Perspectives An Open Invitation to Cultural Anthropology Textbook Chapter 9 Race and Ethnicity

RACE AND ETHNICITY Justin Garcia , University of Pennsylvania Learning Objectives Define the term reification and explain how the concept of race has been throughout history . Explain why a biological basis for human race categories does not exist . Discuss what anthropologists mean when they say that race is a socially constructed concept and explain how race has been socially constructed in the United States and Brazil . Identify what is meant by racial formation , and the rule . Describe how ethnicity is different from race , how ethnic groups are different from racial groups , and what is meant by symbolic ethnicity . Summarize the history of immigration to the United States , explaining how different waves of immigrant groups have been as racially different and have shifted popular understandings of race . Analyze ways in which the racial and ethnic compositions of professional sports have shifted over time and how those shifts resulted from changing social and cultural circumstances that drew new groups into sports . Suppose someone asked you the following questions How would you define the word race as it applies to groups of human beings ?

How many human races are there and What are they ?

For each of the races you identify , What are the important or key criteria that distinguish each group ( what characteristics or features are unique to each group that differentiate it from the others ) Discussions about race and racism are often highly emotional and encompass a wide range of emotions , including 204

205 discomfort , fear , defensiveness , anger , and is this such an emotional topic in society and why do you think it is so difficult for individuals to discuss race dispassionately ?

How would you respond to these questions ?

I pose these questions to students enrolled in my Introduction to Cultural Anthropology course just before we begin the unit on race and ethnicity in a worksheet and ask them to answer each question fully to the best of their ability out doing any outside research . At the next class , I assign the students to small groups of five to eight depending on the size of the class and give them a few minutes to share their responses to the questions with one another . We then collectively discuss their responses as a class . Their responses are often very interesting and quite revealing and generate memorable classroom dialogues . DUDE , WHAT ARE YOU ?

Ordinarily , students select a college major or minor by carefully considering their personal interests , particular subjects that pique their curiosity , and fields they feel would be a good basis for future careers . Technically , my decision to major in anthropology and later earn a masters degree and doctorate in anthropology was mine alone , but I tell my friends and students , only partly as a joke , that my choice of major was made for me to some degree by people I encountered as a child , teenager , and young adult . Since middle school , I had noticed that many strangers , classmates , coworkers , and to find my physical appearance confusing or abnormal , often leading them to ask me questions like What are you ?

and VVhat your race ?

Others simply assumed my as if it was and easily defined and then interacted with me according to their .

206 PERSPECTIVES AN OPEN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY These subjective determinations varied wildly from person to person and from tion to situation . I distinctly recall , for example , an incident in a souvenir shop at the beach in Ocean City , Maryland , shortly after I from high school . A chant attempted to persuade me to purchase a that boldly declared 100 Italian and Proud of It ! with bubbled letters that spelled Italian shaded green , white , and red . Despite my repeated efforts to convince the merchant that I was not of Italian ethnic , he refused to believe me . On another occasion during my while I was studying for my doctoral degree at Temple University , I was walking down Diamond Street in North Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , passing through a predominantly African American neighborhood . As a group of six male teenagers socializing on the steps of a row house , one of them shouted Hey , honky ! What are you doing in this neighborhood ?

Somewhat startled at being labeled a honky , something I had never been called before ) I looked at the group and erupted in laughter , which produced looks of surprise and disbelief Figure The Common Threads mural at Broad and Garden Streets , In return AS I proceeded to Walk few more blocks and reached the predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood of Lower Kensington , three young women addressed me as papi ( an affectionate Spanish slang term for man ) My transformation from honky to papi in a span of ten minutes spoke volumes about my life history and social sparked my interest in and physical anthropology . Throughout my life , my physical appearance has provided me with countless unique and memorable experiences that have emphasized the significance of race and ethnicity as socially constructed in America and other societies . My fascination with this subject is therefore both personal and professional a lifetime of questions and assumptions from others regarding my racial and ethnic ground have cultivated my interest in these topics . I noticed that my perceived race or ethnicity , much like beauty , rested in the eye of the beholder as individuals in different regions of the country ( and outside of the United States ) often perceived me as having different specific . For example , as a teenager living in York County , Pennsylvania , senior citizens and individuals usually assumed I was white , while younger residents often saw me as Puerto Rican or generically panic or When I lived in Philadelphia , locals mostly assumed I was Italian American , but many Puerto Ricans , Mexicans , and Dominicans , in the City of Brotherly Love often took me for either Puerto Rican or My experiences in the southwest were a different matter altogether . During my time in Texas , New Mexico , and Colorado , local of their respective assumed I

207 was of Mexican descent . At times , local Mexican Americans addressed me as carnal ( pronounced nowl ) a term often used to imply a strong sense of community among Mexican American men that is somewhat akin to frequent use of the label brother among African American men . On more occasions than I can count , people assumed that I spoke Spanish . Once , in Los Angeles , someone from the television network attempted to interview me about my thoughts on an bill pending in the California legislature . My West Coast friends and professional colleagues were surprised to hear that I was usually assumed to be Puerto Rican , Italian , or simply white on the East Coast , and one of my closest friends from graduate Mexican American woman from northern memorably stated that she would not even assume that I was half I have a rather ambiguous physical shaved head , brown eyes , and a black mustache and goatee . Depending on who one asks , I have either a pasty white or somewhat olive complexion , and my last name is often the single biggest factor that leads people on the East Coast to conclude that I am Puerto Rican . My experiences are examples of what sociologists Michael and Howard ( 1986 ) referred to as racial deeply entrenched social belief that another sons racial or ethnic background is obvious and easily determined from brief glances and can be used to predict a persons culture , behavior , and personality . Reality , of course , is far more complex . One racial or ethnic background can not necessarily be accurately determined based on physical appearance alone , and an individual race does not necessarily determine his or her culture , which in turn does not determine Yet , these perceptions remain . IS ANTHROPOLOGY THE SCIENCE OF RACE ?

Anthropology was sometimes referred to as the science of race during the eighteenth and centuries when physical anthropologists sought a biological basis for categorizing humans into racial Since World War II , important research by anthropologists has revealed that racial are socially and culturally defined concepts and that racial labels and their definitions vary widely around the world . In other words , different countries have different racial categories , and different ways of classifying their citizens into these At the same time , significant genetic studies conducted by physical anthropologists since the have revealed that biologically distinct human races do not exist . Certainly , humans vary in terms of physical and genetic characteristics such as skin color , hair texture , and eye shape , but those variations can not be used as criteria to biologically classify racial groups with scientific accuracy . Let us turn our attention to understanding why humans can not be scientifically divided into biologically distinct races . Race A Discredited Concept in Human Biology At some point in your life , you have probably been asked to identify your race on a college form , job application , government or military form , or some other official document . And most likely , you were required to select from a list of choices rather than given the ability to respond freely . The with which we are exposed to four or five common racial white , black , Caucasian , and Asian , for to promote the illusion that racial categories are natural , objective , and evident divisions . After all , if Justin , and Jackie Chan stood side by side , those mon racial labels might seem to make sense . What could be more objective , more conclusive , than this

208 AN OPEN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY evidence before our very eyes ?

By this point , you might be thinking that anthropologists have gone completely insane in denying biological human races ! Physical anthropologists have identified several important concepts regarding the true nature of humans physical , genetic , and biological variation that have discredited race as a biological concept . Many of the issues presented in this section are discussed in further detail in Race Are We Different , a website created by the American Anthropological Association . The American Anthropological ( launched the website to educate the public about the true nature of human biological and cultural variation and challenge common about race . This is an important endeavor because race is a complicated , often emotionally charged topic , leading many people to rely on their personal opinions and hearsay when drawing conclusions about people who are different from them . The website is highly interactive , featuring multimedia illustrations and online quizzes designed to increase visitors knowledge of human variation . encourage you to explore the website as you will likely find answers to several of the questions you may still be asking after reading this Before explaining why distinct biological races do not exist among humans , I must point out that one of the biggest reasons so many people continue to believe in the existence of biological human races is that the idea has been intensively in literature , the media , and culture for more than three hundred years . Reification refers to the process in which an inaccurate concept or idea is so heavily promoted and circulated among people that it begins to take on a life of its own . Over centuries , the notion of biological human races became , accepted , and regarded as a Studies of human physical and cultural variation from a scientific and anthropological perspective have allowed us to move beyond thinking and toward an improved understanding of the true complexity of human diversity . The reification of race has a long history . Especially during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries , philosophers and scholars attempted to identify various human races . They perceived races as specific divisions of humans who shared certain physical and biological features that distinguished them from other groups of humans . This historic notion of race may seem and innocent enough , but it quickly led to problems as social theorists attempted to classify people by race . One of the most basic difficulties was the actual number of human races how many were there , who were they , and what grounds distinguished them ?

