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Race And Ethnicity, Race, Culture, And Race In Society

Decent Essays

Race and ethnicity are fundamentally social constructs, they define individuals’ heritage and cultural backgrounds. The dominant races and ethnic groups control the social institutions while the minority races and ethnic groups are thus defined by their limited resources. Race and ethnicity have thus led to social problems such as stereotyping and discrimination as a resultant of social control of the dominant groups. Stereotyping refers to the generalization of a particular groups’ actions while discrimination refers to the offensive actions towards a certain group of people. The two societal problems thus lead to racism which is a global problem. These societal problems conform to the superiority of some groups of individuals as compared to another group. More importantly, such problems have led to intensive conflicts in different societies. Stereotyping, discrimination, and racism are a resultant of the popular culture that in time has deemed some groups of people as superior as compared to another. For instance, for long periods of time the American popular culture determined the white supremacy over other ethnic groups such as Latinos and Black-Americans. Conflict Theory The conflict theory states that conflicts and tensions arise when power, status, and resources become unevenly distributed among different individuals within a society. These conflicts thus result in the social changes that are experienced within the societies. Conflict theory views the society as one

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