Figure 1. Golfer Tiger Woods has Chinese, Thai, African American, Native American, and Dutch heritage. Individuals with multiple ethnic backgrounds are becoming more common. (Photo courtesy of familymwr/flickr)
The death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO on August 9, 2014 illustrates racial tensions in the United States as well as the overlap between prejudice, discrimination, and institutional racism. On that day, Brown, a young unarmed black man, was killed by a white police officer named Darren Wilson. During the incident, Wilson directed Brown and his friend to walk on the sidewalk instead of in the street. While eyewitness accounts vary, they agree that an altercation occurred between Wilson and Brown. Wilson’s version has him shooting Brown in self-defense after Brown assaulted him, while Dorian Johnson, a friend of Brown also present at the time, claimed that Brown first ran away, then turned with his hands in the air to surrender, after which Johnson shot him repeatedly (Nobles and Bosman, 2014). Three autopsies independently confirmed that Brown was shot six times (Lowery and Fears 2014).
The shooting focused attention on a number of race-related tensions in the United States. First, members of the predominantly black community viewed Brown’s death as the result of a white police officer racially profiling a black man (Nobles and Bosman, 2014). In the days after, it was revealed that only three members of the town’s fifty-three-member police force were black (Nobles and Bosman, 2014). The national dialogue shifted during the next few weeks, with some commentators pointing to a nationwide sedimentation of racial inequality and identifying redlining in Ferguson as a cause of the unbalanced racial composition in the community, in local political establishments, and in the police force (Bouie, 2014). Redlining is the practice of routinely refusing mortgages for households and businesses located in predominantly minority communities, while sedimentation of racial inequality describes the intergenerational impact of both practical and legalized racism that limits the abilities of black people and other racial minorities to accumulate wealth.
Ferguson’s racial imbalance may explain in part why, even though in 2010 only about 63 percent of its population was black, in 2013 blacks were detained in 86 percent of stops, 92 percent of searches, and 93 percent of arrests (Missouri Attorney General’s Office, 2014). In addition, de facto segregation in Ferguson’s schools, a race-based wealth gap, urban sprawl, and a black unemployment rate three times that of the white unemployment rate worsened existing racial tensions in Ferguson, while also reflecting nationwide racial inequalities (Bouie, 2014).
TrayVon Martin
On the evening of February 26, 2012, Trayvon Martin, a seventeen-year-old black teenager was visiting with his father and his father’s fiancée in the Sanford, Florida gated community where his father’s fiancée lived. Trayvon left her home on foot to buy a snack from a nearby convenience store. As he was returning, George Zimmerman, the community’s neighborhood watch program coordinator, noticed him. In light of a recent rash of break-ins, Zimmerman called the police to report a person acting suspiciously, which he had done on many other occasions. The 911 operator told Zimmerman not to follow the teen, but soon after Zimmerman and Martin had a physical confrontation. According to Zimmerman, Martin attacked him, and in the ensuing scuffle Martin was shot and killed (CNN Library, 2014).
Figure 2. Do you think race played a role in Trayvon Martin’s death or in the public reaction to it? Do you think race had any influence on the initial decision not to arrest George Zimmerman, or on his later acquittal? (Photo courtesy of Ryan Vaarsi/flickr)
A public outcry followed Martin’s death. Florida’s Stand Your Ground Law immediately came into the center of a national debate on 2nd Amendment rights and self-defense. Zimmerman was not arrested until April 11, when he was charged with second-degree murder by special prosecutor Angela Corey. In the ensuing trial, he was found not guilty (CNN Library, 2014).
The shooting, the public response, and the trial that followed offer a snapshot of the sociology of race. Do you think race played a role in Martin’s death or in the public’s reaction to it? Do you think race had any influence on the initial decision not to arrest Zimmerman, a white Hispanic male, or on his later acquittal? Does society fear black men, leading to self-defense justifications with unarmed youth? What about the role of the media? Was there a deliberate attempt to manipulate public opinion? If you were a member of the jury, would you have convicted George Zimmerman?
Multiple Identities
Prior to the twentieth century, racial intermarriage (referred to as miscegenation) was extremely rare, and in many places, illegal. In the later part of the twentieth century and in the twenty-first century, attitudes have changed for the better. While the sexual subordination of slaves did result in children of mixed race, these children were usually considered black, and therefore, property. There was no concept of multiple racial identities, with the possible exception of the Creole. Creole society developed in the port city of New Orleans, where a mixed-race culture grew from French and African inhabitants. Unlike in other parts of the country, “Creoles of color” had greater social, economic, and educational opportunities than most African Americans.