Despite more than three centuries of such effort , no scientific consensus was established for a precise number of human races .

One of the earliest and most attempts at producing a racial classification system came from Swedish botanist Carolus , who argued in ( 1735 ) for the existence of four human races Americana ( Native American American Indian ) European ) East Asian ) and ( African ) These correspond with common racial labels used in the United States for census and demographic purposes today . However , in 1795 , German physician and anthropologist Johann suggested that there were five races , which he labeled as Caucasian ( white ) Mongolian ( yellow or East Asian ) Ethiopian ( black or African ) American ( red or American Indian ) brown or Pacific Islander ) Importantly , listed the races in this exact order , which he believed their ural historical descent from the primeval Caucasian original to extreme Although he was a committed abolitionist , nevertheless felt that his Caucasian race ( named after the Mountains of Central Asia , where he believed humans had originated ) represented the original variety of humankind from which Figure In , Carolus the other races had degenerated . attempted to create a taxonomy for By the early twentieth century many social philosophers and scholars di had accepted the idea of three human races the , and Mongoloid groups that corresponded with regions of Europe , Africa , and East Asia , respectively . However , the theory faced serious criticism given that numerous peoples from several geographic regions were omitted from the classification , including Australian Aborigines , Asian Indians , American Indians , and inhabitants of the South Pacific Islands . Those groups could not be easily pigeonholed into racial categories regardless of how loosely the categories were defined . Aborigines , for example , often have dark complexions ( a trait they appeared to share with Africans ) but reddish or blondish hair ( a trait shared with northern Europeans ) Likewise , many Indians living on the Asian subcontinent have complexions that are as dark or darker than those of many Africans and African Americans . Because of these seeming contradictions , some academics began to argue in favor of larger numbers of human , nine , twenty , sixty , and During the and , some scholars asserted that Europeans were comprised of more than one white or Caucasian race Nordic , Alpine , and Mediterranean ( named for the geographic regions of Europe from which they descended ) These European races , they alleged , exhibited obvious physical traits that distinguished them from one another and thus served as racial boundaries . For example , were said to consist of peoples of Northern , the British Isles , and Northern while came from the Alps Mountains of Central Europe and included French , Swiss , Northern Italians , and Southern Germans . People from southern Portuguese , Spanish , Southern Italians , Sicilians , Greeks , and the race . Most Americans today would find this racial classification system bizarre , but its argued for it on the basis that one would observe striking physical differences between a Swede or Norwegian and a Sicilian . Similar efforts were made to carve up the populations of Africa and Asia into geographically local , specific The fundamental point here is that any effort to classify human populations into racial categories is inherently arbitrary and subjective rather than scientific and objective . These racial classification schemes simply their proponents desires to slice the pie of human physical variation ing to the particular trait ( they preferred to establish as the major , defining criteria of their

210 PERSPECTIVES AN OPEN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY system . Two major types of race have emerged over the past 300 years and . have classified races by large geographic tracts ( often continents ) and produced a small number of broad , general racial categories , as in original classification scheme and later theories . have subdivided racial categories into specific , more localized regional races and attempted to devise more precise racial labels for these groups , such as the three European races described earlier . Consequently , have tried to identify many more human races than . Racial labels , whether from a lumper or a splitter model , clearly attempt to identify and describe thing . So why do these racial labels not accurately describe human physical and biological variation ?

To understand why , we must keep in mind that racial labels are distinct , discrete categories while human physical and biological variations ( such as skin color , hair color and texture , eye color , height , nose shape , and distribution of blood types ) are continuous rather than discrete . Physical anthropologists use the term cline to refer to differences in the traits that occur in populations across a geographical area . In a cline , a trait may be more common in one graphical area than another , but the variation is gradual and continuous with no sharp breaks . A prominent example of clinal variation among humans is skin color . Think of it this way Do all white persons who you know actually share the same skin complexion ?

Likewise , do The blood pattern all black Persons who you know Share an identical skin complexion ?

The answer , is no , since human skin color does not occur in just , or even 50 shades . The reality is that human skin color , as a continuous trait , exists as a spectrum from very light to very dark with every possible hue , shade , and tone in between . Imagine two from Sweden and one from side by side . If we looked only at those two individuals and ignored people who inhabit the regions between Sweden and , it would be easy to reach the faulty conclusion that they represented two distinct human racial groups , one light ( white ) and one dark ( black ) However , if we walked from to Sweden , we would gain a fuller understanding of human skin color because we would see that skin color generally became gradually lighter the further north we traveled from the equator . At no point during this imaginary walk would we reach a point at which the people abruptly changed skin color . As physical anthropologists such as John ( 2004 ) and Loring Brace ( 2005 ) have noted , the average range of skin color gradually changes over geographic space . North Africans are generally than Central Africans , and southern Europeans are generally than North Africans . In turn , Italians are generally than Sicilians , and the Irish , Danes , and Swedes are generally than northern Italians and Hungarians . Thus , human skin color can not be used as a definitive marker of racial boundaries . There are a few notable exceptions to this general rule of people inhabiting northern latitudes . The of Eastern Siberia and of Alaska , Canada , and have darker skin than other Eurasian people living at similar latitudes , such as Scandinavians . Physical anthropologists have explained this exception in terms of the distinct dietary customs of indigenous Arctic groups , which have traditionally been based on certain native meats and fish that are rich in amin ( polar bears , whales , seals , and trout )

What does Vitamin have to do with skin color ?

The answer is intriguing ! Dark skin blocks most of the suns dangerous ultraviolet rays , which is advantageous in tropical environments where sunlight is most intense . Exposure to high levels of ultraviolet radiation can damage skin cells , causing cancer , and also destroy the body supply of , a nutrient essential for reproduction . deficiency in women can cause severe birth defects in their babies . Melanin , the pigment produced in skin cells , acts as a natural sunblock , protecting skin cells from damage , and preventing the breakdown of . ever , exposure to sunlight has an important positive health effect stimulating the production of min Vitamin is essential for the health of bones and the immune system . In areas where ultraviolet radiation is strong , there is no problem producing enough Vitamin , even as darker skin filters violet In environments where the suns rays are much less intense , a different problem occurs not enough sunlight penetrates the skin to enable the production of Vitamin Over the course of human , natural selection favored the evolution of lighter skin as humans migrated and settled farther from the equator to ensure that weaker rays of sunlight could adequately penetrate our skin . The diet of indigenous populations of the Arctic region provided sufficient amounts of Vitamin to ensure their health . This reduced the selective pressure toward the evolution of lighter skin among the and the . Physical anthropologist Nina ( 2012 ) has also noted that natural selection could have favored darker skin in Arctic regions because high levels of ultraviolet radiation from the sun are from snow and ice during the summer months . Still , many people in the United States remain convinced that biologically distinct human races exist and are easy to identify , declaring that they can walk down any street in the United States and easily determine who is white and who is The United States was populated historically by grants from a small number of world regions who did not the full spectrum of human physical variation . The earliest settlers in the North American colonies overwhelmingly came from Europe ( particularly , Britain , France , Germany , and Ireland ) regions where skin colors tend to be among the lightest in the world . Slaves brought to the United States during the colonial period came largely from the western coast of Central Africa , a region where skin color tends to be among the est in the world . Consequently , when we look at today descendants of these groups , we are not looking at accurate , proportional representations of the total range of human skin color instead , we are looking , in effect , at opposite ends of a spectrum , where striking differences are inevitable . More recent waves of immigrants who have come to the United States from other world regions have brought a wider range of skin colors , shaping a continuum of skin color that defies classification into a few simple categories . Physical anthropologists have also found that there are no specific genetic traits that are exclusive to a racial group . For the concept of human races to have biological significance , an analysis of multiple genetic traits would have to consistently produce the same racial classifications . In other words , a racial classification scheme for skin color would also have to classifications by blood type , hair texture , eye shape , lactose intolerance , and other traits often mistakenly assumed to be racial characteristics . An analysis based on any one of those characteristics individually would produce a unique set of racial categories because variations in human physical and genetic are nonconcordant . Each trait is inherited independently , not bundled together with other traits and inherited as a package . There is no tion between skin color and other characteristics such as blood type and lactose intolerance . A prominent example of is anemia , which people often mistakenly think of as a disease that only affects Africans , African Americans , and black persons . In fact , the allele ( the version of the gene that causes anemia when a person inherits two copies ) is common among people whose ancestors are from regions where a certain strain of malaria , is prevalent , namely Central and Western Africa and parts of Mediterranean Europe ,

