Sociology 4949: Outline--Week Nine

I. Theories: what are they and why are they important in studying race and ethnicity?

A. Macro/micro distinction

B. Large-scale theoretical orientations

1. Macro

a. Functionalism: social patterns exist and endure because of the contribution they make to the health of society as a whole.

1) Davis and Moore: Inequality as a way to motivate the most able people to train for and fill the most essential positions in society. Why won't this work for race and ethnic inequality?

2) Myrdal, An American Dilemma... contradictions within the culture which in the long run are apt to be resolved in the direction of equal opportunity.

b. Conflict theory: those with power and privilege use those resources to increasingly monopolize valued goods for themselves, their children, and "people like them.

1) Oliver Cox, Class, Caste and Race: economic theory of race and ethnic conflict.

2) Blumer: race and ethnic prejudice as a reflection of group position

2. Micro: the social psychology of preudice

I. The social psychology of prejudice

A. How quickly prejudice can be learned when it is to your advantage, and all the moreso if it is part of a conformity process. Pierre Van den Berghe, Stranger in their Midst (1989): Colonial administrators learn prejudice on their way to Africa aboard the Belgian ship, Tervaete.

B. Cognitive dissonance.

1. Original theory from Leon Festinger: Simultaneously holding two cognitions that are psychologically inconsistent creates an internal pressure to reduce the dissonance.

2. Modification by Elliot Aronson: "When a person is involved in a situation where he might consider himself to be stupid or immoral, he engages in self-justifying behavior which involves some form of self-persuasion." Cognitive dissonance particularly strong when:

a. Self-concept is involved

b. Actions are voluntary or nearly so.

c. Individual feels responsible for consequences and they matter.

3. Glass: The Justification of Cruelty--an experiment

a. People were induced to deliver what they thought was a series of shocks to other people who had supposedly also been recruited as volunteers.

b. As part of the process, research subjects were tested for self-esteem.

c. As part of the debriefing, subjects were questioned about their impressions of the volunteers who had been shocked.

d. These "victims" were consistently derogated, and those with the highest self-esteem did it the most.

e. Cognitive dissonance in this experiment: If I see myself as a basically good and decent fellow, how do I justify what would otherwise seem to be cruelty on my part? (Individual version of what Myrdal called "An American Dilemma."

4. Sociological dimension: the stereotypes and rationalizations the justify mistreatment are not individually created by socially created... remember the Blumer article... this is a way to link the macro and micro dimensions

5. IMPLICATIONS FOR RACE AND ETHNIC RELATIONS: the worse a group has been treated, the more it will be steretyped and downgraded ... notice the reversal in our normal sense of causality

C. Learning prejudice as a side effect of competition and conflict

Muzafer Sherif et al: the Eagles and the Rattlers: Cooperation within groups, competition between groups... situations in which one group benefitted at the other group's expense (e.g., group arriving first for a meal)... even people who had rated each other as best friends coming into camp came to see each other as enemies.... in this situation, the

II. Video: "Matters of Race: Race Is/Race Ain't"

III. Race and Crime through the lens of conflict theory

A. Michael Tonry: Malign Neglect: Race, Crime, and Punishment in America

1. Why did the rate of black imprisonment, which was already disproportionately high, rise so quickly after 1980? Tonry overhead showing trend, 1960-1992

(The rate of black male imprisonment has continued to soar even as overall crime rates have fallen during the early 2000s. "By 2004, half of black men in their 20's who did not attend college were jobless.. and by their mid-30s, 30% of such men have served time in prison." "Plight Deepens for Black Men, Studies Warn." Erik Eckholm, NY Times, March 20, 2006)

2. What was (is) the role of the War on Drugs?

Percent drug offenders in prison population

Tonry overhead showing white and nonwhite drug arrest rates, 1960-1991

Update: 2002. State Prisons: 21.4%. 2003: Federal prisons--55%.

"Over 80% of the increase in the federal prison population from 1985 to 1995 was due to drug convictions." Harrison and Beck, US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics

B. Cole: The Color of Punishment

1. Sentencing disparities, cocaine vs crack (notice example from Minnesota)... remain in use despite recommendation of U.S. Sentencing Commission

2. 1986-1991--Rate of minority arrests rose twice as fast as rate of white arrests... the entire discrepancy was in the drug arrests, which increased at ten times the rate of white drug arrests

3. 1992: U.S. sentencing commission, based on a self-report survey, estimated 76% of elicit drug users were white, 14% black, 8% Hispanic. Yet African Americans make up 35% of drug arrests, 55% of convictions, and 74% of prison sentences for drug offenses. (More apt to be involved in selling drugs?

4. Impact of the spread of "three strikes" laws (and sometimes even "two strikes" laws)... in California, blacks make up 7% of population but 43% of third strike defendants sent to prison...

5. Imagine if the War on Drugs had concentrated on the white middle class... by 1970, some college campuses reported that at least 70% of their population had tried marijuana (Just to judge by the people I knew well enough to know their drug habits, that may apply to Carleton College during my time there in the 1960s)...and in the years that followed, penalties dropped drastically and prosecution began to target primarily dealers...

D. Hagan: Crime and Disrepute (1994): comparison of rates of black imprisonment, South Africa under apartheid vs. United States

Black Rates of Incarceration, U.S. vs. South Africa, 1990 (Source: Christie, 1993: 119)

E. How successful has the War on Drugs been in reducing drug use?

A history of dramatic fluctuations that have little to do with enforcement (e.g. the crack epidemic, the methamphetamine epidemic, the ups and downs in figures for high schoolers)

James Q. Wilson: "Significant reductions in drug abuse will only come from reducing the demand for those drugs... I know of no serious law-enforcement official who disagrees with this conclusion. Typically, police officials tell interviewers they are fighting either a losing war, or at best, a holding action."

e.g., Boston video: "Street Cop"

F. The costs of these race and ethnic disparities in the war on crime/war on drugs

Overhead: Percentage of U.S. males likely to ever go to prison

What are the consequences for your community if 25-30% of the men can expect to have been in prison by the time they are in their thirties?

Christopher Uggen's work on felon disenfranchisement, for example, finds that almost 20% of African-American men in Minnesota are disenfranchised.