SOCI 201- Introduction to Sociology

Dr. Gbenga Adejare

Department of Sociology
Faculty of Arts
“Race” and Ethnicity
as Drivers of
Social Inequalities
• Previously, we discussed social inequality
• Today, our focus is on drivers of social inequalities – race and
ethnicity
Why Focus on “Race”?

➢“Race” is a spurious and

controvertible categorization
of humans that lacks scientific
backings
➢It promotes social
inequalities
➢Development is hampered by
racism and racializing
tendencies
 Introduction to “Race”: Why the Scare
Quotes?
• “Race” was first applied to humans during European colonial
expansion in the 16th and 17th centuries
• Use of the term reflects beliefs about biological superiority
and inferiority in the context of colonial power
• Race does not exist as distinct biological entities among
humans
• There is difficulty defining how many races there are
• Differences within supposed races often outnumbered those
between races.
• It as been established that there is only one human specie -
one race
 Why the Focus on “Race”? Cont’d

➢The work of Jane Elliott – Brown Eyes vs Blue

Eyes
➢At this point, what do you think about the
concept of race?
 “Race,” Racialization, and Visible
Minorities
• Racialization is a social process in which human groups are
viewed and judged as essentially different in terms of their
• Intellect,
• Morality,
• Values, and
• Innate worth
• Because of perceived differences in physical appearance or
cultural heritage
• visible minority is define as “persons, other than
Aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-
white in colour”
The Racialization of Visible Minorities in Canada: A Brief History

• Master narrative is the story a nation tells about

itself to celebrate its past and present.
• It evolves over time, reproduced and refined in
schoolbooks, museums, government propaganda, and
popular culture
• often gloss over or omit altogether certain unpleasant
events that complicate the national self-identity
• E.g., the exploitation of Indigenous people or the repression
of ethnic or religious minorities may be excluded, becoming
what Foucault (1994) called “buried knowledge.”
Ethnicity and Race

Ethnicity and Race: What’s the Difference?

• Race is something you are born into. It is based on
how you look in relation to others.
• Ethnicity refers to membership of a cultural group
that has roots in a particular place in the world and
is associated with distinctive cultural practices and
behaviours.
• Most people identify with just one race but may have
many ethnicities.
• Ethnicity is something you can opt into
 Approaches to the Study of Ethnicity
• Everyone belongs to at least one ethnic group
• Ethnicity can become the source of conflict
• There are many ways to study ethnicity
• Five approaches that are particularly useful in
understanding ethnic conflict:
• Essentialism
• Postcolonialism
• Epiphenomenal
• Instrumentalism
• Social Constructivism
 Essentialism

• Essentialism (sometimes called Primordialism) is the

view that every ethnic group is defined by a “laundry
list” of traits carried down from the past to the present
with little or no change
• Essentialism presents a static view of ethnic culture, in which
culture does not change without the influence of outside
forces
• Change does not come from within but outside forces
• Essentialism absolve colonial powers of blame
 Post-colonialism

• Colonialism: the economic and political exploitation of a

weaker country or people by a stronger one
• Postcolonialism is a framework that analyzes the
destructive impact colonialism has on both the
colonizer and the colonized
• It is usefully applied to study situations involving indirect
rule, a governance policy in which a European nation uses
the members of a tribe or ethnic group as its intermediaries
in ruling African territory.
 Ethnicity as Epiphenomenal

• Epiphenomenal” describes a secondary effect that

arises from, but does not causally influence, a
separate phenomenon
• Epiphenomenal theory suggests that any ethnic
conflict is just a by-product of the struggle
between economic classes
• There is a measure of truth in the epiphenomenal
explanation, yet it fails to fully account for why the
poor identified with the rich.
 Instrumentalism

• Instrumentalism: focuses on emerging ethnicity

rather than on long-established ethnic
characteristics
• Traditionally presented as opposite to essentialism
and compatible with the epiphenomenal
• Elite members who mobilize ethnicity for personal
gain are called ethnic entrepreneurs
• E.g., Hitler’s construction and manipulation of the
German “Aryan race”
 Social Constructivism

• Social constructivism is the view that ethnicity is

artificial, constructed by individuals to serve some
agenda.
• It explains how ethnicity is constructed by the elite.
• It suffers as a theory of ethnicity by overstating the
influence of the elite
• It looks at the motivation of the broader group, not just
the elites
 Indigenous Peoples in Canada