212 PERSPECTIVES AN OPEN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY the Arabian peninsula , and India . The trait thus is not exclusively African or The erroneous perceptions are primarily to the fact that the ancestors of African Americans came predominantly from Western Africa , where the gene is prevalent , and are therefore more recognizable than populations of other and regions where the gene is mon , such as southern Europe and Another trait commonly mistaken as defining race is the epicanthic eye fold typically associated with people of East Asian ancestry . The epicanthic eye fold at the outer corner of the eyelid produces the eye shape that people in the United States typically associate with people from China and Japan , but is also common in people from Central Asia , parts of Eastern Europe and , some American Indian groups , and the San of southern Africa . In college , I took a course titled Nutrition prevalence ! lanes intolerant in nun ! populations because I thought it would be an easy way to boost my grade point average . The professor of the class , an authoritarian man in his late or early , routinely declared that Asians can drink milk ! When this assertion was by various students , including a woman who claimed that her best friend was Korean and drank milk and ate ice cream all the time , the professor only became more strident , bling down on his dairy diatribe and defiantly vowing that he would not ignore the facts for purposes of political However , it Figure The ability to digest the lactose found in dairy products is more common in , some mars , scientific accuracy , not political correctness , we should be concerned about , and lactose is a complex topic . Lactose is a sugar that is naturally present in milk and dairy products , and an enzyme , lactase , breaks it down into two simpler sugars that can be digested by the body . Ordinarily , humans ( and other mammals ) stop producing lactase after infancy , and approximately 75 percent of humans are thus lactose intolerant and can not naturally digest milk . Lactose intolerance is a natural , normal condition . However , some people continue to produce lactase into adulthood and can naturally digest milk and dairy products . This lactose persistence developed through natural selection , primarily among people in regions that had long histories of dairy farming ( including the Middle East , Northern Europe , Eastern Europe , East Africa , and Northern India ) In other areas and for some groups of people , dairy products were introduced relatively recently ( such as East Asia , Southern Europe , and Western and Southern Africa and among Australian Aborigines and American Indians ) and lactose persistence has not developed The idea of biological human races emphasizes differences , both real and perceived , between groups and ignores or overlooks differences within groups . The biological differences between whites and blacks and between blacks and Asians are assumed to be greater than the biological differences among whites and among The opposite is actually true the overwhelming majority of genetic diversity in humans ( percent ) is found within people who live on the same Also , keep in mind that human beings are one of the most genetically similar of all species . There is nearly six times more genetic variation among deer in the southern United States than in all humans ! Consider our closest living relative , the chimpanzee . Chimpanzees natural habitat is confined to central Africa and parts of western Africa , yet four genetically distinct groups occupy those regions and they

are far more genetically distinct than humans who live on different continents . That humans exhibit such a low level of genetic variation compared to other species reflects the fact that we are a relatively recent species modern humans ( Homo sapiens ) first appeared in East Africa just under years Physical anthropologists today analyze human biological variation by examining specific genetic traits to understand how those traits originated and evolved over time and why some genetic traits are more common in certain populations . Since much of our biological diversity occurs mostly within ( rather than between ) continental regions once believed to be the homelands of distinct races , the cept of race is meaningless in any study of human biology . Franz Boas , considered the father of modern anthropology , was the first prominent anthropologist to challenge racial thinking directly during the early twentieth century . A professor of anthropology at Columbia University in New York City and immigrant from Germany , Boas established anthropology in the United States as a academic discipline consisting of archaeology , biological anthropology , cultural anthropology , and linguistics . His approach challenged conventional thinking at the time that humans could be rated into biological races endowed with unique intellectual , moral , and physical abilities . In one of his most famous studies , Boas challenged , in which the size and shape of skulls of various groups were measured as a way of assigning relative intelligence and moral . Boas noted that the size and shape of the skull were not fixed characteristics within groups and were instead by the environment . Children born in the United States to parents of ous immigrant groups , for example , had slightly different average skull shapes than children born and raised in the homelands of those immigrant groups . The differences relative access to tion and other dimensions . In his famous 1909 essay Race Problems in America , Boas challenged the commonly held idea that immigrants to the United States from Italy , Poland , Russia , Greece , the Empire , and other southern and eastern European nations were a threat to America racial He pointed out that the British , Germans , and Scandinavians ( popularly believed at the time to be the true White that gave the United States its superior qualities ) were not themselves racially Instead , many different tribal and cultural groups had over the centuries . In fact , Boas asserted , the notion of racial purity was utter nonsense . As anthropologist Jonathan Marks ( 1994 ) noted , You may group humans into a small number of races if you want to , but you are denied biology as a support for 13 Race as a Social Concept just because the idea of distinct biological human races is not a valid scientific concept does not mean , and should not be interpreted as implying , that there is no such thing as race or that race isn Race is indeed real but it is a concept based on arbitrary social and cultural definitions rather than or science . Thus , racial categories such as white and black are as real as categories of American and Many things in the world are real but are not biological . So , while race does not reflect biological characteristics , it socially constructed concepts defined subjectively by societies to notions of division that are perceived to be significant . Some sociologists and anthropologists now use the term social races instead , seeking to emphasize their cultural and arbitrary roots . Race is most accurately thought of as a concept . Michael and Howard noted that Racial categories and the meaning of race are given concrete expression by the specific social relations and historical context in which they are 14 In other words , racial labels mately a society social attitudes and cultural beliefs regarding notions of group differences . And

214 PERSPECTIVES AN OPEN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL since racial categories are culturally defined , they can vary from one society to another as well as change over time within a society . and referred to this as racial the process by which social , economic , and political forces determine the content and importance of racial 15 The process of racial formation is vividly illustrated by the idea of whiteness in the United States . Over the course of history , the concept of whiteness expanded to include various immigrant groups that once were targets of racist beliefs and discrimination . In the mid , for example , Irish Catholic immigrants faced intense hostility from Americas mainstream society , and politicians and journalists depicted the Irish as racially different and inferior . Newspaper cartoons frequently portrayed Irish Catholics in apelike fashion overweight , knuckle dragging , and brutish . In the early twentieth century , Italian and Jewish immigrants were typically perceived as racially distinct from Americas white majority as well . They were said to belong to the inferior Mediterranean and Jewish races . Today , Irish , Italian , and Jewish Americans are fully considered white , and many people find it hard to believe that they once were perceived otherwise . Racial categories as an aspect of culture are typically learned , internalized , and accepted without tion or critical thought in a process not so different from children learning their native language as they grow up . A primary contributor to expansion of the definition of whiteness in the United States was the rise of many members of those immigrant groups in social status after World War Hundreds of ban housing developments were constructed on the edge of the nations major cities during the and to accommodate returning soldiers , the Serviceman Readjustment Act of 1944 offered a series of benefits for military veterans , including free college education or technical training and funded by the federal government for veterans pursuing higher education . In tion , veterans could obtain guaranteed loans for homes and for starting their own farms or businesses . The act was in effect from 1944 through 1956 and was theoretically available to all military veterans who served at least four months in uniform and were honorably discharged , but the tion did not contain provisions and most African American veterans were denied benefits because private banks refused to provide the loans and restrictive language by homeowners associations prohibited sales of homes to . The male children and grandchildren of European immigrant groups benefited tremendously from the act . They were able to obtain college educations , formerly available only to the , at no cost , leading to professional careers , and to purchase suburban homes that increased substantially in value over time . The act has been credited , more than anything else , with creating the modern middle class of society and ing the majority of white Americans from renters into As the children of Irish , Jewish , Italian , Greek , and Eastern European parents grew up together in the suburbs , formed friendships , and dated and married one another , the old social boundaries that defined whiteness were Race is a socially constructed concept but it is not a trivial matter . On the contrary , one race often has a dramatic impact on everyday life . In the United States , for example , people often use personal understanding of predict who a person is and what a person is like in terms of personality , behavior , and other qualities . Because of this tendency to characterize others and make assumptions about them , people can be uncomfortable or defensive when they mistake someone ground or can not easily determine what someone is , as revealed in statements such as You don look black ! or You talk like a white person . Such statements reveal fixed notions about blackness and whiteness and what members of each race will be like , reflecting their socially constructed and common sense understanding of the world . Since the , scholars and activists have discussed white privilege as a basic feature

