Melissa McPeck Assignment #1 2.

According to American Ethnicity, institutionalized discrimination is discrimination that exists when cultural values, beliefs, laws, and norms allow acts by individuals to deny others access to valued resources, (Aguierre 344). This type of discrimination is often difficult to detect, as it is completely engrained into the standards of society. Most people never realize the subtle discrimination that has been built into American institutions over hundreds of years. One example of institutionalized discrimination is the unintentional but nevertheless real segregation of African Americans into urban slums. In these locations, there are fewer opportunities available: [African Americans] do not acquire the education, job skills, or motivation that would enable them to leave the slums (Aguierre 11). Institutionalized discrimination puts a limit on the amount of upward mobility available to ethnic subpopulations. Those ethnicities which have historically been lower class remain lower class, simply because they can not overcome institutional barriers. In When Race Breaks Out, a white student expresses the benefits they gain from institutionalized discrimination: My high school offered AP classes that boosted my GPA to 4.2, so when I applied for college I was able to beat out students from inner city and rural high schools who got all As, (Fox 50). This is another example of subtle discrimination that targets mostly non-whites. As with these examples, institutionalized discrimination often goes unnoticed by all but those who are targeted.

4. Anglo-Saxons have been able to maintain their control over American society for many reasons. The most significant reason is that whites were able to implant their culture in the United States before large numbers of immigrants of other ethnicities arrived. At the end of the

18th century, 60.1 percent of the non-slave population was English, and roughly 90 percent of the entire population originated in Europe (Aguierre 63). Because of their high numbers, AngloSaxons were able to replace the original culture of the landthat of the Native Americansand dominate the cultural and political arenas of the United States. By dominating all aspects of society early on, before any mixing of cultures could occur, whites managed to embed their own values into the American landscape with little to no competition. From this point on, there was no obligation to incorporate the values of any other ethnic subpopulation. As American Ethnicity points out, Once Anglo-Saxon culture and institutional structures were in place, Anglo-Saxons could set the terms of competition among ethnic groups, (Aguierre 66). Two hundred years later, whites are still the majority ethnicity in the United States. Due to this continued dominance, a disproportionate amount of elite positions, particularly in politics and American institutions, belong to whites. With political offices, in particular, comes power: the power to influence institutional policy, to determine cultural mainstays, and establish mainstream American values. As political power continues to isolate itself to a small portion of rich, white families, other ethnic populations never have the chance to introduce their own cultures and institutional systems in any permanent way.