Elizabeth Quintero

Soc 001

Understanding Race: Witt Ch. 13

1. Racial profiling occurs when authorities take action against individuals solely based on
their race or ethnicity. According to Witt, in the aftermath of 9/11, people from Arab
countries were scrutinized for illegal activity and subjected to questioning. Racial
profiling has been protected under laws such as the ones passed in Arizona in 2010.
These laws allow law enforcement to request individuals for documents that verify their
legal immigration status. Therefore, if authorities suspect someone of being an illegal
alien solely based on the way they look, they have the authority to ask for evidence of
legal status. Contact Hypothesis might help reduce racial profiling by allowing people, in
this case authorities, to interact more with individuals of minority groups. The more this
interaction occurs, the more the biases and stereotypes the authorities had will be
debunked. They will come to understand that individuals from minority groups are
normal human beings, with the exception of different cultures and languages.

2. Some ethnocentric practices that were historically used include genocide, expulsion, and
segregation. An example of genocide is the Rwandan Genocide that occurred in 1994.
The dominant group, the Hutus, planned to exterminate all members of the subordinate
group, the Tutsis. In the span of as little as four months, hundreds of thousands of people
were killed. This has led to much animosity and hatred between the Tutsi minority and
the Hutu majority. Expulsion occurs when a majority group expels all members of the
subordinate group from the country. An example of this occurred in 1979 when Vietnam
did an ethnic cleansing of its country by expelling Chinese individuals from the country.
In regards to segregation, we must not look too far to see real life examples. In the South,
the Jim Crow laws were enacted in order to keep blacks separated from whites in all
aspects of life, whether it be in schools, restaurants, transportation, restrooms, and even
water fountains. Unfortunately, these ethnocentric practices have instilled in the majority
group an attitude of disdain towards the minorities. Many individuals in the majority
group still have these attitudes today.
3. Race is a construction of society as it has no scientific support. Race is used to categorize
people based on differences in their physical characteristics. This way those in power are
able to allocate resources unequally depending on the race to which an individual
belongs. For example, people are categorized as either White, Black, and Asian.
However, these categories are too restrictive and do not include people of different
national origins. For example, among Latinos, there are some individuals who have fair
skin, brown skin, and dark skin. Therefore, they dont consider themselves as any of the
three races mentioned. Many feel they have their own unique identity. Moreover, there
has been an increase in interracial marriage that race has been more difficult to identify.
For example, if a black man and a white woman have a child, the child can either be born
with dark or light skin. They are technically both Black and White, but their physical
appearance might force them to have to choose between one racial category or the other.
This is the case of Barack Obama. His father was black while his mother was white. He
 can technically identify himself as White if he chose to. However, given his physical
characteristics, he chooses to identify with the Black race. Therefore, a symbolic
interactionist would analyze how race creates these divisions between people and how
many people dont fit within the constraints set forth by the racial categories. Race can
thus be ambiguous to many.

4. Model minority refers to a minority ethnic group who has succeeded in many facets of
life including economically, socially, and educationally. An example of a model minority
is Asian Americans. The advantages of being part of such group is that individuals are
regarded with more levels of respect and dignity by the majority group. The disadvantage
to this is that it does not fairly represent all the ethnic groups that constitute this racial
group. For example, the Filipino ethnic group has lower rates of earning a bachelors
degree. The poverty rates among the Vietnamese is also higher than the other ethnic
groups.
 References

Witt, J. (2013). Soc 2013. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.