8.2: Racial Identity and Ethnicity

Racial Identity and Ethnicity

Before we discuss racial identity and ethnicity, it is important that we define race and ethnicity, understand the myths about race and the historical context of racial grouping, why it was created, and how it evolved overtime. There are two myths or ideas about race. The first suggests people inherit physical characteristics distinguishing race. Second, the idea that one race is superior to others or that one “pure” race exists. In actuality, scientific research mapping of the human genome system found that humans are homogenous (Henslin, 2011). Race is truly an arbitrary label that has become part of society’s culture with no justifiable evidence to support differences in physical appearance substantiate the idea that there are a variety of human species. Traditionally, racial terms classify and stratify people by appearance and inherently assign racial groups as inferior or superior in society (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). Scientific data finds only one human species making up only one human race. Evidence shows physical differences in human appearance including skin color are a result of human migration patterns and adaptions to the environment (Jablonski, 2012). Nonetheless, people use physical characteristics to identify, relate, and interact with one another.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): A class of racially and ethnically diverse students. (Public Domain; via NMAAHC)

Ethnicity refers to the cultural characteristics related to ancestry and heritage, and also describes shared cultural group practices values, and beliefs. People who identify with an ethnic group share common cultural characteristics (i.e.,nationality, history, language, religion, etc.). Ethnic groups select rituals, customs, ceremonies, and other traditions to help preserve shared heritage (Kottak and Kozaitis, 2012). Lifestyle requirements and other identity characteristics such as geography and region influence how we adapt our ethnic behaviors to fit the context or setting in which we live. Culture is also key in determining how human bodies grow and develop such as food preferences and diet and cultural traditions promote certain activities and abilities including physical well-being and sport (Kottak and Kozaitis, 2012). Someone of Mexican decent living in Central California who is a college professor will project different ethnic behaviors than someone of the same ethnic culture who is a housekeeper in Las Vegas, Nevada. Differences in profession, social class, and region will influence each person’s lifestyle, physical composition, and health though both may identify and affiliate themselves as Mexican.

Let’s date back to the original consensus in 1790. Race was created for sorting and ranking people in the English colonies. In the 18^th century was created to rank America broke populations in to racial groups of free whites, other persons (including free blacks and taxable Indians), and slaves (Lewitt & Baker, 1994). From the early 1900s through 1950, the census subgroups included whites, negro, and other (which included American Indians, Chinese and Japanese), and a person’s race was determined by the consensus taker. Mexican was considered a race in 1930, but was dropped in 1940. Mexican was included in the white subgroup as a prior consensus. People of mixed race was usually determined by the race of the father (Lewitt & Baker, 1994). As times have progressed, the categories for racial identities has expanded. Some include:

• American Indian or Alaskan Native: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North America, and who maintains cultural identification through tribal affiliations or community recognition.
• Asian or Pacific Islander: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, or the Pacific Islands. This area includes, for example, China, India, Ja- pan, Korea, the Philippine Islands, and Samoa
• Black: A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa
• Hispanic: A person of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race
• White: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, North Africa, or the Middle East (Lewitt & Baker, 1994).

Now that we have some context on how race transformed over centuries in the United States, let’s build on that understanding by learning about the impacts of race and ethnicity. Race, and the given contexts of race in America plays a huge role in how children and families will experience the world around them. Through racial grouping, identifiers such as minority groups were created. Minority groups are people who receive unequal treatment and discrimination based on social categories such as age, gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity, religious beliefs, or socio-economic class. For example, a large group of people may be a minority group because they lack social power. The physical and cultural traits of minority groups “are held in low esteem by the dominant or majority group which treats them unfairly” (Henslin, 2011, pg 217). The dominant group has higher power and status in society and receives greater privileges. As a result, the dominant group uses its position to discriminate against those that are different. White, middle class and European descendants represents the dominant group. Minority groups can garner power by expanding political boundaries or through expanded migration though both of these efforts do not occur with ease and require societal support from minority and dominant group members. The loss of power among dominant groups threatens not only their authority over other groups but also the privileges and way of life established by the majority.Race can be a huge factor in how children will experience education as well. When dissecting race using critical race theory, studies suggest that systems of oppression, marginalization, racism, inequity, and discrimination are ingrained in policies, practices, institutions, and systems of education that impacts children and families (Heard-Garris et al., 2018). Impacts of race and ethnicity can determine the resources a child have access to, the type of education they receive, and the type of hardship they encounter.

