Introduction to Race and the Social Matrix

1) What is American

a. Hotdogs and hamburgers from Germans

b. Picknics from French

c. Barbecue from Tainos

d. Africans the sauce on the smoked barbeque

e. Chinese fireworks and

f. Spanish -the cowboy lasso-twirling and gun-toting

g. Our language reflects the cultures of the Spanish and English, the Irish or the Portuguese, the Germans or the Africans.

2) Our music reflects the cultures of all the people who migrated to America

a. Cajun and Creole in Louisiana

b. Polynesian music in Hawaii

c. Eastern European polka

d. Chinese/Japanese/Poles/etc. all influence us.

e. Punk to funk comes from Europe and Africa.

3) These differences are cultural and can be seen in more tragic ways.

a. Consider Bias crimes where Blacks and or African American groups are the leading group that are victimized

b. Whereas gender-motivated crimes are most likely targeting lgbtq2+, which increased by 35% in the current period

c. Black LGBTQ2+ trans women are more likely to experience violence by strangers, partners, family members, and law enforcement

d. These match patterns of oppression of people of color and LGBTQ2+ seen around the globe

e. Reflect on the historical role that patriarchy, colonialism, and racial ideologies are used to justify and suppress the conversations.

4) As immigrants, we rank in 86 million immigrants who arrived in the U.S. between 1783 and 2019

a. The majority (80%+) of US voters want to have effective and human paths for immigrants into our country

II) The Social Construction of Race and Difference

1) Human genes have changed or mutated over time,

a. The idea of a static or natural racial identification scheme goes against the basic fact that genes change over time

b. Differences in physical features such as skin color, hair color, eye color, and height exist within and between groups.

i. Even within the same families

ii. there is more biological variation within our various racial groups than between them

iii. Therefore, race must be an invention, a socially constructed one

iv. race and any categorization is a reflection of specific rewards, privileges, and sanctions that are used to support and legitimate race

v. The systemic distribution of rewards, privileges, and sanctions across time produces and reproduces specific social hierarchies that reflect racial categorizations.

vi. These systemic processes =social construction of race

2) Defining terms:

a. Race =social and cultural system by which we categorize people based on presumed biological differences.

b. While the terms have biological overtones, there is virtually nothing to do with biology and everything to do with society

i. These stereotypes consist of presumed attributes, behaviors, and attitudes associated with various identities

c. Within the US, we identify 5 specific racial groups

i. Native American or Alaskan Native

ii. Black or African American

iii. Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander

iv. Asian

v. White

d. We also identify both religious and linguistic groups that are also racialized

i. Racialized religious groups include Jews and Muslims

ii. Linguistic groups comprise the Hispanics

e. Racial groups are typically comprised of specific ethnic groups

i. Ethnic groups refer to individuals that share cultural, historical, and geographical ancestry

3) Native Americans and Alaskan/Eskimo

a. When Europeans arrived in North America =close to 10 million Native Americans living within five hundred different sovereign nations

b. Each nation had its own political structure, language, history, and culture

c. By 1900 -wars and diseases meant that there were slightly more than three hundred thousand.

d. Today, 5.2 million people live in 14 states, where more than 100,000 live.

e. Most Native Americans (9.7 million) identified exclusively as American Indian or Alaska Native alone did not identify with any other race

i. 574 recognized Indian tribes in 2022

ii. Take a look at table 2 on page 7..

1. Breakdown of Alaskan Natives

iii. Table 3 Native American breakdown

4) Black or African Americans

a. Most came from West Central Africa

i. During the 16^th majority came from Kongo

ii. In the middle of the 16^th century, most came from Angulo and Later Luanda

iii. In the middle of the 18^th century -the bight of Biafra was added to the mix

iv. See table on page 9

5) White or European Americans

a. Most as of 2020 come from England, followed by Germans, Irish, Italians, and others. See Figure 1. Page 10.

b. For those who identified as Whie3 alone or in Combination, English (46. 6 million), German (45 million), and Irish (38.6 million) were the largest proportion of U.S. white

6) Also classified as White consist of those from the Middle East and North Africa

a. The highest group is Lebanese, followed by Iranians, Egyptians, Arabs, and Syrians.

b. But they do not share the same lived experiences as whites from Europe, do not identify as white, and are, therefore, statistically invisible. There are calls to break them out as separate groups called Mena.

7) Asian American:

a. 41 distinct Asian ethnic groups comprising 7.2% of the U.S. population

i. A total of 20 million identified exclusively as Asian

ii. 4 million identified as Asian and some combination of another group

iii. The Asian Indian population is the largest

iv. The next larger groups are see page 12, table 1

1. Chinese (excluding Taiwanese)

2. Filipino

3. Vietnamese

4. Korean

5. Japanese

8) Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders

a. 31 different ethnic groups

b. Largest are Native Hawaiians -28 who identify exclusively and 29.1 as a combination with other groups

9) Hispanic Americans -19 % (62 million) of the total population

a. Most likely identify as white (66%)

b. Blacks represent slightly less than 3%

c. 5% as multiracial

d. Mexicans make up 61% of the Hispanic-origin population

e. Puerto Ricans (10%) next largest groups

10) Muslim -60% are first-generation Americans

a. Come from three principal regions

i. South Asia 35%

ii. Middle East/North Africa =25%

iii. Two countries, Pakistan (15%) and Iran (11%), comprise the largest national groups that immigrate to the US

11) Systemic racism

1) . Race operates both within and across institutions and constitutes what we call systems

i. When discrimination operates across the system, rewarding some while discriminating against others, we call that systemic racism.

ii. Race does not operate alone but in tandem with other systems, including sexuality and gender, class, ability, and age.

2) Binary constructs only look at two opposing realms

a. Such as White/Black, female/male, gay/straight, rich/poor, young/old.

b. These oversimplify realities and obscure and confound the multiple identities that do not exist along this binary continuum.

c. Gender -social-cultural differences that include female, male, transgender, gender-neutral, nonbinary, agender, pangender, genderqueer, two-spirit, third-gender, some combination of all of these, or none of these.

d. Sexuality is how a person identifies who they are attracted to

e. Class reflects wealth, occupation, and income. One's economic position within society

f. Ethnicity -identifies a social group with a common cultural or national tradition.

g. We, therefore, use the matrix approach.

i. See the diagram on the canvas site and also in the announcements

h. Look at measuring race and ethnicity across the decades in announcements.

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