Page 317 - Sociology and You

Chapter 9 Inequalities of Race and Ethnicity 287 Minority Populations and
Interpreting the Map
1. Do you see any relationship between the location of hate groups and the location of minority populations? Explain.
2. Do you see a pattern in the location of U.S. minority populations? Why might U.S. minority popu- lations be distributed as they are?
3. Create a question for your classmates to answer regarding the geographic distribution of U.S. minority populations.
Adapted from the The State of the U.S.A. Atlas, New York and Southern Poverty Law Center.
The Symbolic Interactionist Perspective
According to the symbolic interactionist perspective, members of a society learn to be prejudiced in much the same way they learn to be patriotic. Sociologist Gordon Allport (1958) described two stages in the learning of prej- udice. In the pregeneralized learning period, children may overhear parents make racist or prejudiced statements, but they have not yet learned to sepa- rate people by race or ethnic group. By the time children reach the total re- jection stage, however, they are able to use physical clues to sort people into groups. If children repeatedly hear parents malign a minority, they will reject all members of the group, on all counts and in all situations.
Symbolic interactionists also point out that language itself can reflect prej- udices. For example, in Anglo culture, many terms that include black are negative. Such terms as blackball, blacklist, black mark, and black eye illus- trate the negative slant associated with the word black.
Hate Groups
Race in the United States is no longer a “black and white” issue. Our population is becoming more complex, with many different races and ethnicities represented in increasingly large numbers. This map shows the percentage of the largest minorities in each state, as well as the location of hate groups in America.
Hate Groups
Ku Klux Klan Neo-Nazi Skinhead Identity
Black Separatist Other
Minorities as a Percent of Population
> 30%
25 to 30% 20 to 24% 15 to 19% 10 to 14% < 10%