Increasingly during the modern era, the removal of miscegenation laws and a trend toward equal rights and legal protection against racism have steadily reduced the social stigma attached to racial exogamy (exogamy refers to marriage outside a person’s core social unit). It is now common for the children of racially mixed parents to acknowledge and celebrate their various ethnic identities. Golfer Tiger Woods, for instance, has Chinese, Thai, African American, Native American, and Dutch heritage; he jokingly refers to his ethnicity as “Cablinasian,” a term he coined to combine several of his ethnic backgrounds. While this is the trend, it is not yet evident in all aspects of our society. For example, the U.S. Census only recently added more nuanced additional categories such as non-white Hispanic. A growing number of people chose multiple races to describe themselves on the 2010 Census, paving the way for the 2020 Census to provide yet more choices.
The Confederate Flag vs. the First Amendment
Figure 3. To some, the Confederate flag is a symbol of pride in Southern history. To others, it is a grim reminder of a degrading period of the United States’ past. (Photo courtesy of Eyeliam/flickr)
In January 2006, two girls walked into Burleson High School in Texas carrying purses that displayed large images of Confederate flags. School administrators told the girls that they were in violation of the dress code, which prohibited apparel with inappropriate symbolism or clothing that discriminated based on race. To stay in school, they’d have to have someone pick up their purses or leave them in the office. The girls chose to go home for the day but then challenged the school’s decision, appealing first to the principal, then to the district superintendent, then to the U.S. District Court, and finally to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Why did the school ban the purses, and why did it stand behind that ban, even when being sued? Why did the girls, identified anonymously in court documents as A.M. and A.T., pursue such strong legal measures for their right to carry the purses? The issue, of course, is not the purses; it is the Confederate flag that adorns them. The parties in this case join a long line of people and institutions that have fought for their right to display it, saying such a display is covered by the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech. In the end, the court sided with the district and noted that the Confederate flag carried symbolism significant enough to disrupt normal school activities.
While many young people in the United States like to believe that racism is mostly in the country’s past, this case illustrates that the symbols and iconography associated with the history of slavery are still potently meaningful. If the Confederate flag is synonymous with slavery, is there any place for its display in modern society? Those who fight for their right to display the flag say such a display should be covered by the First Amendment: the right to free speech. But others say the flag is equivalent to hate speech, which is not covered by the First Amendment. Do you think that displaying the Confederate flag should be considered free speech or hate speech?
Further Research
- How far should First Amendment rights extend? Read more about the subject at the First Amendment Center.
- Learn more about institutional racism at the Southern Poverty Law Center.
- What does white privilege mean to you? Why do you think it is a difficult concept for whites to acknowledge? Explore the concept of white privilege with this checklist to see how much of it holds true for you or others.
Think It Over
- How do redlining and racial steering contribute to institutionalized racism?
- Give an example of stereotyping that you see in everyday life. Explain what would need to happen for this to be eliminated.
- Consider this video example “Why I’m Not Buying Adele’s 25” of why some say that white soul singers have an unfair advantage over black singers. Give three examples of white privilege. Do you agree or disagree with the argument? Can you give any other examples of white privilege?
Inter-group Relationships
Inter-group relations (relationships between different groups of people) range along a spectrum between tolerance and intolerance. The most tolerant form of inter-group relations is pluralism, in which no distinction is made between minority and majority groups, but instead there is equal standing. At the other end of the continuum are amalgamation, expulsion, and even genocide—stark examples of intolerant inter-group relations.
Genocide
Genocide, the deliberate annihilation of a targeted (usually subordinate) group, is the most toxic inter-group relationship. Historically, we can see that genocide has included both the intent to exterminate a group as well as the function of effectively exterminating a group–whether this was intentional or not.
Possibly the most well-known case of genocide is Adolf Hitler’s attempt to exterminate the Jewish people both immediately before and during World War Two. Also known as the Holocaust, the explicit goal of Hitler’s “Final Solution” was the programmatic eradication of European Jewry, as well as the decimation of other minority groups such as Catholics, people with disabilities, and homosexuals. With forced emigration, concentration camps, and mass executions in gas chambers, Hitler’s Nazi regime was responsible for the deaths of 12 million people, 6 million of whom were Jewish. Hitler’s intent was clear, and the high Jewish death toll certainly indicates that his regime committed genocide. But how do we understand genocide that is not so overt and deliberate?
The treatment of Aboriginal Australians is also an example of genocide, in this case one that was committed against indigenous people. Historical accounts suggest that between 1824 and 1908, white settlers killed more than 10,000 Aborigines in Tasmania and Australia (Tatz, 2006). Another example is the European colonization of North America. Some historians estimate that Native American populations dwindled from approximately 12 million in the year 1500 to barely 237,000 by the year 1900 (Lewy, 2004). European settlers coerced Native Americans from their lands, often causing thousands of deaths in forced removals, such as occurred in the Cherokee or Potawatomi Trail of Tears. Settlers also enslaved Native Americans and forced them to give up their religious and cultural practices, but the major cause of Native American deaths was neither slavery, nor war, nor forced removal: it was the introduction of European diseases and Native Americans’ lack of immunity to them. Smallpox, diphtheria, and measles flourished among indigenous American tribes who had no exposure to the diseases and no ability to fight them. Quite simply, these diseases decimated the tribes. How planned this genocide was remains a topic of contention. Some argue that the spread of disease was an unintended effect of conquest, while others believe it was intentional, citing rumors of smallpox-infected blankets being distributed as “gifts” to tribes.
