are Going. New York: Russell Sage 1996.

There are a great many theories concerning the causes of racism and attempting to explain prejudice and discrimination. In general, they all boil down to a very few concepts: ethnocentrism which is the tendency to evaluate the customs and practices of other groups through the prism of one’s own culture; we tend to like people who are most like us; we judge people based on our own values; and stereotypes, which are exaggerated claims of what are believed to be the essential characteristics of a group. Whatever the causes, Thomas’s Theorem—“that which is perceived to be real is real in its consequences”—is a screaming indictment of letting our belief patterns run away with our critical thinking skills. What stereotypes do you have? What are some of the stereotypes about your own racial/ethnic group? How do you feel about those stereotypes? Why do stereotypes last over time? Why doesn’t reality change our perceptions? America is the most racially and religiously diverse nation in the world. And yet, we tend to build instant stereotypes about new immigrant groups and hold on to those about older groups.