of race as a lived experience in the United States . Peggy coined the term in a famous 1988 essay , White Privilege Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack , in which she identified more than two dozen accumulated unearned benefits and advantages associated with being a white person in the United States . The benefits ranged from relatively minor things , such as knowing that flesh color would match her skin , to major of life experiences and opportunities , such as being assured that she would never be asked to speak on behalf of her entire race , being able to curse and get angry in public without others assuming she was acting that way because of her race , and not having to teach her children that police officers and the general public would View them as suspicious or because of their race . In 2015 , aired a documentary on white privilege , simply titled i , to raise awareness of this issue among Millennials . In the documentary , young white cans from various geographic , social , and class backgrounds discussed their experiences with race . White privilege has gained significant attention and is an important tool for understanding how race is often connected to everyday experiences and opportunities , but we must remember that no group is homogenous or monolithic . White persons receive varying degrees of privilege and social , and other important characteristics , such as social class , gender , sexual orientation , and ( dis ) ability , shape individuals overall lives and how they experience society . John , an urban , has written extensively about these characteristics . His Racial Situations Class Predicaments of Whiteness in Detroit ( 1999 ) discusses the lives of white residents in three neighborhoods in Detroit , Michigan , that vary significantly impoverished , one working class , and one upper middle class . reveals that social class has played a major role in shaping strikingly identities among these white residents and how , accordingly , social relations between whites and blacks in the neighborhoods vary from camaraderie and companionship to . RACE IN THREE NATIONS THE UNITED STATES , BRAZIL , AND JAPAN To better understand how race is constructed around the world , consider how the United States , Brazil , and Japan define racial categories . In the United States , race has traditionally been rigidly , and Americans have long perceived racial categories as discrete and mutually exclusive a son who had one black parent and one white parent was seen simply as The institution of slavery played a major role in defining how the United States has classified people by race through the rule , which required that any trace of known or recorded ( ancestry was used to automatically exclude a person from being classified as Someone with one black grandparent and three white grandparents or one black and seven white was classified under the rule simply as The original purpose of the rule was to ensure that children born from sexual unions ( some consensual but many forced ) between fathers and enslaved women would be born into slave Consider President Barack Obama . Obama is of biracial heritage his mother was white of American descent and his father was a black man from Kenya . The media often refer to Obama simply as black or African American , such as when he is referred to as the nations first black President , and never refer to him as 20 Whiteness in the United States has long been understood and legally defined as implying racial purity despite the biological absurdity of the notion , and to be considered white , one could have no known ancestors of black , American Indian , Asian , or other backgrounds . Cultural anthropologists also refer to the rule as , a term coined by anthropologist Marvin Harris in the to refer to a socially constructed racial classification system

216 PERSPECTIVES AN OPEN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL in which a person of mixed racial heritage is automatically categorized as a member of the less ( or least ) privileged Another example is birth certificates issued by hospitals , which , until relatively recently , used a precise formula to determine the appropriate racial classification for a newborn . If one parent was white and the other was , the child was classified as the race of the parent if neither parent was white , the child was classified as the race of the father . Not until very recently have the United States government , the media , and pop culture begun to officially acknowledge and embrace biracial and multiracial individuals . The 2000 census was the first to allow respondents to identify as more than one race . Currently , a grassroots movement that is expanding across the United States , led by organizations such as Project RACE ( Reclassify All Children Equally ) and Swirl , seeks to raise public awareness of biracial and multiracial people who sometimes still experience social prejudice for being of mixed race or resentment from peers who disapprove of their decision to identify with all of their backgrounds instead of just one . Prominent biracial and multiracial celebrities such as Tiger Woods , Alicia Keys , Carey , Knowles , Bruno Mars , and Dwayne The Rock and the election of Barack Obama have also prompted people in the United States to reconsider the problematic nature of rigid , discrete racial categories . In 1977 , the government established five official racial categories under Office of Management and Budget ( Directive 15 that provided a basis for and compiling of statistical information to facilitate collection of demographic information by the Census Bureau and to ensure compliance with federal civil rights legislation and policies . Those and their definitions , which are still used today , are ( a ) White a person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe , North Africa , or the Middle East ( Black or African American a person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa ( American Indian Native a person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America ( including Central America ) and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment ( Asian a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East , Southeast Asia , or the Indian subcontinent and ( Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander a person having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii , or the Pacific In addition , Directive 15 established Hispanic or Latino as a separate ethnic ( not racial ) category on official documents , individuals are asked to identify their racial background and whether they are of Latino ethnic heritage . The official tion of Hispanic or Latino is a person of Mexican , Puerto Rican , Cuban , South or Central American , or other Spanish culture or origin , regardless of Directive 15 terminology and definitions have generated considerable criticism and . The complex fundamental question is whether such categories are practical and actually reflect how individuals choose to . Terms such as white and Black Hispanic , both a result of the directive , are to many people in the United States who perceive nos as a separate group from whites and blacks . Others oppose any governmental attempt to classify people by race , on both liberal and conservative political grounds . In 1997 , the American ical Association unsuccessfully advocated for a cessation of federal efforts to coercively classify by race , arguing instead that individuals should be given the opportunity to identify their ethnic or national ( such as their country or countries of ancestry ) Brazil concept of race is much more , and multifaceted . The differences between Brazil and the United States are particularly striking because the countries have similar histories . Both nations were born of European colonialism in the New World , established major plantation economies that relied on large numbers of African slaves , and subsequently experienced large waves of immigration from around the world ( particularly Europe ) following the abolition of slavery . Despite those

, significant contrasts in how race is perceived in these two societies persist , which is sometimes summarized in the expression The United States has a color line , while Brazil has a color 22 In Brazil , races are typically viewed as points on a continuum in which one gradually blends into another white and black are opposite ends of a continuum that incorporates many ate racial labels that have no equivalent in the United States . The Brazilian term for these categories , which correspond to the concept of race in the United States , is , which directly translates into Portuguese as 23 Rather than describing what is believed to be a persons biological or genetic ancestry , describe slight but noticeable differences in physical appearance . Examples include , a person with a very fair complexion , straight blonde hair , and blue or green eyes , a person with tightly curled blondish or reddish hair , blue or green eyes , a wide nose , and thick lips and who verde , an individual with dark skin , brown eyes , straight black hair , a narrow nose , and thin lips . Sociologists and anthropologists have identified more than 125 in Brazil , and small villages of only 500 people may feature 40 or more depending on how residents describe one another . Some of the labels vary from region to region , local cultural differences . Since Brazilians perceive race based on or outward physical appearance rather than as an extension of geographically based biological and genetic descent , individual members of a family can be seen as different . This may seem bewildering to those who think of race as a fixed identity inherited from one parents even though it is generally acknowledged that family members often have different physical features , such as sisters who have strikingly different eye colors , hair colors , or ions . In Brazil , those differences are frequently viewed as significant enough to assign different . Cultural anthropologist Conrad Phillip , who conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Brazil , noted that something as minor as a suntan or sunburn could lead to a person temporarily being described as a different tipo until the effects of the tanning or burning wore Another major difference in the construction of race in the United States and Brazil is the more and nature of race in Brazil , which is reflected in a popular Brazilian saying Money As individuals increase their social class status ( by , for example , graduating from college and obtaining , professional positions ) they generally come to be seen as a what lighter tipo and individuals who become poorer may be viewed as a slightly darker tipo . In the United States , social class has no bearing on ones racial designation a person who achieves upward social mobility and greater education and wealth may be seen by some as more socially desirable because of social class but does not change racial classification . Brazil Institute of Geography and Statistics established five official racial categories in 1940 to collection of demographic information that are still in use today ( white ) black ) pardo ( brown ) yellow ) and indigena ( indigenous ) These racial categories are similar to the ones established in the United States under Directive 15 and to proposed taxonomy in the century . Pardo is unique to Brazil and denotes a person of both and heritage . Many Brazilians object to these government categories and prefer . The more construction of race in Brazil is accompanied by generally less hostile , more benign social interactions between people of different colors and complexions , which has contributed to Brazil being seen as a racial paradise and a racial democracy rainbow nation free of the harsh prejudices and societal discrimination that has characterized other multiracial nations such as the United States and South The racial democracy image has long been embraced by the government and elites in Brazil as a way to provide the country with a distinct identity in the international community . ever , scholars in Brazil and the United States have questioned the extent to which racial equality exists in Brazil despite the appearance of interracial congeniality on the surface . Many