Genocide is not a just a distant historical footnote; it is practiced today. Recently, ethnic and geographic conflicts in the Darfur region of Sudan have led to hundreds of thousands of deaths. As part of an ongoing land conflict, the Sudanese government and their state-sponsored Janjaweed militia have led a campaign of killing, forced displacement, and systematic rape of Darfuri people. Although a treaty was signed in 2011, the peace is fragile.
Expulsion
Expulsion refers to a subordinate group being forced, by a dominant group, to leave a certain area or country. As seen in the examples of the Trail of Tears and the Holocaust, expulsion can be a factor in genocide; however, it can also stand on its own as a destructive group interaction. Historically, expulsion has often occurred with an ethnic or racial basis. In the United States, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 in 1942, after the Japanese government’s attack on Pearl Harbor. The Order authorized the establishment of internment camps for anyone with as little as one-eighth Japanese ancestry (i.e., one great-grandparent who was Japanese). Over 120,000 legal Japanese residents and Japanese U.S. citizens, many of them children, were held in these camps for up to four years, despite the fact that there was never any evidence of collusion or espionage. (In fact, many Japanese Americans continued to demonstrate their loyalty to the United States by serving in the U.S. military during the War.) In the 1990s, the U.S. executive branch issued a formal apology for this expulsion; reparation efforts continue today.
Segregation
Figure 4. In the “Jim Crow” South, it was legal to have “separate but equal” facilities for blacks and whites. (Photo courtesy of Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons)
Segregation refers to the physical separation of two groups, particularly in residence, but also in workplace and social functions. It is important to distinguish between de jure segregation (segregation that is enforced by law) and de facto segregation (segregation that occurs without laws but because of other factors). A stark example of de jure segregation is the apartheid movement of South Africa, which existed from 1948 to 1994. Under apartheid, black South Africans were stripped of their civil rights and forcibly relocated to areas that segregated them physically from their white compatriots. Only after decades of degradation, violent uprisings, and international advocacy was apartheid finally abolished.
De jure segregation occurred in the United States for many years after the Civil War. During this time, many former Confederate states passed Jim Crow laws that required segregated facilities for blacks and whites. These laws were codified in 1896’s landmark Supreme Court case Plessey v. Ferguson, which stated that “separate but equal” facilities were constitutional. For the next five decades, blacks were subjected to legalized discrimination, forced to live, work, and go to school in separate—but unequal—facilities. It wasn’t until 1954 and the Brown v. Board of Education case that the Supreme Court declared that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,” thus ending de jure segregation in the United States.
De facto segregation, however, cannot be abolished by any court mandate. Segregation is still alive and well in the United States, with different racial or ethnic groups often segregated by neighborhood, borough, or parish. Sociologists use segregation indices to measure racial segregation of different races in different areas. The indices employ a scale from zero to 100, where zero is the most integrated and 100 is the least. In the New York metropolitan area, for instance, the black-white segregation index was seventy-nine for the years 2005–2009. This means that 79 percent of either blacks or whites would have to move in order for each neighborhood to have the same racial balance as the whole metro region (Population Studies Center, 2010).
Pluralism
Pluralism is represented by the ideal of the United States as a “salad bowl”: a great mixture of different cultures where each culture retains its own identity and yet adds to the flavor of the whole. True pluralism is characterized by mutual respect on the part of all cultures, both dominant and subordinate, creating a multicultural environment of acceptance. In reality, true pluralism is a difficult goal to reach. In the United States, the mutual respect required by pluralism is often missing, and the nation’s past pluralist model of a “melting pot” posits a society where cultural differences aren’t embraced as much as erased.
Figure 5. For many immigrants to the United States, the Statue of Liberty is a symbol of freedom and a new life. Unfortunately, they often encounter prejudice and discrimination. (Photo courtesy of Mark Heard/flickr)
Assimilation
Assimilation describes the process by which a minority individual or group gives up its own identity by taking on the characteristics of the dominant culture. In the United States, which has a history of welcoming and absorbing immigrants from different lands, assimilation has been a function of immigration.
Most people in the United States have immigrant ancestors. In relatively recent history, between 1890 and 1920, the United States became home to around 24 million immigrants. In the decades since then, further waves of immigrants have come to these shores and have eventually been absorbed into U.S. culture, sometimes after facing extended periods of prejudice and discrimination. Assimilation may lead to the loss of the minority group’s cultural identity as they become absorbed into the dominant culture, but assimilation has minimal to no impact on the majority group’s cultural identity.