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): The hands of 3 people with different skin colors. (CC BY-SA 4.0; Ibex73 via Wikimedia)

Race and ethnicity can cause families of minority groups to experience stress that’s related to implications of race and ethnicity. For an example, if a person is experiencing discrimination in the work place, and is eventually laid off, they may experience stress and other mental health issues that trickles down to their interactions with their children. This will cause a stress response in their children. Multiple studies have documented how the stresses of everyday discrimination on parents or other caregivers, such as being associated with negative stereotypes, can have harmful effects on caregiving behaviors and adult mental health. And when caregivers' mental health is affected, the challenges of coping with it can cause an excessive stress response in their children.

When considering what studies suggest, it’s important to understand that a huge portion of how children identify themselves come from their race and ethnicity. Race, ethnicity, gender, and culture are all important identifiers. This all falls in to identity formation. This formation process begins at birth, peaks during adolescence, and continues to develop throughout adulthood, thus allowing an individual to fully negotiate multiple identities. There are so many moving parts to how identity formation works. For an example, educators, including both White teachers and administrators, have an impact on the racial identity and development of African American students. Research has documented that White teachers often treat their students differently and have different expectations for them depending upon their gender, race, and perceived academic abilities. Black students frequently perceive that teachers have lower academic expectations for them and higher academic expectations for White students. These issues are highly problematic as teacher- student relations are viewed as a paramount dimension of the school environment (Decuir-Gunby 2009). Students who are giving lower academic expectations are more likely to have lower academic achievement.

We ask this question. How important is ethnic identity for the developing child? There are so many factors that contributes to a child developing low self-esteem. Can the negative effects of race and ethnicity be counteracted with teaching children to have a high sense of ethnic identity? Analyses of data collected from 12,386 adolescents showed that ethnic identity is an important qualifier of the relationships between independent variables of ethnicity and gender, and dependent variables of global self-esteem, academic self-confidence, and purpose in life. Whites and Native Americans had lower ethnic identity, and Blacks and Hispanics had higher ethnic identity. Asians and respondents of mixed ethnicity had intermediate levels of ethnic identity. The greater the ethnic identity, the higher the self-esteem, purpose in life and self-confidence (Martinez & Dukes 1997).

Racism

The terms stereotype, prejudice, discrimination, and racism are often used interchangeably in everyday conversation, but sociologists do not view them as the same. While prejudice is not necessarily specific to race, racism is a doctrine of racial supremacy that sees one racial category as somehow superior or inferior to others. The Ku Klux Klan is a racist organization; its members' belief in white supremacy has encouraged over a century of hate crime and hate speech.

According to Kendi (2020), racism is a marriage of racist policies and racist ideas that produces and normalizes racial inequities. Kendi defines a racist as someone who is supporting a racist policy through their actions or inaction or expressing a racist idea. Further, racial inequity is defined as when two or more race-ethnic groups are not standing on equal footing - which is a result of racist policies or ideas (Kendi, 2020). For Kendi, the polar of a racist is an anti-racist, one who is supporting an anti-racist policy through their actions or expressing an anti-racist idea. To say that one is not racist is a hollow statement as it is devoid of action.

Institutional racism refers to the way in which racism is embedded in the fabric of society. For example, the disproportionate number of Black men arrested, charged, and convicted of crimes may reflect racial profiling, a form of institutional racism. (At the end of this section, various types of racism are further defined, with examples).

Sociologists, in general, recognize "race" as a social construct. This means that, although the concepts of race and racism are based on observable biological characteristics, any conclusions drawn about race on the basis of those observations are heavily influenced by cultural ideologies. Racism, as an ideology, exists in a society at both the individual and institutional level.

While much of the research and work on racism during the last half-century or so has concentrated on "white racism" in the Western world, historical accounts of race-based social practices can be found across the globe. Kendi reminds us though that a person of any race-ethnic background could be racist. Racism can be broadly understood to encompass individual and group prejudices and acts of discrimination that result in material and cultural advantages conferred on a majority or a dominant social group. So-called "white racism" focuses on societies in which white populations are the majority or the dominant social group. In studies of these majority white societies, the aggregate of material and cultural advantages is usually termed "white privilege."

Racism in the United States traces the attitudes, laws, practices and actions which discriminate against various groups in the United States based on their race or ethnicity; while most white Americans enjoy legally or socially sanctioned privileges and rights which have at various times been denied to members of other ethnic or minority groups. European Americans, particularly affluent white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, are said to have enjoyed advantages in matters of education, immigration, voting rights, citizenship, land acquisition, bankruptcy, and criminal procedure throughout United States history.

Racism against various ethnic or minority groups has existed in the United States since the colonial era. African Americans in particular have faced restrictions on their political, social, and economic freedoms throughout much of United States history. Native Americans have suffered genocide, forced removals, and massacres, and they continue to face discrimination. In addition, East, South, and Southeast Asians along with Pacific Islanders have also been discriminated against. Hispanics have continuously experienced racism in the United States despite the fact that many of them have European ancestry. Middle Eastern groups such as Jews, Arabs, and Iranians continuously face discrimination in the United States, and as a result, some people who belong to these groups do not identify as, and are not perceived to be, white.

Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\): Protesters at a Black Lives Matter gathering. (CC BY-SA 4.0; WBPchur via Wikimedia)

Racism has manifested itself in a variety of ways, including genocide, slavery, segregation, Native American reservations, Native American boarding schools, immigration and naturalization laws, and internment camps. Formal racial discrimination was largely banned by the mid-20th century and over time, coming to be perceived as being socially and morally unacceptable. Racial politics remains a major phenomenon, and racism continues to be reflected in socioeconomic inequality. In recent years research has uncovered extensive evidence of racial discrimination in various sectors of modern U.S. society, including the criminal justice system, business, the economy, housing, health care, the media, and politics. In the view of the United Nations and the U.S. Human Rights Network, "discrimination in the United States permeates all aspects of life and extends to all communities of color."

A general definition of racism has been provided above. Yet, in reality, sociologists have identified multiple types of racism, which are defined and described below. The analysis of these different types of racism provides more depth and complexity which can help to better diagnose, critically analyze, and potentially remedy racism.

Thinking Sociologically

Color-blind racism is defined as the use of race-neutral principles to defend the racially unequal status quo. While a mainstream definition of color-blindness suggests that race or racial classification does not affect a person's life chances or opportunities, sociologists such as Bonilla-Silva argues that this more subtle form of racism ignores race and structural racism and is the dominant ideology in the U.S. Yet, as shown below structural racism permeates every aspect of our lives, and color blind racism ignores the structural inequalities that disproportionately affect people of color.

• Example: "We are all equal" and "race doesn't matter" are phrases uttered and may sound but, but in reality these phrases ignore structural problems such as the prison industrial complex, poverty, the wealth gap, and educational inequalities - all of which hamper the life chances of people of color which means we do not all have equal chances.
• How can we reach a point where our differences are acknowledged and even celebrated or where are unequal life experiences are understood as real?

Environmental racism: Structurally analogous to environmental sexism, environmental racism involves a conceptual association between people of color and nature that marks their dual subordination (Bullard & Wright, 1987). Environmental racism is seen in the deliberate targeting of communities of color for toxic waste disposal and the siting of polluting industries(Ibid). It is racial discrimination in the official sanctioning of the life-threatening presence of poisons and pollutants in communities of color (Ibid). And, it is racial discrimination in the history of excluding people of color from the mainstream environmental groups, decision-making boards, commissions, and regulatory bodies (Ibid).

• Example: Government-sanctioned lead-contaminated drinking water in Flint, Michigan, disproportionately impacting the African-American population.
• What race-ethnic representation exists in your local, appointed and elected municipalities (government), including those that regulate water and air pollution? What environmental groups exist in your community to provide checks on these governing boards, particularly with regards to the communities populated by people of color?

Ideological racism: An ideology that considers a groups’ unchangeable physical characteristics to be linked in a direct, causal way to psychological or intellectual characteristics and that, on this basis, distinguishes between superior and inferior groups (St. Jean & Feagin, 1998).

• Example: The justification of slavery as “saving” Africans from their homeland’s “primitive culture;” Manifest Destiny that purported Euro-Americans God-given rights to the lands in the eastern United States at the expense of Native Americans who were symbolized as “savages;” former President Trump’s statements on the campaign trail linking Mexicans to rapists and criminals.
• How can the stereotypes that shape ideological racism be challenged or changed - on an individual level, in our families, in the media, and in society at large?

Internalized racism: Members of the target group are emotionally, physically, and spiritually battered to the point that they begin to actually believe that their oppression is deserved, is their lot in life, is natural and right, and that it doesn’t even exist (Yamato, 2004).

• Example: A person of color who hates their skin color and wishes to marry out of their race-ethnic group so their children will be of lighter complexion. Another example: the root of the alcohol problem in Indigenous communities can be traced to the effects of colonization, internalizing the colonizer’s message (i.e. American Indians are inferior or "savage").
• In some communities and families, internalized racism has been in the works over centuries. What types of mental health supports exist in your communities or schools that may serve to address internalized racism?

Inter-group or inter-personal racism: This is the racism that occurs between individuals or groups; it is the holding of negative attitudes towards a different race or culture (Safe Places for the Advancement of Community and Equity). Interpersonal racism often follows a victim/perpetrator model (Ibid). Within poor communities, ignorance and suspicion of groups or individuals of a different race-ethnic background may result in tension between various race-ethnic groups.