218 PERSPECTIVES AN OPEN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY Brazilians reject the idea that racial discrimination and inequalities persist and regard such claims as divisive while have drawn attention to these inequalities in recent years . Though comprise mately half of the country population , they have historically accounted for less than percent of all university students , and severe economic ties between remain prominent in Brazil to this The majority of the country Brazilians lives in the northern region , site of the original sugar cane plantations while the majority of Brazilians of European descent live in the industrial and considerably wealthier southern The favelas ( slums ) located on the edge of major cities such as Rio de A scene from the Black Women March against Racism and Violence in . Brazil . 2015 and Sao Paolo , which often lack electricity or running water , are inhabited largely by Brazilians , who are half as likely to have a working toilet in their homes as the overall Brazilian tion . There are significant economic differences between Brazilians according to their official racial . According to government statistics , have higher unemployment and poverty rates than other groups in Brazil and earn 57 percent more than for the same occupation . more , the vast majority of Brazilians in leadership positions in politics , the military , the media , and cation are or pardo . marriage occurs more frequently in Brazil than in the United States , but most of the marriages are between and and not between and either or . Another significant area of concern centers on brutality and mistreatment of Brazilians . As a result , some scholars of race and racism describe Brazil as a prominent ple of a a society characterized by a strong correlation between a persons skin color and their social class . activism has grown substantially since the , inspired in part by the successes of the Civil Rights movement in the United States and by actions taken by the Brazilian government since the early . One of the Brazilian government strategies has been to implement affirmative action policies in education and employment to increase the number of in the nations professional ranks and decrease the degree of economic disparity . Those efforts sparked an intense backlash among Brazilians and created a complex social and political dilemma who , exactly , should be considered enough for inclusion in affirmative action , who makes that decision , and on what grounds will the decision be based ?

Many Brazilian families include relatives whose complexions are quite different and the country has clear racial categories only in terms of its demographic statistics . Nevertheless , da Silva , Brazil president from 2003 through 201 , made promotion of greater racial equality a prominent objective of his tion . In addition to supporting affirmative action policies , appointed four to his cabinet , appointed the first justice to the nations supreme court , and established a office for promotion of racial equality . These recent developments have led many in Brazil and elsewhere to reconsider the accuracy of Brazil designation as a racial democracy , which has been as a central component of its national identity for decades . Scholars mostly agree that race relations are more relaxed and genteel in Brazil than in the United

219 States . They tend to disagree about why that is the case . Some have suggested that the differences in racial constructions stem from important distinctions that set the tone for years to come . A common expression describing the situation is the United States had two British parents while Brazil had a Portuguese father and an African British settlers who colonized North America subjugated their slaves , intermarriage was rare , and African cultural on mainstream society were marginalized compared to British cultural traditions and customs . In Brazil , on the other hand , sexual and marital unions between the Portuguese settlers , who were overwhelmingly male , and female Africans were common , creating individuals who exhibit a wide range of physical . Sexual unions certainly occurred in the United States between male European slave masters and female African slaves , but the rule ensured that any children born of such unions would be classified as black and as slaves . In Brazil in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries , the and the Roman Catholic Church strongly encouraged European descended men to marry the African and indigenous women they impregnated in order to whiten the The United States government did not advocate for interracial families and most states had laws . The United States also implemented an official , system Crow racial laws in that had no equivalent in Brazil . Japan represents an example of a third way of constructing race that is not associated with society or African slavery . Japanese society is more diverse than many people realize the ber of Korean , Chinese , Indian , and Brazilian immigrants began to increase in the , and the number of children who had and one parent has increased substantially since the , driven in part by children fathered by American military men stationed in Japan . Yet , one segment of population known as the ( formerly called the eta , a word meaning pure filth ) vividly illustrates the arbitrary nature of racial categories . Though and genetically indistinguishable from other Japanese people , the are a socially and outcast group . They are descendants of people who worked dirty , jobs that involved handling dead and slaughtered animals during the feudal era in the , and . In feudal times , they were forced to live in communities separated from the rest of society , had to wear a patch of leather on their clothing to Liberation League . symbolize their status , and were not permitted to marry japan no longer legally prohibits marriage between and ( today , 75 percent of are married to ) but prejudices and discrimination persist , particularly among older generations , and the marriages remain socially stigmatized . ment for the remains concentrated in occupations involving physical labor despite the relative affluence and advanced education society overall . earn only

220 PERSPECTIVES AN OPEN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY about 60 percent of the national average household Stereotypes of the as , lazy , and violent still exist , but men account for a significant portion of professional athletes in popular sports such as baseball and sumo wrestling , an interesting pattern that reflects events in the United States , where racially stigmatized groups have long found relatively opportunities for upward mobility in professional sports . ETHNICITY AND ETHNIC GROUPS The terms race and ethnicity are similar and there is a degree of overlap between them . The average person frequently uses the terms race and ethnicity interchangeably as synonyms and also recognize that race and ethnicity are overlapping concepts . Both race and ethnic identity draw on an identification with others based on common ancestry and shared cultural As discussed earlier , a race is a social construction that defines groups of humans based on arbitrary physical or biological traits that are believed to distinguish them from other humans . An ethnic group , on the other hand , claims a distinct identity based on cultural characteristics and a shared ancestry that are believed to give its members a unique sense of peoplehood or heritage . The cultural characteristics used to define ethnic groups vary they include specific languages spoken , religions practiced , and distinct patterns of dress , diet , customs , holidays , and other markers of tion . In some societies , ethnic groups are geographically concentrated in particular regions , as with the Kurds in Turkey and Iraq and the Basques in northern Spain . Ethnicity refers to the degree to which a person identifies with and feels an attachment to a particular ethnic group . As a component of a persons identity , ethnicity is a , complex phenomenon that is highly variable . Many individuals view their ethnicity as an important element of their personal and social identity . Numerous psychological , social , and familial factors play a role in ethnicity , and ethnic identity is most accurately understood as a range or continuum populated by people at every point . One sense of ethnicity can also across time . Children of Korean immigrants living in an white town , for example , may choose to simply as American during their middle school and high school years to fit in with their classmates and then choose to as Korean , Korean American , or Asian American in college or later in life as their social settings Change or from a desire to connect more strongly with their family history and heritage . Do you sider your ethnicity an important part of your identity ?

Why do you feel the way you do ?

