Thinking About Inequality: Week Seven



Thinking About Inequality: Week Seven

This week the readings on race and ethnicity offer a welcome relief from what might be considered "mindless empiricism" (what Mills called "abstract empiricism") and methodological concerns. Even Farley's methodological and empirical concerns are not as obtuse as Grusky and Sørensen (for example). I am particularly interested in Farley's data on endogamy, which Grusky uses to sustain his claim that there is increasing inter-racial marriage—huh?

White-Black biracial identity in the 2000 census represents 12% of 2.6% or 0.3% of the enumerated U.S. population. If, instead, we use the estimates of intermarriage (Table 1, p. 625) we obtain white "outmarriage" rates of 3.4% for white men and 2.9% for white women, but this includes Latinos, Asians, and American Indians—all of whom have much higher "outmarriage" rates than whites or blacks.

Thus Grusky's comment about inter-racial marriages seems odd to me, since I think there are only two races in the U.S.—blacks and whites, defined and sustained by endogamy. The inter-racial marriages between blacks and whites have not increased much and remain the exception that proves the rule. This is clear in comparing outmarriage rates for black, Latina, Asian, and American Indian women. It is interesting that these have not changed much either, except for Native American Indians. It is also interesting that gender differences in outmarriage differ systematically by race (black and white, where men marry out more than women) versus ethnicity (when women tend to marry out more).

What do you make of these gender-racial-ethnic differences in exogamy?

Bonacich offers a classic distinction between race and ethnicity—race refers to continents (sub-Saharan Africa or Asia or South and Central America) and ethnicity refers to nationalities, but both refer to "common ancestry [and] inherited or ascribed [status]" (p. 633). This is not much better than "whatever the census says" but Bonacich is really just interested in a general category of ascribed status that can be associated with ancestry and split labor markets in which "ethnicity" is the basis for different real wages or labor costs. Clearly, this is a Weberian (labor market) approach in which status becomes a basis for class differences, which may be associated with different life chances (resources or information) or different party (political) organization across the status (ethnic) boundary. Within this context there are at least three possibilities: caste or exclusion indicate the victory of the high priced ethnics; invasion/succession would indicate the displacement of the privileged ethnicity; ongoing competition would be the third possibility.

How does Bonacich's classification (dominance, paternalism, competition) compare to my three possibilities (high-price victory, low-price victory, and ongoing competition)?

Are either or both useful ways of understanding differences in racial or ethnic inequality over time and place?

Portes and Manning offer variations on the Weberian theme, distinguishing primary and secondary sector immigrants (see Piore) immigrant enclaves versus middleman minorities. These are four different sets of class circumstance that might be associated with class categories or occupations (or some combination of the two). Portes and Zhou add more complexity in the analysis of segmented assimilation for second generation immigrants (or ethnics). Between these two papers, Portes offers a Weberian labor market approach to race and ethnicity that includes, among other things, skin color, business and other resources that immigrants bring with them, political and social barriers or advantageous, business/work ethic, linguistic and social or cultural support of ethnics (from old country or in new home).

What are the most important conditions that predict ethnic or racial inequality?

What are the outcome variables that Portes seems to prefer to money (wage), which seems to be the essential outcome variable for Bonacich?

Waters offers a more inductive interpretation of the effects of race and culture in the distinctive experience of West Indian Caribbean blacks.

Does this add much explanatory power to the work of Bonacich and Portes?

The next three papers use experimental methods to indicate discrimination and the effects of racial stereotypes on racial differences in performance on standardized tests. These all offer powerful results, rooted in psychological theory and method.

How might sociologists incorporate these insights?

Specifically, how might Bonacich or Portes or Waters incorporate these insights in their analyses?

How do racial differences in unemployment and incarceration help us to understand the nature of racial inequality?

Next we have Wilson versus Feagin on the diminishing or continuing significance of race, Melvin and Shapiro on racial inequality in wealth, and Wilson, with the last word. Wilson attempts to historicize racial inequality and to locate it within modes of production to indicate that paternalism was characteristic of slavery, labor-market competition was characteristic of post-Reconstruction Jim Crow industrialism, and class stratification within race (the split between the black middle class and the black underclass) characterizes the modern industrial era (post-Civil Rights—what others might consider the post-modern era).

In different ways, Feagin and Oliver and Shapiro challenge Wilson's perspective on the black middle class. Feagin reports continuing white racism, directed at the black middle class, Oliver and Shapiro (whom we will consider later in more detail) focus on the difference between middle class blacks and whites when compared on wealth as opposed to income. Wilson does not deny these facts of life, but he continues to focus on the problem of the truly disadvantaged—"low-income urban black residents" (p. 725). In his neighborhood study, Wilson indicates that the social organization and resources of neighborhoods "can be used to prevent of impede unwanted neighborhood integration—whether it be racial or class-based" (p. 725). Wilson continues to illuminate the class-based interests and conflicts which are often compounded with race but can also be seem within race.

Questions

What are races?

How many races are there?

What is the basis for determining race?

What is ethnicity?

How are race and ethnicity similar or different?

How should we characterize racial (or ethnic) inequality?

- wages or earnings

- immigration status

- residential segregation

- labor market position

- differential treatment by employers or others

- wealth

Does if really matter how we define race or ethnicity?

- in how much we find

- in how we might find remedies

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