11.1 Racial, ethnic, and minority groups  (Page 2/13)

The social construction of race is also reflected in the way names for racial categories change with changing times. It’s worth noting that race, in this sense, is also a system of labeling that provides a source of identity; specific labels fall in and out of favor during different social eras. For example, the category ”negroid,” popular in the nineteenth century, evolved into the term “negro” by the 1960s, and then this term fell from use and was replaced with “African American.” This latter term was intended to celebrate the multiple identities that a black person might hold, but the word choice is a poor one: it lumps together a large variety of ethnic groups under an umbrella term while excluding others who could accurately be described by the label but who do not meet the spirit of the term. For example, actress Charlize Theron is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed “African American.” She was born in South Africa and later became a U.S. citizen. Is her identity that of an “African American” as most of us understand the term?

What is ethnicity?

Ethnicity is a term that describes shared culture—the practices, values, and beliefs of a group. This culture might include shared language, religion, and traditions, among other commonalities. Like race, the term ethnicity is difficult to describe and its meaning has changed over time. And as with race, individuals may be identified or self-identify with ethnicities in complex, even contradictory, ways. For example, ethnic groups such as Irish, Italian American, Russian, Jewish, and Serbian might all be groups whose members are predominantly included in the “white” racial category. Conversely, the ethnic group British includes citizens from a multiplicity of racial backgrounds: black, white, Asian, and more, plus a variety of race combinations. These examples illustrate the complexity and overlap of these identifying terms. Ethnicity, like race, continues to be an identification method that individuals and institutions use today—whether through the census, affirmative action initiatives, nondiscrimination laws, or simply in personal day-to-day relations.

What are minority groups?

Sociologist Louis Wirth (1945) defined a minority group    as “any group of people who, because of their physical or cultural characteristics, are singled out from the others in the society in which they live for differential and unequal treatment, and who therefore regard themselves as objects of collective discrimination.” The term minority connotes discrimination, and in its sociological use, the term subordinate group    can be used interchangeably with the term minority, while the term dominant group    is often substituted for the group that’s in the majority. These definitions correlate to the concept that the dominant group is that which holds the most power in a given society, while subordinate groups are those who lack power compared to the dominant group.

Note that being a numerical minority is not a characteristic of being a minority group; sometimes larger groups can be considered minority groups due to their lack of power. It is the lack of power that is the predominant characteristic of a minority, or subordinate group. For example, consider apartheid in South Africa, in which a numerical majority (the black inhabitants of the country) were exploited and oppressed by the white minority.

According to Charles Wagley and Marvin Harris (1958), a minority group is distinguished by five characteristics: (1) unequal treatment and less power over their lives, (2) distinguishing physical or cultural traits like skin color or language, (3) involuntary membership in the group, (4) awareness of subordination, and (5) high rate of in-group marriage. Additional examples of minority groups might include the LBGT community, religious practitioners whose faith is not widely practiced where they live, and people with disabilities.

Scapegoat theory , developed initially from Dollard’s (1939) Frustration-Aggression theory, suggests that the dominant group will displace its unfocused aggression onto a subordinate group. History has shown us many examples of the scapegoating of a subordinate group. An example from the last century is the way Adolf Hitler was able to blame the Jewish population for Germany’s social and economic problems. In the United States, recent immigrants have frequently been the scapegoat for the nation’s—or an individual’s—woes. Many states have enacted laws to disenfranchise immigrants; these laws are popular because they let the dominant group scapegoat a subordinate group.

Summary

Race is fundamentally a social construct. Ethnicity is a term that describes shared culture and national origin. Minority groups are defined by their lack of power.

Short answer

Further research

Explore aspects of race and ethnicity at PBS’s site, “What Is Race?”: (External Link)

References

Caver, Helen Bush, and Mary T. Williams. 2011. “Creoles.” Multicultural America, Countries and Their Cultures , December 7. Retrieved February 13, 2012 ( (External Link) ).

CNN Library. (February 22, 2014). "Trayvon Martin Shooting Fast Facts." CNN US . N.p., Retrieved October 9, 2014 (http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/05/us/trayvon-martin-shooting-fast-facts/)

Dollard, J., et al. 1939. Frustration and Aggression . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Graves, Joseph. 2003. The Emperor's New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. 1994. Racial Formation in the United States: from the 1960s to the 1990s (2nd ed.) . New York, NY: Routledge.

Wagley, Charles, and Marvin Harris. 1958. Minorities in the New World: Six Case Studies . New York: Columbia University Press.

Wirth, Louis. 1945. “The Problem of Minority Groups.” The Science of Man in the World Crisis , edited by R. Linton: 347. In Hacker, Helen Mayer. 1951. Women as a Minority Group . Retrieved December 1, 2011 ( (External Link) ).

World Health Organization. 2011. “Elder Maltreatment.” Fact Sheet N-357. Retrieved December 19, 2011 ( (External Link) ).