In the United States , ethnic identity can sometimes be primarily or purely symbolic in nature . and anthropologists use the term symbolic ethnicity to describe limited or occasional displays of ethnic pride and identity that are primarily public than instrumental as a major component of their daily social lives . Symbolic ethnicity is pervasive in society consider customs such as Kiss Me , I Irish ! buttons and bumper stickers , Puerto Rican necklaces , decals of the Virgin of , replicas of the Aztec stone calendar , and tattoos of Celtic crosses or of the map of Italy in green , white , and red stripes . When I was a teenager in the early to , medallions shaped like the African continent became popular among young African Americans after the release of Spike Lee film Malcolm in 1992 and in response to clothing worn by socially conscious rappers and rap groups of the era , such as Public Enemy . During that same time , I surprised Workers in a pizzeria in suburban Philadelphia when I asked them , in Spanish , what part of Mexico they came from . They wanted to know how I knew they were Mexican as they said they usually were presumed to be Italian

or Puerto Rican . I replied , The Virgin of gave it away ! while pointing to the miniature urine of the iconic national symbol of Mexico on the counter near the register . In the United States , ethnic identity can times be largely symbolic particularly for of the various European immigrant groups who settled in the United States during the and early twentieth centuries . Regardless of whether their grandparents and ents migrated from Italy , Ireland , Germany , Poland , Russia , the Empire , Greece , or elsewhere , these third and fourth generation Americans likely do not speak their ancestors languages and have lost most or all of the cultural customs and traditions their brought to the United States . A few traditions , Figure Many people in the United States cherish their ethnic identities and Such as or customs Hindu altar is froma home in San Diego , California . associated with the celebration of a holiday , that originated in their homelands may be retained by family members across generations , reinforcing a sense of ethnic heritage and identity today . More recent immigrants are likely to retain more of the and cultural traditions of their countries of origin . immigrants groups from Asia , Africa , the Middle East , Latin America , and the Caribbean also experience significant linguistic and losses over generations , but may also continue to with their ethnic backgrounds if they do not feel fully incorporated into , society because they stick out physically from American society and experience prejudice and discrimination . Psychological , sociological , and studies have indicated that retaining a strong sense of ethnic pride and identification is common among ethnic minorities in the United States and other nations as a means of coping with and overcoming societal bigotry . While there have been periods of tension between various European immigrant and nic groups in the United States , such as and , the descendants of these groups today have been assimilated , to a very large degree , into the general racial category of Ethnic groups and ethnicity , like race , are socially constructed identities created at particular moments in history under particular social conditions . The earliest views of ethnicity assumed that people had innate , unchanging ethnic identities and loyalties . In actuality , ethnic identities shift and are recreated over time and across societies . Anthropologists call this process emergence of a new , distinct ethnic identity in response to changing social circumstances . For example , people whose ancestors came from what we know as Ireland may identify themselves as Irish cans and generations of their ancestors as Irish , but at one time , people living in that part of the world identified themselves as Celtic . In the United States , has led to a number of new ethnic identities , including African American , Native American , American Indian , and Italian American . Slaves brought to America in the colonial period came primarily from Central and Western Africa and represented dozens of ethnic , including , Akan , and , that had unique languages , religions , and cultures that were quickly lost because slaves were not permitted to speak their own languages or practice their customs and religions . Over time , a new unified identity emerged among their descendants . But that identity continues to evolve , as reflected by the transitions in the label used to identify it from colored

222 PERSPECTIVES AN OPEN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL ( early ) to Negro ( to Black ( late to the present ) and African American ( 19805 to the present ) A MELTING POT OR A SALAD BOWL ?

There is tremendous ethnic , linguistic , and cultural diversity throughout the United States , largely resulting from a long history and ongoing identification as a nation of immigrants that attracted lions of newcomers from every continent . Still , elected officials and residents ardently disagree about how the United States should approach this diversity and incorporate immigrant , ethnic , and cultural minority groups into the larger framework of American society . The fundamental question is whether cultural minority groups should be encouraged to forego their ethnic and cultural identities and to the values , traditions , and customs of mainstream culture or should be allowed and aged to retain key elements of their identities and . This is a highly emotional question . Matters of cultural identity are often deeply personal and associated with strongly held beliefs about the ing features of their countries national identities . Over the past 400 years , three distinct social have developed from efforts to promote national unity and tranquility in societies that have experienced immigration assimilation , and amalgamation . Assimilation encourages and may even demand that members of ethnic and immigrant minority groups abandon their native customs , traditions , languages , and identities as quickly as possible and adopt those of mainstream When in Rome , do as the Romans Advocates of assimilation generally View a strong sense of national unity based on a shared linguistic and cultural heritage as the best way to promote a strong national identity and avoid ethnic . They point , for example , to ethnic warfare and genocide in and the former Yugoslavia during the and to recent movements by French Canadians in and in Scotland as evidence of negative of groups retaining a strong sense of loyalty and identification with their ethnic or linguistic communities . The English as the Official Language movement in the United States is another ple . People are concerned that unity is weakened by immigrants who do not learn to speak English . In recent years , the Census Bureau has identified more than 300 languages spoken in the United States . In 2010 , more than 60 million people representing 21 percent of the total population spoke a language other than English at home and 38 million of those people spoke Spanish . takes a different view of assimilation , arguing that ethnic and cultural diversity is a positive quality that enriches a society and encouraging respect for cultural differences . The basic belief behind is that group differences , in and of themselves , do not spark tension , and society should promote tolerance for differences rather than urging members of immigrant , ethnic , and cultural minority groups to shed their customs and identities . Vivid examples of can be seen in major cities across the United States , such as New York , where ethnic neighborhoods such as Chinatown and Little Italy border one another , and Los Angeles , which features many diverse , including Little Tokyo , Little , and Little Ethiopia . The ultimate objective of is to promote peaceful coexistence while allowing each ethnic community to preserve its unique heritage and identity . is the official governmental policy of Canada it was codified in 1988 under the Canadian Act , which declares that the cultural and racial diversity of Canadian society and acknowledges the freedom of all members of Canadian society to preserve , enhance , and share their cultural 32 Amalgamation promotes hybridization of diverse cultural groups in a society . Members

223 of distinct ethnic and cultural groups freely intermingle , interact , and live among one another with exchanges and , ultimately , dating and intermarriage occurring as the social and barriers between groups fade over time . Amalgamation is similar to assimilation in that a strong , unified national culture is viewed as the desired end result but differs because it represents a more ough melting pot that blends the various groups in a society ( the mainstream group and minority groups ) into a new hybridized cultural identity rather than expecting minority groups to form to the majority standards . Debate is ongoing among sociologists , anthropologists , historians , and political pundits regarding the relative merits of each approach and which , if any , most accurately describes the United States . It is a complex and often contentious question because people may confuse their personal ideologies ( what they think the United States should strive for ) with social reality ( what actually occurs ) Furthermore , the United States is a large , complex country geographically that is comprised of large urban centers with millions of residents , moderately populated areas characterized by small towns , and mostly rural communities with only several hundred or a few thousand inhabitants . The nature of social and cultural life varies significantly with the setting in which it occurs . ANTHROPOLOGY MEETS POPULAR CULTURE SPORTS , AND DIVERSITY Throughout this chapter , I have stated that the concept of race is a socially constructed idea and explained Why biologically distinct human races do not exist . Still , many in the United States cling to a belief in the existence of biological racial groups ( regardless of their racial and ethnic backgrounds ) Historically , the nature of popular sports in the United States has been offered as proof of biological differences between races in terms of natural athletic skills and abilities . In this regard , the world of sports has served as an important social institution in which notions of biological racial differences become assumed as objective , real , and factual . Specifically , many Americans have noted the large numbers of African Americans in Olympic sprinting , the National Football League ( and the National Basketball Association ( NBA ) and interpreted their disproportionate number as perceived evidence or proof that blacks have unique genes , muscles , bone structures , or other biological qualities that make them superior athletes relative to people from other racial they are naturally gifted runners and jumpers and thus predominate in sports . This topic sparked intense media attention in 2012 during the to that year Olympics in don . Michael Johnson , a retired African American track star who won gold medals at the 1992 , 1996 , and 2000 Summer Olympic Games , declared that black Americans and West Indians ( of Jamaican , Trinidadian , and other Caribbean descent ) dominated international sprinting competitions because they possessed a superior athletic gene that resulted from slavery All my life , I believed I became an athlete through my own determination , but its impossible to think that being descended from slaves hasn left an imprint through the generations . slavery has benefited descendants like me . I believe there is a superior athletic gene in 33 Others have previously expressed similar ideas , such as writer John , who suggested in his book , Taboo Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why Afraid to Talk About It ( 2000 ) that the brutal nature of the slave trade and harsh conditions of slavery in the Americas produced slaves who could move faster and who had stronger , more durable bodies than the general population and that those supposedly hardier bodies persisted in African Americans and , giving them important athletic advantages over others . In a similar