Some groups may keep only symbolic gestures of their original ethnicity. For instance, many Irish Americans may celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day, many Hindu Americans enjoy a Diwali festival, and many Mexican Americans may celebrate the Day of the Dead; however, for the rest of the year, other aspects of their originating culture may be forgotten.
Assimilation is antithetical to the “salad bowl” created by pluralism; rather than maintaining their own cultural flavor, subordinate cultures give up their own traditions in order to conform to their new environment. Sociologists measure the degree to which immigrants have assimilated to a new culture with four benchmarks: socioeconomic status, spatial concentration, language assimilation, and intermarriage. When faced with racial and ethnic discrimination, it can be difficult for new immigrants to fully assimilate. Language assimilation, in particular, can be a formidable barrier, limiting employment and educational options and therefore constraining growth in socioeconomic status.
Consider Frantz Fanon’s theory about the inherent racism behind assimilation, as explained in his book, Black Skin, White Masks.
Amalgamation
Amalgamation is the process by which a minority group and a majority group combine to form a new group. Amalgamation is reflected in the classic “melting pot” analogy. Unlike the “salad bowl,” in which each culture retains its individuality, the “melting pot” ideal sees the combination of cultures mixing together and becoming more homogeneous.
Though the term is rarely used today in a racial sense, Amalgamation was also once a synonym for miscegenation. Recall that this term refers to intermarriage between races or to the mixed-race offspring of such unions. In the United States, antimiscegenation laws flourished in the South during the Jim Crow era. It wasn’t until 1967’s Loving v. Virginia that the last antimiscegenation law was struck from the books, making these laws unconstitutional.
Further Research
So you think you know your own assumptions? Check and find out with the Implicit Association Test.
What do you know about the treatment of Australia’s aboriginal population? Find out more by viewing the feature-length documentary Our Generation.
Think It Over
- Do you believe immigration laws should foster an approach of pluralism, assimilation, or amalgamation? Which perspective do you think is most supported by current U.S. immigration policies?
- Which inter-group relation do you think is the most beneficial to the subordinate group? To society as a whole? Why?
glossary
- amalgamation:
- the process by which a minority group and a majority group combine to form a new group
- assimilation:
- the process by which a minority individual or group takes on the characteristics of the dominant culture
- colorism:
- the belief that one type of skin tone is superior or inferior to another within a racial group
- color-blind racism:
- the belief that one doesn’t “see” race
- discrimination:
- prejudiced action against a group of people
- dominant group:
- a group of people who have more power in a society than any of the subordinate groups
- ethnicity:
- shared culture, which may include heritage, language, religion, and more
- expulsion:
- the act of a dominant group forcing a subordinate group to leave a certain area or even the country
- genocide:
- the deliberate annihilation of a targeted (usually subordinate) group
- institutional racism:
- racism embedded in social institutions
- minority group:
- any group of people who are singled out from the others for differential and unequal treatment
- pluralism:
- the ideal of the United States as a “salad bowl:” a mixture of different cultures where each culture retains its own identity and yet adds to the “flavor” of the whole (compare with “melting pot”)
- prejudice:
- biased thought based on flawed assumptions about a group of people
- race:
- a socially constructed category that produces real effects on the actors who are racially categorized
- racial profiling:
- the use by law enforcement by looking at race alone when determining whether to stop and detain
- racial steering:
- the act of real estate agents directing prospective homeowners toward or away from certain neighborhoods based on their race
- racism:
- a set of attitudes, beliefs, and practices that are used to justify the belief that one racial category is somehow superior or inferior to others
- redlining:
- the practice of routinely refusing mortgages for households and business located in predominately minority communities
- scapegoat theory:
- a theory that suggests that the dominant group will displace its unfocused aggression onto a subordinate group
- sedimentation of racial inequality:
- the intergenerational impact of de facto (a matter of custom) and de jure (a matter of law) racism that limits the abilities of black people to accumulate wealth
- segregation:
- the physical separation of two groups, particularly in residence, but also in workplace and social functions
- social construction of race:
- the school of thought that race is not biologically identifiable
- stereotypes:
- oversimplified generalizations about groups of people
- subordinate group:
- a group of people who have less power than the dominant group
- white privilege:
- the benefits people automatically receive simply by being part of the dominant group
- Bloom, S. 2015. “Lesson of a Lifetime.” Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/lesson-of-a-lifetime-72754306/. ↵
- Bonilla-Silva, E. 2003. Racism without Racists. Lanham: Rownman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. ↵
- “Race,” U.S. Census. last updated Jan. 23, 2018. https://www.census.gov/topics/population/race/about.html. ↵
