FOR NOTES CHAPTER 11 POWERPOINT
RACE For most sociologists, then, race is a more meaningful social category than a biological
one. That is, the characteristics a society selects to distinguish one racial group from
another shape social rankings and determine access to important resources. But they have
less to do with innate physical or genetic differences than with what the prevailing culture
defines as socially significant (American Sociological Association, 2002).
EXPERIENCES OF RACISM Despite their history of severe oppression, Native Americans have shown a remarkable
ability to endure and in some cases to shrewdly promote their own economic interests. In
the Pacific Northwest, for instance, some Indian tribes have successfully protected their
rights to lucrative fishing waters (F. G. Cohen, 1986). Casinos and resorts have made
some tribes wealthy. The Connecticut Sun, a professional womens basketball franchise,
plays its home games on the grounds of a casino owned by the Mohegan tribe.
Elsewhere, organizations have been formed to advance the financial concerns of Native
Americans in industries such as gas, oil, and coal, where substantial reserves exist on
Indian land (Snipp, 1986). However, intense struggles between large multinational
corporations and Native American tribes continue today over control of these reserves.
RACIAL IN DISCRIMAINATION OTHER COUNTRIES In Mexico all citizens are considered legally equal under the countrys constitution. Yet it
is a society deeply divided along racial lines, particularly between dark-skinned people of
Indian descent and light-skinned people of Spanish descent. Ironically, most Mexicans
are of mixed lineage, so that nearly all of them could be considered at least part Indian.
But Mexicans who are considered Indians are the object of severe discrimination. More
than 80% of Mexicos Indian communities suffer high levels of poverty. Nearly half of all
Indians are illiterate and only 14% complete sixth grade (DePalma, 1996).
Even though legal racial discrimination in the form of apartheid ended in South Africa in
the early 1990s, many biracial people (known as coloreds) still live as second-class
citizens, despised as the offspring of forbidden racial mixing (Polgreen, 2003).
During soccer matches all across Europe, black players are routinely subject to racist
taunts, derisive chanting, monkey noises, and hurled bananas from white fans (Longman,
2006).
In Paris, a soup kitchen for the homeless serves only identity soupa broth made with
smoked bacon and pigs ears, feet, and tailsas a way of excluding disadvantaged
Muslims and Jews who are forbidden by religious law to eat pig (Smith, 2006).