Race and Ethnicity

Learning Objectives

- prejudice and discrimination exist based on perceptions of racial difference

- the human species does not have enough difference in our DNA to accurately divide people into distinct races

- discrimination based on perceived race and ethnicity has detrimental health effects

- how the idea of different races began in history

- how ethnicity is defined

- how having fair skin confers privilege in society

- that similar forms of falsely biological discrimination exist

Review Questions

1. What is the difference between prejudice and discrimination?

2. What is systemic racism and how does it affect all people in a society?

3. What does the degree of pigment in human skin tones have to do with our ancestral environments?

4. What are the three main reasons that biological race is an inaccurate term?

5. What are the social determinants of health?

6. How did the race concept begin?

7. How might we define ethnicity, and what are its functions?

8. How does White privilege pervade social life?

9. How does the hierarchical structure of a caste system create discrimination

Discussion Questions

1. What is your ethnicity and in what ways do you identify with it?

2. Do you personally have trouble filling in census data or other forms in which “race” is requested?

3. How does extending the rights of personhood to Native Wild Rice (manoomin) ultimately aid the survival of people?

4. What are some examples of cultural or Native appropriation of which you are aware?

5. What’s your response to the case of Rachel Dolezal, who was born to White parents but adopted a Black identity

Chapter Outline and Key Points

Introduction: Is Race Real?

While not enough difference exists between members of the human species to divide us into different “races,” the social and cultural experience of race is real. This includes privilege, prejudice, and discrimination. All people are affected by systemic racism, even if one is not targeted by it.

Human Race Is Not Biological

Although we often use skin color as a marker of race, the variation in skin color is an ancient response to environmental pressures. Three reasons biological race is an inaccurate marker of human difference are the following: humans around the world share 99.9 per cent of their DNA; human variation lies on a continuum and cannot be sorted into groups; and most human variation is individual variation. Neither physical talent nor occupation are linked biologically to ethnic groups, only to culture and society.

Biocultural Connections: Prejudice and Health

Prejudice and discrimination affects different ethnic groups in different ways, leading to social, economic, and health inequities.

History of the Race Concept

Early ideas about race came from tales of explorers and conquerors, with the result that apparent human “races” were based on anecdotal stereotypes. Later, bodily measurements were used to determine racial categories, with no scientific evidence to support this practice. Racialization of ethnic groups and DNA testing support the ongoing misuse of genetic information.

Defining Ethnicity

Ethnicity is a marker of common history, cultural patterns, social ties, and language use, but it is not genetic. It may be used to racialize and discriminate against groups of people, or it may be used as a unit of resistance and solidarity by the group itself. Cultural and Native appropriation occurs when members of a dominant group use designs, behaviors, or artifacts of a group that has been historically oppressed, especially when that use is out of context, stereotypical, and without permission or compensation.

The Privilege of Fair Skin

Society confers unearned privileges on members with fair skin, with advantages and opportunities that are not universally offered. A person who identifies with and supports an ethnic community is an ally.

Discrimination Based on Caste

In some societies, people are born into caste hierarchies. People born into low castes experience discrimination, even when differences aren’t marked by physical characteristics.

Glossary

ally: a friend; someone who acts on your behalf

bicultural: able to easily operate within the beliefs and practices of two cultures

blood quantum: the fraction of “Indian Blood” a person has, measured by tribal documents demonstrating the membership of relatives

cairn: stack or pile of stones placed as a monument

caste: a hierarchical system based on birth; most commonly associated with Hindu India

caste system: a system of social stratification in India in which a person is born into a hereditary group traditionally linked to certain occupations

cultural appropriation: the practice when members of a powerful group use designs, artifacts, behaviors, or ideas taken directly from a group that has been historically oppressed

discrimination: actions taken as a result of prejudice; negative treatment of someone based on a social classification such as race or religion, not based on the individual

embodiment: the physical representation of an idea, principle, or process

epigenetics: the study of inherited changes in gene expression without changes to the DNA itself

ethnic cleansing: violent and aggressive intergroup conflicts in which one group attempts to commit genocide of the other

ethnicity: a term used to describe the heritage, geographic origin, language, and other features of a person

eugenics: a pseudo-science of “race improvement”

First Nations: the groups of Indigenous peoples who live south of the Arctic Circle in Canada

food sovereignty: the right of peoples to define and manage their own healthy and culturally relevant food systems

F_ST or fixation index: a measure of population difference in which 0 shows interbreeding and 1.0 shows none

genetic distance: a measure of the mutations between two populations; the less breeding among populations, the greater the genetic distance between them

genocide: the death of an entire ethnic group

hijab: a hair and neck covering that is worn by some Muslim women

identity politics: focusing on one’s identity and validating one’s sense of belonging to a particular group with a particular history

Inuit: Indigenous peoples of the Canadian Arctic, northern Alaska, and Greenland

melanocytes: human skin cells that produce pigment

minoritize: to assign minority status to an ethnic or cultural group whose members do not do so; to identify a group or individual as subordinate or lower in status

Métis: in Canada, people of mixed European and Indigenous ancestry

Native appropriation: the practice in which members of a powerful group use designs, artifacts, behaviors, or ideas taken directly from a self-identified Indigenous group that has been historically oppressed

nutrition transition: the shift in diet and energy expenditure that results from people managing their own agriculture to relying on processed convenience foods

passing: pretending to be a member of another ethnicity, “race,” or gender

phenotype: the outward expression of a person’s genes, physical features

prejudice: a preformed opinion not based on fact, an unfavorable bias toward something or someone

race: a term used to describe varieties or subspecies of a species; inaccurately used to refer to human differences in a biological sense

racialization: assigning racial identities based on biology to an ethnic or cultural group whose members do not do so

systemic racism: discrimination that exists throughout society and influences people’s decisions, expectations, opportunities, and limitations

White privilege: denotes the unearned power that society and its institutions bestow upon people with fair skin over those with darker skin (also referred to in the text as simply “ethnic privilege”)