Social Inequality & Cultural Diversity

• The lecture is about social inequality and the meaning of difference
• It discusses race, ethnicity, discrimination, racism, and cultural diversity

Review of Basics

• Anthropology is the study of humanity using a 4 field approach
• Cultural anthropology studies communities, behaviors, beliefs, and institutions, understanding people's meaning-making in life, work, and play
• It breaks down cultural universals to understand people and culture, looking at parts to understand the whole
• Culture is a system of knowledge, beliefs, behaviors, artifacts, and institutions
• Culture is created, learned, shared, and can be contested, and includes material objects, values, attitudes, beliefs, and patterned behaviors

Anthropological Perspective

• It aims to understand people and cultures
• It looks at people, problems, and cultures:
• Holistically: focusing on the bigger picture and how parts interconnect
• Relativistically: understanding culture from within its context
• Naturalistically: studying people in their natural environments
• Comparatively: examining variations in behaviors and attitudes across societies
• Globally: understanding the impact of global forces on local cultures
• Bioculturally: recognizing cultural practices affect biology
• Reflexively: recognizing how one's position impacts data gathered

Race

• Race and Ethnicity Crash Course Sociology #4 is identified as a source
• Key points from the video include: Power, minorities, census, differences between race and ethnicity and that these are not fixed categories and defined by society

Race and the U.S. Census

• Racial categories in the census reflect how the government describes and organizes diversity
• Early censuses had census workers assign racial categories, and individual respondents did not define their own race
• The census has changed from three racial categories in 1850 to fourteen in 2020, with a separate question on Hispanic ethnicity
• Census data is used for congressional districts, civil rights laws, and federal aid allocation

Canadian Comparison

• The Canadian census uses "visible minority" categories, classifying White and Indigenous groups separately
• "Canada at a Glance, 2022, Racialized Groups" provides information
• In 2021, South Asians (2.6 million, 7.1%), Chinese (1.7 million, 4.7%), and Blacks (1.5 million, 4.3%) each had over one million population
• In 2021, 3 in 10 racialized people were Canadian-born, varying by group
• The term “racialized group" is based on the concept of "visible minority" in the census

Ethnicity

• Ethnicity signifies a historical, cultural, and ancestral connection to a distinct group
• Ethnicity is a basis for claiming entitlements and defending resources
• Ethnicity is a strong sense of group belonging that shapes lives
• With globalization, ethnicity is a strong source of solidarity
• Ethnicity is also packaged for economic opportunity in food, fashion, music, and tourism

Race and Ethnicity

• The U.S. does not clearly distinguish between ethnicity and race
• Race is often inappropriately used to refer to Hispanics
• Hispanics can be of any race
• Hispanic and Latino are ethnic categories that crosscut racial contrasts

Race as Biologically Meaningless

• Race has cultural and biological consequences
• Significant differences in disease rates and life spans exist among racial groups in the U.S.
• Discrepancies can be attributed to racism and discrimination
• Discrimination: is treating individuals differently based on their group affiliation, like gender, sex, age, ethnicity, or disability

Racism

• Racism includes thoughts, actions, institutional patterns, and policies that create unequal access to power, privilege, resources, and opportunities based on imagined differences
• Individual racism involves personal prejudiced beliefs and discriminatory actions based on race
• Microaggressions are everyday indignities that communicate negative messages about race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion
• Racism can be enacted intentionally or unintentionally, actively or through inaction

Racist Institutions and Ideas

• Institutional racism involves patterns structuring racial inequality through cultural institutions, policies, and systems
• Racial ideology justifies discriminatory behaviors of individuals and institutions, making them seem reasonable
• Racial profiling is discriminatory targeting based on stereotypes related to race, ethnicity, religion, or origin
• Fighting discrimination requires effort from both discriminated against and those that are not

Prejudice and Discrimination

• Prejudice(preformed, usually unfavorable opinions about people who are different) may be unavoidable in a world of others"
• Prejudice, based on race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation, is acquired through enculturation from elders, authorities, media, and peers
• Racism, false generalizations are examples of prejudice
• Learned behavioral patterns can be unlearned
• Explicit discrimination is open and accepted, apparent in institutions and laws

Whiteness and Unearned Privileges

• Unearned privilege is the unrecognized lack of discrimination against certain groups for example light-skinned people
• Whiteness is stratified along lines of class, region, gender, and sexuality

Black Lives Matter

• Arose in response to shootings and incidents that devalued Black lives in the American justice system
• The movement uses social media as a prominent force: #blacklivesmatter
• Discrimination against American minorities is present through de facto
• Critics who claim "All lives" should matter are noted to be ignoring disproportionate likelihoods of arrest, mistreatment, and death of African Americans

Ethnic Cleansing and Types of Genocide

• Ethnic Cleansing involves efforts by a group to remove or destroy another in a geographic area
• Mobilization of ethnicity is key for ethnic cleansing (expulsion of Jews, Christians from parts of the Middle East)
• Cultural genocide or ethnocide: attempted assimilation shown in the forced assimilation of First Nations people through residential schools
• Genocide (extreme cases): Systematic murder of an entire group of people
• Examples of genocide: Jews in WWII Europe, Armenians in Turkey during WWI, Tutsis by Hutus in Rwanda in 1994, spread of smallpox through infested blankets in 1763

Mobilizing Ethnic Differences in Rwanda

• In 1994, Rwanda experienced a genocide, with a million Tutsi people and moderate Hutu killed by extremist Hutu death squads
• The Belgian colonial policies (1919-1962) caused ethnic conflict
• Before colonial rule, Tutsi and Hutu differences were based on occupation and social status
• The colonial government mobilized ethnic differences for social control by promoting the Tutsi minority as leaders, conducting racist eugenics studies, and issuing identity cards listing ethnicity

Residential Schools

• Residential schools resulted in loss of Indigenous culture
• Children were separated from families and forbidden to use their language
• Survived on meager food of poor quality
• Structures were poorly built
• Were exposed to fatal diseases
• Suffered abuse

Living in a Multicultural World

• Multiculturalism: is viewing cultural diversity as valuable and worth maintaining
• Multiculturalism embraces cultural diversity
• Multiculturalism assumes each group has something to offer and learn
• Multiculturalism reflects large-scale migration fueled by lifestyle and insufficient job opportunities
• A backlash to multiculturalism exists through ethno-nationalism

Human Nature

• Behavior towards "the other" is learned and extrinsic differences separate us instead of deeper commonalities