224 PERSPECTIVES AN OPEN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL vein , former sportscaster Jimmy The Greek Snyder claimed , on the eve of Super Bowl in 1988 , that African Americans comprised the majority of players because they were bred that way during slavery as a form of selective breeding between bigger and stronger slaves much like had been done with racehorses . Snyder was fired from shortly after amid a tidal wave of controversy and furor . Racial stereotypes regarding perceptions of innate differences in athletic ability were a major theme in the 1992 comedy film White Men Can ump , which starred Wesley Snipes and Woody son as an pair of basketball street hustlers . Despite such beliefs , even among people who otherwise do not harbor racist sentiments , the notion of innate black athletic supremacy is obviously misguided , fallacious , and when we examine the demographic composition of the full range of sports in the United States rather than ing solely on a few extremely popular sports that pay high salaries and have long served as tion for upward mobility and fame in a society in which educational and employment opportunities for and impoverished minority groups ( often concentrated in communities ) have rarely been equivalent to those of and whites living in small towns and ban communities . Take the myth that blacks have an innately superior jumping ability . The idea that white men can jump stems from the relatively small number of white American players in the NBA and has been by the fact that only one white player ( Brent Barry of the Los Angeles Clippers in 1996 ) has ever won the NBA annual contest . However , the stereotype would be completely inverted if we look at the demographic composition and results of high jump competitions . The high jump is arguably a better gauge of leaping ability than a contest since it requires raising the entire body over a horizontal bar and prohibits extension of the arms overhead , thus diminishing any potential advantage from height . For decades , both the men and the womens international high jump competitions have been dominated by white athletes from the United States and Europe . Yet no one attributes their success to white racial American society does not have a generational history of viewing people who are socially identified as white in terms of body type and physical prowess as it does with African Americans . The same dynamic is at play if we compare basketball with volleyball . Both sports require similar sets of skills , namely , jumping , speed , agility , endurance , and outstanding coordination . less , beach volleyball has tended to be dominated by white athletes from the United States , Canada , Australia , and Europe while indoor volleyball is more racially balanced ( if we assume that biological human races actually exist ) since the powerhouse indoor volleyball nations are the United States , China , Japan , Brazil , Cuba , and Russia . Thus , a variety of factors , including cultural affinities and preferences , social access and ties , existence of a societal infrastructure that supports youth participation and development in sports , and the degree of prestige assigned to various sports by nations , cultures , and ethnic communities , all play significant roles in the concentration of social or ethnic groups in particular sports . It is not a matter of individual or group skills or talents important dimensions shape who participates in a sport and who excels . Think about a sport in which you have participated or have followed closely . What social dynamics do you associate with that sport in terms of the gender , ethnicity , and social class of the athletes who predominate in it ?

For additional insight into the important role that social dynamics play in shaping the ethnic , social class , and cultural dimensions of athletes , let us consider three sports basketball , boxing , and football . While basketball is a national sport played throughout the United States , it also has long been associated with environments , and many professional American basketball ers have come from working class and backgrounds . This trend dates to the , when Jewish players and teams dominated professional basketball in the United States . That dominance was

225 commonly explained by the media in terms of the alleged scheming , flashiness , and artful dodging nature of the Jewish In other words , Jews were believed to have a fundamental talent for hoops that explained their in the sport . In reality , most Jewish immigrants in the early twentieth century lived in working class , urban neighborhoods such as New York City , Philadelphia , and Chicago where basketball was a popular sport in the local social fabric of By 1992 , approximately 90 percent of NBA players were African American , and the league graphics once again fueled rumors that a ethnic group was naturally gifted in basketball . ever , within ten short years , players largely from Eastern European nations such as , Germany , Poland , Russia , Ukraine , and Turkey accounted for nearly 20 percent of the starting of NBA teams . The first player selected in the 2002 NBA draft was center Yao Ming , a native of Shanghai , China , and by the early , the United States had lost some of its traditional dominance of international basketball as several nations began to catch up because of the tremendous globalization of basketball popularity . Like basketball , boxing has been an urban sport popular among ethnic groups . During the early twentieth century , both amateur and professional boxing in the United States were dominated by European immigrant groups , particularly the Irish , Italians , and Jewish Americans . As with ball , which inspired the hoop dreams of youths to escape poverty by reaching the ranks , boxing provided sons of European immigrants with dreams of upward mobility , fame , and fortune . In fact , it was one of the few American sports that thrived during the Great Depression , attracting a wave of impoverished young people who saw pugilism as a ticket to financial security . Throughout the first half of the twentieth century , ethnic rivalries ( Irish Italian , Italian ) were common in boxing fighters were seen as of their respective neighborhoods and ethnic communities . The demographic composition of boxers began to change in the latter half of the twentieth century when formerly stigmatized and Eastern European immigrant groups began to be perceived simply as white and mainstream . They attained status and relocated to the newly suburbs , and boxing underwent a profound racial and ethnic transition . New urban minority Americans , Puerto Ricans , and Mexican Americans who moved into vacated by Europeans began to dominate boxing . Finally , consider football , which has surpassed baseball as the most popular spectator sport in the United States and is popular with all social classes , and regions . Collegiate and football rosters are also undergoing a demographic change a growing number of current National College Athletic Association and players were born outside the mainland United States . Since the , many athletes from American , a territory in the South Pacific , have joined football teams . A boy in American is an astounding 56 times more likely to make the than a boy born and raised on the mainland ! 35 American rapid transformation into a iron powerhouse is the result of several factors that dramatically increased the appeal of the sport across the tiny island , including the cultural of American missionaries who football . Expanding migration of Samoans to Hawaii and California in recent decades has also fostered their interest in football , which has trickled back to the South Pacific , and the is working to expand the popularity of football in American Similarly , Major League Baseball has been promoting baseball in the Dominican Republic , Korea , and Japan in recent years .

226 PERSPECTIVES AN OPEN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL Issues of race , racism , and ethnic relations remain among the most contentious social and political topics in the United States and throughout the world . Anthropology offers valuable information to the public regarding these issues , as anthropological knowledge encourages individuals to think outside the box about race and ethnicity . This thinking outside the box includes understanding that racial and ethnic categories are socially constructed rather than natural , biological divisions of humankind and realizing that the current racial and ethnic categories that exist in the United States today do not necessarily categories used in other countries . Physical anthropologists , who study human , epidemiology , and genetics , are uniquely qualified to explain why distinct biological human races do not exist . Nevertheless , race and ethnicity as social constructs continue to be used as for prejudice , discrimination , exclusion , and stereotypes well into the century . anthropologists play a crucial role in informing the public how the concept of race originated , how racial categories have shifted over time , how race and ethnicity are constructed differently within ious nations across the world , and how the current racial and ethnic categories utilized in the United States were arbitrarily labeled and defined by the federal government under Directive 15 in 1977 . Understanding the complex nature of and continuous biological human variation , along with an awareness of the distinct ways in which race and ethnicity have been constructed in different nations , enables us to recognize racial and ethnic labels not as biological divisions of humans , but instead as socially created categories that vary . Discussion Questions Garcia describes the reasons that race is considered a discredited concept in human biology . Despite this scientific fact , most people continue to believe that race is real . Why do you think race has continued to be an important social reality even after it has been discredited scientifically ?

The process of racial formation is different in every society . In the United States , the rule and have affected the way people with multiracial backgrounds have been . How have ideas about multiracial identity been changing in the past few decades ?

As the number of people who identify as multiracial increases , do you think there will be changes in the way we think about other racial categories ?

Members of some ethnic groups are able to practice symbolic ethnicity , limited or occasional displays of ethnic pride and . Why can ethnicity be displayed in an optional way while race can not ?

There is no scientific evidence supporting the idea that racial or ethnic background provides a biological advantage in sports . Instead , a variety of social dynamics , including cultural affinities and preferences as well as access and opportunities influence who will become involved in particular sports . Think about a sport in which you have participated or have followed closely . What social dynamics do you think are most responsible for affecting the racial , ethnic , gender , or social class composition of the athletes who participate ?

