Race & Ethnicity
By describing the unearned advantages White people carry with them each day, Peggy McIntosh uses this metaphor to show why the belief in pure meritocracy doesn’t match lived reality.
What is the “invisible knapsack”?
A condition whereby some positions in society yield a great deal of money, status, and power, while others yield little, if any, of these.
What is inequality?
Proposes that people have what they have based only on how hard they worked to get there and argues that all people have an equal chance of succeeding economically based on their skills and hard work.
What is meritocracy?
Illegal, nonviolent acts of a corporation or person acting on its behalf.
What is white-collar crime?
An area where it is difficult to buy affordable or good-quality fresh food.
What is a food desert?
According to Ritzer, "race-based discrimination that results from the day-to-day operation of social institutions and social structures and their rules, policies, and practices".
What is institutional racism?
Involves hierarchical differences not only in economic positions but in other important areas, such as status, social honor, and power.
What is social stratification?
An economic system based on profit that focuses on private ownership of the "means of production".
What is capitalism?
With only 4.4% of the global population, this nation is responsible for incarcerating nearly 1 in 4 prisoners worldwide.
What is the United States?
Critiques of this model note that it neglects pain, fatigue, and embodied experiences of impairment.
What is the social model of disability?
A discriminatory banking practice that purposely keeps services out of reach for residents of certain areas based on their race or ethnicity.
What is redlining?
One’s economic position in the stratification system.
What is social class?
Movement of industries (often out of the U.S. or out of city centers) due to increased machine labor and cheaper labor or land.
What is deindustrialization?
This theory argues that minor acts of deviance spiral into severe crime.
What is Broken Windows Theory?
This model intends to cure and treat the disabled population through medicalization (via drugs, surgery, etc.).
What is the medical model of disability?
According to Thomas M. Shapiro's article, "Race, Homeownership and Wealth", even when Black and White families have similar incomes, this large economic gap between them persists because of historical advantages in asset building.
What is the racial wealth gap?
The total amount of a person’s financial assets and other properties less the total various kinds of debts, or liabilities (e.g., savings, investments, automobiles minus student loans, car loans, credit card debt).
What is wealth?
An economic system based on the collective and the collective’s goals.
What is socialism?
This theory focuses on the conflict between accepted norms and social reality.
What is Strain Theory?
According to "The Mountain", lacking part of or all of a limb or having a defective limb, organism or mechanism of the body.
What is an impairment?
As highlighted in Nadia Lathan’s article “50 years after being outlawed…”, these color-coded 1930s federal housing maps helped channel investment away from minority neighborhoods creating patterns of urban pollution that still persist today.
What is redlining?
The ability or inability to change one’s position in the hierarchy.
What is social mobility?
Often labeled as “unskilled labor,” these low-wage service jobs (such as waiting tables) typically offer no benefits and limited workplace protections.
What is pink-collar work?
This theory argues that the dominant class in a society makes laws in its own interest to oppress the subordinate class.
What is the Conflict Theory of Crime?
The process of making something a medical problem with a medical solution.
What is medicalization?