• The racialization of the Indigenous population of the

Americas began in the sixteenth century in Europe
• They were viewed as different because of their way of life,
language and their approach to religion
• Indigenous people have been living in what is now
Canada for at least 14,000 years
• 93 per cent of Canadian history is Indigenous alone
• Indigenous people have been studied most often not
as founders but as problems
 Indigenous Peoples in Canada: Indigenous
Status
• Indigenous peoples are defined by a complex
system of legal statuses that separates them from
non-Indigenous peoples, and from each other
• Legal designations include registered Indian, Bill C-31
Indian, band member, reserve resident, treaty Indian,
Métis, Eskimo
 Indigenous Peoples in Canada:
Indigenous Status, cont’d
• Legal differences stem from the Indian Act (1876) and
are administered by the federal department of Crown-
Indigenous and Northern Affairs
• Indian Act enshrined a sexist definition of “Indian” as:
1: any man of “Indian blood” reputed to belong to a particular band
2: any child of such a man, or
3: any woman married to such a man.
• Until 1985, the Indian Act only recognized men as “registered
Indian”; women’s status was derived from the man to whom
they were married; children's from their father
 Indigenous Peoples in Canada:
Indigenous Status cont’d

• In 1985 Bill C-31 passed enabling people who had

lost their Indian status through marriage or through
the marriage of their mother to apply to be
reinstated
• Inuit have been in Canada for a shorter time and
occupy Arctic territory
• Métis are the descendants of French fur traders and
Cree women
Indigenous People in Canada: What the
Census Tells Us

• Indigenous people make up just under 5 per

cent of the population of people living in
Canada, but their population is growing at a
rate over four times that of the non-Indigenous
population
 Blacks in Canada

• James McGill (1744-1813) is prominent for

being an enslaver of Black and Indigenous
people.
• Record shows that the establishment of McGill
University is memorial to remind Canadians that
McGill was deeply involved in colonial economy
 Blacks in Canada

• Black communities have existed in Nova Scotia

since the British Proclamation of 1779
• Offered freedom to slaves who left their American
masters to fight for the British in the American
Revolution
• They endured incredible hardship and prejudice
• E.g., Viola Desmond (1914–1965) experienced racial
discrimination.
• Segregation in Nova Scotia was legally ended
in 1954
The Black One Thousand: Black Settlement in Alberta
• In the late nineteenth century, many black Americans
migrated west to find a place where they would be free from
prejudice and discrimination.
• The federal government granted Harrison Sneed, a minister from an
all-black town called Clearview land far north in Alberta where white
settlers did not want to live and farm
• In 1909 Sneed returned to Alberta with a group of 194 men, women,
children and all their possessions
• A group of 200 black settlers followed shortly
The Black One Thousand: Black Settlement in Alberta
• By 1914, the immigration that had resulted in the
settlement of “The Black One Thousand,” as they
were known, had ceased because:
• Wilfrid Laurier made a declaration that prohibited “any
immigrants belonging to the Negro race from settling in
Canada”
 The Black Population in Canada Today
• Black population of Canada has declined several times
• 1792, nearly 1,200 black Loyalists left for the new African colony of
Sierra Leone.
• 1871 and 1911, there was a slow decline in Canada’s black
population, from 21,500 to 16,900, and from 22,200 to 18,000,
between 1941 and 1951
• 1970s the black population began to increase consistently,
rising from 34,400 in 1971 to 239,500 by the end of the
decade
• 2016 census, close to 1.2 million people who identified as black
were living in Canada
• The third-largest visible minority population in the country are
Blacks
 Asian Canadians
• As of the 2016 census, two-thirds of visible-minority
Canadians were of Asian ancestry.
• South Asians and Chinese Canadians making up the two largest
visible-minority populations in the country
• Asian Canadians do not always face the same barriers to success
that other racialized minorities
• Chinese immigrants began to settle on Canada’s
west coast in the mid-nineteenth century
• They were driven from China by poverty and political upheaval,
and drawn to British Columbia by opportunities to work.
• Estimates range from 7,000 to 15,000
 Head Taxes and an Act to Prevent the
Employment of Female Labour
• Chinese immigrants were viewed by the predominantly white
European settler population with suspicion verging on disgust.
• To stall the influx of undesirable immigrants, the federal government,
in 1885, imposed a $50 head tax on any Chinese migrant entering the
country. By 1900 the head tax was $100 and $500 by 1903
• The new tax had a dramatic effect on Chinese immigration
• Chances of marrying a Chinese woman were greatly reduced
• Ratio of Chinese men to Chinese women in Canada in 1911 was
roughly 28 to 1
• Limited population growth among Chinese Canadians
 Head Taxes and an Act to Prevent the
Employment of Female Labour, cont’d
• The government of Saskatchewan, in 1912,
create an Act to Prevent the Employment of
Female Labour in Certain Capacities.
• E.g., white woman or girl are not to reside or
lodge in, or to work in restaurant or other place
of business owned, kept or managed by any
Japanese, Chinaman or other Oriental person.
 Japanese Canadian Soldiers in
World War I
• Japanese Canadian soldiers volunteered to serve in
the Canadian Expeditionary Force in
World War I
• Japanese people had been in Canada since the 1870s
• During the Second World War, roughly 22,000
Japanese Canadians were placed in internment
camps and dispossessed of their property
 Not Wanted on the Voyage: The Komagata Maru
• In 1904, South Asian began to arrive in small numbers, many of them
settling in Port Moody, east of Vancouver
• By 1906, their numbers had increased considerably, with as many as
5,000 Sikhs entering the country between 1905 and 1908
• However, due to pressure from both white British Columbians and British
government officials in India
• Canada passed a law requiring that all Asian immigrants entering Canada
possess at least $200
• They also prohibited the landing of any immigrant arriving directly from any
point outside of India
• In July 1914, the Komagata Maru a ship containing 376 passengers: 340 Sikhs,
24 Muslims, and 12 Hindus was force to leave Canada after facing severe food
and water shortage as they were unable to pay $200 to enter Canada
Landmarks in the Sociological Study of “Race”
• Standpoint theory (By Dorothy Smith) argues that the
perspective sociological researchers bring to their work is
strongly influenced by their social location, their perspective as
it is shaped by gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and
other social characteristics.
• W.E.B Du Bois was the first African-American sociologist and
founder of NAACP (National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People)
• Studied central problems concerning Africans in the US and
elsewhere
• Advocated for legal actions against lynching, among other
causes
W.E.B. Du Bois: First Black Sociologist

• W.E.B Du Bois(1868–1963) was the first African-

American sociologist and founder of NAACP (National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People)
• Studied central problems concerning Africans in the
US and elsewhere
• Advocated for legal actions against lynching, among
other causes
 Daniel G. Hill: First Black Canadian Sociologist

• Daniel G. Hill (1923–2003) is considered the first

Black Canadian sociologist and received his MA
and PhD from U of T in 1960
• His work includes Negroes in Toronto: A Sociological
Study of a Minority Group (1960) and The Freedom
Seekers: Blacks in Early Canada (1981)
• Applied his sociological training to a numbers of
social causes
Crenshaw, Collins, and Intersectionality Theory

• Intersectionality refers to the way different social

factors—race and ethnicity, gender, sexuality
orientation, class, age, and disability —combine to
shape the experience of a minoritized group.
• Intersectionality theory was first developed by Kimberlé
Crenshaw, and then elaborated shortly thereafter by
critical sociologist Patricia Hill Collins in Black Feminist
Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of
Empowerment (1990).
• Dimensions of inequality create an interlocking matrix of
domination
Current Issues in the Study of Race and Ethnicity
• Racism can be understood as the product of four
linked elements:
1. Racialization: construction of certain groups of people
as different and biologically superior or inferior
2. Prejudice: pre-judgment of others on the basis of their
group membership
3. Discrimination: differential treatment—rewarded or
punished—of individuals based on their group
membership
4. Power: manifested when institutionalized advantages
are regularly handed to one or more groups over others
Different Kinds of Racism
1. Racial bigotry: open, conscious expression of
racist views by an individual
2. Systemic or Institutional racism: racist practices,
rules, and laws have become institutionalized
• E.g., Chinese Exclusion Act (1923–47), Indian Act
(1876)
3. Polite, smiling, or friendly racism: racism hidden
behind smile or words that seem friendly
• E.g., microaggressions, which are casual remarks,
gestures or misguided compliments that reflect racial
prejudice
Master Narratives and Buried Knowledge

• Racism is often downplayed or omitted in the

master narratives that a country constructs
about its history
• Historical mistreatment, exploitation, and
destruction of minorities is excluded from
textbooks and other narratives
• Colonialism is reframed as peaceful co-operation
between Indigenous peoples and settlers
• These events become what Foucault called buried
knowledge
 Carding and Racial Profiling
• Racial profiling is often at play in the practice of
carding, in which police stop, question, and
document people when no offence has been
committed
Race-Based Hate Crime in Canada

• The documentary by the British Columbia Teachers'

Federation – History of Racism in Canada
• A hate crime is an act of aggression or intimidation
motivated by prejudice against an identifiable group
defined by its race, religion, or sexual orientation,
designed to harm or terrify not just the victim but the
group to which the victim belongs
• E.g., advocating genocide, inciting or promoting hatred, or
causing damage to property associated with an identifiable
group (for instance, a place of religious worship)
Concluding Thoughts/Questions
• How useful is race for social reconstruction?
• Should less attention be given to one’s ethnic identity
in order to foster inclusive symbiosis?
• Are the current gains from discussing race and
ethnicity sustainable enough for creating a better
world for all?
• Whose duty is it to make the desired change?