GLOSSARY Acculturation loss of a minority groups cultural distinctiveness in relation to the dominant culture . Amalgamation interactions between members of distinct ethnic and cultural groups that reduce between the groups over time .

227 Assimilation pressure placed on minority groups to adopt the customs and traditions of the dominant culture . Cline differences in the traits that occur in populations across a geographical area . In a cline , a trait may be more common in one geographical area than another , but the variation is gradual and ous , with no sharp breaks . Ethnic group people in a society who claim a distinct identity for themselves based on shared cultural characteristics and ancestry . Ethnicity the degree to which a person identifies with and feels an attachment to a particular ethnic group . gradual emergence of new ethnicities in response to changing social circumstances . a racial classification system that assigns a person with mixed racial heritage to the racial category that is considered least privileged . Jim Crow a term used to describe laws passed by state and local governments in the United States ing the early twentieth century to enforce racial segregation of public and private places . maintenance of multiple cultural traditions in a single society . Nonconcordant genetic traits that are inherited independently rather than as a package . rule the practice of excluding a person with any ancestry from the white racial category . a society characterized by strong correlation between a person skin color and his or her social class . Race an attempt to categorize humans based on observed physical differences . Racial formation the process of defining and redefining racial categories in a society . the process by which an inaccurate concept or idea is accepted as Socially constructed a concept developed by society that is maintained over time through social actions that make the idea seem Symbolic ethnicity limited or occasional displays of ethnic pride and identity that are primarily for public display . Taxonomy a system of classification . ABOUT THE AUTHOR I am an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at University of Pennsylvania , a public university located approximately 70 miles west of Philadelphia . I earned my in Anthropology from Temple University in 2011 , with a specific focus in urban anthropology . I currently live in Chester County , Pennsylvania in suburban Philadelphia . My research interests include immigration , social constructs of race and ethnicity , urban cultural life , popular culture , human the hominid lineage , and anthropological theory . Aside from

228 PERSPECTIVES AN OPEN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL anthropology , my hobbies include lifting weights , watching sports ( particularly boxing , football , and basketball ) and movies , traveling , and playing video games ( the Grand Theft Auto series is my personal favorite ) BIBLIOGRAPHY Boas , Franz . Race Problems in Science 29 no . 752 ( 1909 ) Brace , Loring . Race is a Word The Genesis of the Concept . New York Oxford University Press , 2005 . ohn . Taboo Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We re Afraid to Talk About It . New York Public Affairs Publishing , 2000 . ohn . Racial Situations Class Predicaments of Whiteness in Detroit . Princeton , Princeton Press , 1999 . Nina . Living Color The Biological and Social Meaning of Skin Color . Berkeley , CA University of California Press , 2012 . Marks , Black , White , Other Natural History December , 1994 . Peggy . White Privilege and Male Privilege A Personal Account of Coming to See through Work in Working Paper 189 . MA Center for Research on Women , 1988 . Michael and Howard . Racial Formation in the United States . New York , 2014 1986 . John Of Our Past How Human History Is Revealed In Our Genes . Boulder , CO Press , 2004 . Notes . For more information about efforts to establish a scientific basis for race in the and centuries , see the History section of the Race Are We So Different website . Gould book , The Mismeasure ( New York Norton , 1996 ) has a detailed discussion of the methods used by Morton and others . More information about the social construction of racial categories in the United States can be found in Audrey , Race in North America Origin and Evolution ofa Worldview ( Boulder , CO Press , 2007 ) and Nell Painter , The History of White People ( New York Norton , 2010 ) More discussion of the material in this section can be found in Carol , Rosemary , and Yolanda Moses , How Real Is Race ?

A on Race , Culture , and Biology ( 2013 ) Chapters and discuss the cultural construction of racial categories as a form of classification . The Race Are We So Different website and its companion resources for teachers and researchers also explore the ideas described here . Johann Friedrich , On the Natural Varieties De Generis ( New York Publishers , 1775 ) For details about how these categories were established , see Gould , The Mismeasure . For a discussion of the efforts to subdivide racial groups in the nineteenth century and its connection to , see Carol , Rosemary , and Yolanda Moses , How Real Is Race ?

A on Race , ture , and Biology . For more information about the genetic variation between human groups that puts this example in context see Sheldon and Kathleen Sloan , Race and the Genetic Revolution Science , Myth , and Culture ( New York Columbia University Press , 2011 ) Carol et . al How Real Is Race ?

A on Race , Culture , and Biology , 10 . 11 . 12 . 13 14 . 15 . 16 . 17 . 18 . 19 . 20 . 21 . 22 . 23 . 24 . 25 . 26 . 27 . 28 . 29 . 30 . 31 . 229 , 62 . Alan Templeton , Human Races A Genetic and Evolutionary Perspective American Anthropologist 100 no . 1998 ) Jonathan Marks , Black , White , Other , 35 . Michael and Howard , Racial Formation in the United States , 64 . 61 For more information about the social construction of whiteness in History see Nell Painter , The tory of White People Noel , How the Irish Became White ( New York , 1995 ) For more tion about the economic aspects of the construction of whiteness both before and after World War II , see David , The Wages of Whiteness Race and the Making of the American Working Class ( Chicago , IL Haymarket , 2007 ) and George , The Possessive Investment in Whiteness ( Philadelphia Temple University Press , 1998 ) For a detailed discussion of this process see Douglas and Nancy Denton , American Apartheid tion and the Making of the Underclass ( Cambridge , MA Harvard University Press , 1993 ) and Ira , When Affirmative Action was White An Untold History Inequality in Twentieth Century America ( New York Norton and Company , 2005 ) For more information on these historical developments and their social ramifications , see Karen , How jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America ( New Brunswick , Rutgers University Press , 1998 ) or David , Working Toward Whiteness How America Immigrants Became Strange From Ellis Island to the Suburbs ( New York Basic Books , 2005 ) While the rule was intended to protect the institution of slavery , a more nuanced view of racial has existed throughout History . For a history of the racial categories used historically in the United States census , including several categories , see the Pew Research Centers What Census Calls Us Historical Timeline . It is important to note that President Obama has also stated that he as black . See for instance , Sam Roberts and Peter Baker . 2010 . Asked to Declare His Race , Obama Checks Black . The New York Times , April This concept is discussed in more detail in chapter of Carol et . al How Real Is Race A on Race , Culture , and Biology . Edward originated this expression in his book Race in Another America The Significance of Skin Color in Brazil ( Princeton , Princeton University Press , 2004 ) More information about the Brazilian concepts of race described in this section is available Fish , Mixed Blood An Analytical Method of Classifying Race . Psychology Today , November , Conrad , Anthropology Appreciating Cultural Diversity ( New York , 2013 ) See for instance the documentary Brazil A Racial Paradise , written and presented by Henry Louis Gates , For a detailed critique of the idea of Brazil as a racial democracy , see Michael ( ed ) Racial Politics in Contemporary Brazil ( Duke University Press , 1999 ) Robert . The Long Lingering Shadow Slavery , Race , and Law in the American Hemisphere ( Athens , GA of Georgia Press , 2013 ) 246 . 145 For more information about Brazil official policy toward children during this era see Thomas , Black Into White Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought ( Duke University Press , 1992 ) For a detailed discussion of stratification without race , see chapter of Carol et . al How Real is Race ?

A on Race , Culture , and Biology . For more information about the status of see Emily , in japan Historical and Modern Perspectives and Directions for the Future . Harvard Human Rights journal 12 ( 1999 ) 298 The distinction between race and ethnicity is a complex and controversial one within anthropology . Some anthropologists combine these concepts in acknowledgement of the overlap between them . See for instance

230 32 . 33 . 34 . 35 . 36 . AN OPEN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY Karen . How jews Became White and What This Says About Race in America . Canadian Multicultural Act , Rene Lynch , Says Slave Descendants Make Better Athletes Las Angeles Times , July , 2012 . The 2010 documentary The First Basket by David describes the experiences basketball players in the century Scott , America Football lsland . News , September 17 , 2010 Ibid .