The characteristics of race and ethnic groups are less interesting or important than the relations among these groups. In fact, it is appropriate and useful to think of racial and ethnic relations as a subset of group relations more generally, whether those relations are based on race, ethnicity, gender, age, class, or any other criteria. It is never the differences between groups that matter as much as the social/cultural meanings of those differences and the relationships and inequalities between the bearers of the group “markers.”
First and foremost, race and ethnic systems are not only methods for classifying and explaining human differences but for establishing (more or less) sharp and permanent separation among the groups distinguished by these differences. In a word, the concepts and practices of race and ethnicity create “distance” between socially defined and socially defended bounded groups. There are various ways to conceptualize and quantify this “social distance,” such as the Social Distance Scale developed by Emory Bogardus (1933), a set of questions to test the willingness of people to enter into relationships (from superficial to intimate) with members of other groups. At the minimal level of acceptance, the scale asks whether the subject is willing to allow group X to inhabit or even visit his or her country; at increasingly intimate levels, questions assess whether the subject would accept members of group X in his or her town, neighborhood, workplace, circle of friends, or very family (through intermarriage). Obviously, the more exclusions raised against a group, the greater the “social distance” between the group in question and one’s own.
But the relations between groups are not merely individualistic and subjective.
There are large-scale, structural relationships as well, ones that persist despite the attitudes and actions of particular individuals. George Simpson and Milton Yinger
(1972) constructed a useful typology of group relations, comprising six types arrayed from relatively benign to highly malignant.
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1.. AAssssiimmiillaattiioonn. The process by which a group loses some or all of its unique char- acteristics and adopts the characteristics of another or the dominant group. CCuullttuurraall aassssiimmiillaattiioonnrefers specifically to the loss of distinctive cultural traits, such as language or religion, while rraacciiaall aassssiimmiillaattiioonnoccurs when the physical traits of a group are lost through intermarriage. (Some analysts have also proposed a category of ssoocciiaall or ssttrruuccttuurraall aassssiimmiillaattiioonnfor groups that are integrated into the society – say, sharing the same jobs or the same neighborhoods – whether or not they share the same culture. Significantly, a group may be culturally assimilated, that is, possess more or less the qualities of another or the dominant culture, but still not be socially assimilated.)
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2.. PPlluurraalliissmm. The co-existence in the same country or society of groups with distinct cultures. Rather than adopting a foreign or dominant culture, a group retains some distinct behaviors or values, possibly as a source of ethnic or racial pride, and may even maintain loyalty to their group (or, if migrants, to their former homeland) rather
Assimilation
The social process by which individuals and groups are absorbed into another, usually dominant, cultural group.
Cultural assimilation A type of assimilation which refers specifically to the loss of distinctive cultural traits, such as language or religion.
Racial assimilation A form of assimilation in which the physical traits of a group are lost through intermarriage.
Social assimilation A form of assimilation in which groups are integrated into the society (for instance, sharing the same jobs or the same neighborhoods), whether or not they share the same culture.
Structural assimilation See social assimilation.
PLATE 6.2 Human faces of many races
than to the wider society in which they live. (Other theorists have recommended distinguishing cultural from structural pplluurraalliissmmas well.)
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3.. LLeeggaall pprrootteeccttiioonn ooff mmiinnoorriittiieess. Since the personal interactions and attitudes between groups may be influenced by discrimination and hostility, a society may institute formal protections for the rights of subordinated groups. Examples would include the 1964 Civil Rights Act in the United States and the 1965 Race Relations Act in the United Kingdom, followed by many other measures to attempt to guar- antee equality between groups and to reduce or eliminate the prejudice and animosity against disadvantaged groups.
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4.. PPooppuullaattiioonn ttrraannssffeerr. A policy or practice of physically moving groups from one location to another, ostensibly to reduce tensions and hostilities. For instance, Native Americans were “removed” from parts of the southeast in 1830 and resettled in
“Indian country” (present-day Oklahoma) for their (and white Southerners’) benefit;
the surviving “reservation” system in the U.S.A. or “reserve” system in Australia is a product of such policies. At the partition of India in 1948, large populations were also transferred to the “correct” side of the India/Pakistan (i.e., Hindu/Muslim) border.
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5.. CCoonnttiinnuueedd ssuubbjjuuggaattiioonn. Dominant groups may have no desire, and no awareness of a need, to change the subordinate position of other groups in the society or country.
In such cases, the dominant group may institutionalize hierarchical relations (like slavery or ghetto neighborhoods), pass laws and adopt entire systems of exclusion (like segregation in the U.S.A. or aappaarrtthheeiiddin South Africa), or even use force to suppress groups and any resistance they might organize.
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6.. EExxtteerrmmiinnaattiioonn. The “final solution” to racial and ethnic “problems” may be the physical destruction of disfavored groups. Also known as ggeennoocciiddee, the most familiar case is the killing of millions of Jews by Nazi Germany in the 1940s, but many other instances have been recorded in history (and no doubt many more unrecorded), including the eradication of Armenians by Turkey, of Hottentots by Dutch settlers in South Africa, of Aboriginals by Euro-Australians, and of Native Americans by Euro-Americans. Short of all-out extermination of ethnic groups is the outbreak of
“ethnic conflict.”
Pluralism
The co-existence of multiple social/cultural groups in the same society or state.
Apartheid
In twentieth-century South Africa, the official policy of separating the races within their society legally and socially.
See Chapter 11
See Chapter 13 Genocide
The destruction of a group or society by harming, killing, or preventing the birth of its members.
Most people do not think of the disabled as a cultural group; however, many among the nearly one million deaf and nearly eight million hearing-impaired Americans disagree. Indeed, as Owen Wrigley stresses in his The Politics of Deafness, at least some representatives of the deaf community “vigorously refuse the identity label ‘disabled,’ seeing themselves strictly as a linguistic minority” (1996: 7–8), even as “a distinct BOX 6.2 DEAFWORLD: THE CULTURE OF THE DEAF