• Example: In urban spaces such as Los Angeles, Long Beach, Chicago, New York City, poor Latinx, Asian, and African American gangs fight each other rather than the capitalist system that perpetuates class inequalities.
• Can you identify examples of multiracial coalitions in your community? One such multiracial collective is Californians for Justice, located in Oakland, San Jose, Fresno, and Long Beach, which is a statewide youth-powered organization fighting for racial justice, particularly in our public schools.

Intra-group racism: Racist attitudes and behaviors against people of your “same racial group.” Colorism is a type of intra-group racism which is the ranking or judgment of individuals based on skin tone (Schaefer, 2019).

• Example: A light-skinned person of color who evaluates a dark-skinned person of color as inferior; a wealthy person of any particular "race" who speaks pejoratively of less financially wealthy individuals in their "race."
• Have you ever experienced colorism in your family, community, or social media? How did you respond to this colorism, or how could have you responded to it?

Modern racism: White beliefs that serious anti-Black (or anti-Mexican, anti-Arab, anti-Asian, etc.) discrimination does not exist today and that African Americans (or other communities of color) are making illegitimate demands for social changes. (St. Jean & Feagin, 1998). This type of racism may be understood as color-blind racism.

• Example: One white male (David C.) in the film, The Color of Fear, was sure he was not racist at all and sure that racism is a thing of the past and only a figment in the imagination of the minds of African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, etc

• In this film, through dialoguing with other men of color and white men, David C. barely begins to understand white privilege and the systems of power that oppress people of color. Another male featured in the film, Roberto, acknowledges that unmasking white privilege is painful, as he proclaims,"The cure of the pain is in the pain." How would you respond to someone who proclaims that racism is not real, but is rather an illusion or a figment of one's imagination?

Structural racism/Systemic racism: A shorthand term for the many systemic factors that work to produce and maintain racial inequities in America today. These are aspects of our history and culture that allow the privileges associated with “whiteness” and the disadvantages associated with “color” to remain deeply embedded within the political economy. Public policies, institutional practices and cultural representations contribute to structural racism by reproducing outcomes that are racially inequitable. (The Aspen Institute)

• Example: The criminal justice system contributes to systemic racism through over-policing of communities of color, disproportionate police brutality experienced by people of color, and disproportionate mass incarceration of Black men.
• The Summer 2020 protests called to dismantle systemic racism in this country, particularly in policing. What do you think needs to happen to rid this country of system racism that is evident in our laws, schooling, mass media, criminal justice system, political representation, employment patterns, etc.?

Subtle, covert racism: Hidden, camouflaged, pernicious racism.

• Example: Merriam-Webster's Dictionary definitions of racially-coded labels such as Black, minority, and savage all contain derogatory meanings.
• What do you think is more harmful to our society: overt (obvious) racism or subtle, covert racism? While laws may address overt racism such as hate crimes, addressing covert racism may be far more challenging. How might we raise children in a way to prevent subtle, covert racism?

References

Bullard, R. D., & Wright, B. H. (1987). BLACKS AND THE ENVIRONMENT. Humboldt Journal of Social Relations, 14(1/2), 165–184.

DeCuir-Gunby, J. T. (2009). A Review of the Racial Identity Development of African American Adolescents: The Role of Education. Review of Educational Research, 79(1), 103–124.

Heard-Garris, N.J., Cale, M., Camaj, L., Hamati, M.C., & Dominguez, T.P. (2018). Transmitting trauma: A systematic review of vicarious racism and child health. Social Science & Medicine, 199, 230-240.

Henslin, J.M., (2011), Social Problems: A down to earth approach. 10th Ed. Pearson

Jablonski, N. G. (2012). Living color: The biological and social meaning of skin color. University of California Press.

Kendi, I.X., (2020). Stamped: Racism, antiracisim and you: A remix of the national book award winning stamped from the beginning. Little Brown and Company. New York

Kottak, C., Kozaitis, K.A. (2012), On Being Different: Diversity and multiculturalism in the north american mainstream. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Lewitt, E. M., & Baker, L. G. (1994). Race and Ethnicity: Changes for Children. The Future of Children, 4(3), 134–144.

Martinez, R.O., Dukes, R.L. The Effects of Ethnic Identity, Ethnicity, and Gender on Adolescent Well-Being. Journal of Youth and Adolescence 26, 503–516 (1997).

Schaefer, R.T. (2019) Racial and Ethnic Groups. 15th Ed. Pearson

St. Jean, Y., & Feagin, J. R. (1998). The family costs of White racism: The case of African American families. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 29(2), 297–312.

Yamato, G. (2004). Something about the subject makes it hard to name. In M. L. Andersen & P. H. Collins (Eds.), Race, class, & gender: An anthology (5th ed., pp. 99–103). Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth.