Understanding

Discrimination

Understand Discrimination

Discrimination

The denial of opportunities and equal rights to individuals and groups because of prejudice or for other arbitrary reasons.

Understand Discrimination

Relative vs. Absolute Deprivation

2 patterns of deprivation

1. Relative Deprivation

2. Absoluet Deprivation

Understanding Discrimination

 Relative Deprivation

Conscious experience of a negative discrepancy between legitimate expectations and present actualities.

Understanding Decrimination

Absolute Deprivation

Minimum level of subsistence below which families should not be expected to exist.

Understanding Discrimination

Total Discrimination

Combination of current discrimination with past discrimination created by poor schools and menial jobs.

past examples: inferior schooling, poor health care, inadequate counseling, poor job record, no inherited wealth.

current examples: hiring practices, promotion practices, bias in lending and leasing.

Institutional Descrimination

Denial of apportunities and equal rights to individuals and groups that results from the normal operations of sosiety.

• covertly acts committed collectively against and entire group.
• may be unconscious or unaware
• takes on pattern of woodwork racism
  

Institutional Discrimination

Woodwork Racism

Racist outcome so wide spread that it becomes part of every day life for minorities.

Institutional Discrimination

Institutional Discrimintation

Examples

1. Standards for assessing credit risks
2. IQ testing favors middle class children.
3. The entire criminal justice system
4. Hiring practices often require several years experience
5. Many jobs automatically eliminate people with a felony record or past drug offenses.

Low-Wage Labor

Low-Wage Labor

Informal Economy

(irregular/underground economy)

Consists of transfers of money, goods, or services that are not reported to the government.

• common in inner city neighborhoods and poverty stricken rural areas.

Low-Wage Labor

Regular Job Market

Operates according to the principles of conventional labor market.

• pay taxes
• have benefits
• job security
  

Low-Wage Labor

 Dual or Split Labor Market

Divides the economy into two realms of employment.

The informal economy (irregular) being populated mainly by minorities working at menial jobs.

Low-Wage Labor

Dual Job Market

Model

• Minorities have benn regulated to the informal economy.
• Provides few safeguards against fraud or malpractice that vicitmizes workers.
• Few fringe benefits, such as: stability, wages, health insurance, pension
• Promotes unfair and dangerous work conditions
• Ill prepared to enter regular economy permanently.
  

Discrimination Today

• Widespread in the United States.
• Sometimes results from prejudices held by individuals found in institutional discrimination and the presence of the informal economy.
  

Discrimination Today

Measuring Discrimination

• quantifying discrimination is problematic
• difficult to assess attitudes and the need to take many factors into account.
• difficult assigning a cost to discrimination
• disparity between the income of  Black women and White men has remained unchanged for over 50 years.

DiscriminationToday

Eliminating Descrimination

(two main agents of social change work to reduce discrimination)

1. Voluntary associations organized to solve racial and ethnic problems.
2. Federal government (including the courts)

Discrimination Today

Eliminating Discrimination

Voluntary Associations

(organized to solve racial and ethnic problems)

most groups founded since WWII

examples:

church organizations, fraternal social groups, minor political parties, and legal defense funds.

Discrimination Today

Eliminating Discrimination

Federal Government

(Including the courts)

Each branch of the government has taken anti-discrimination actions.

examples:     Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC)

1954 Brown vs. Board of Education

Civil Rights Act of 1964

1987 Supreme Court Ruling

Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act

Discrimination Today

Eliminating Discrimination

Federal Government

Fair Employment Practice Commission

(FEPC)

-1st antidiscrimination action at the executive level.

-Created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1943.

Results: -has little actual power

 -can only act for voluntary compliance

 -never got great support from white house

 -only included federal government employees, federal contractors,   and labor unions.

 -denied adequate funds

 -dropped in 1946 for a weaker policy in 1948

Discrimination Today

Eliminating Discrimination

Federal Government

1954 Brown vs. Board of Education

"Seperate but equal" facilities were determined to be unconsitutinal.

Therefore:

distinguishes between races in order to segregate was unconstitutional.

Discrimination Today

Eliminating Discrimination

Federal Government

Civil Rights Act of 1964

-most important legislative effort to erradicate decrimination.
-led to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
-prohibited different voting registration standards
-prohibited discrimination in public accomodations
-forbade discrimination in all federal supported programs and institutions
-covered discrimination based on race, creed, national origin, and sex.

Discrimination Today

Eliminating Discrimination

Federal Government

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

• Included all businesses with greater than 25 employees.
• Included nearly all employment agenies and labor unions.
• 1972 amendment also included busnesses with greater than 15 employees.
  

Discrimination Today

Eliminating Discrimination

Redlining

Patterns of discrimination against people trying to buy homes in minority and racially changing neighborhoods.

Covers everything from parcel diliveries to repair people as well as food deliveries.

Discrimination Today

Eliminating Discrimination

Federal Government

1987 Supreme Court  Ruling

• Members of an ethnic minority may sue under federal prohibitions against discrimination.
• Came as a result of 2 groups other than African Americans that sued for discrimination.

Discrimination Today

Eliminating Discrimination

Federal Government

Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act

Because of the usually secrecy of workplaces around salaries it can takes years to learn of unfair pay practices.

As a result this Act allows victims more time to file a lowsuit.

Weatlh Inequality: Discrimination's Legacy

• Minorities have less opportunities to accumulate assets.
• White children are more likely to surpass parents' income than black children.
• White children are more likely to move up in economic social class than black children.

Income

Salaries, wages, and other money received.

Weatlh Inequality: Discrimination's Legacy

 Wealth

An inclusive term encompassing all ove a person's material assets, including land and other types of property.

Allows one to live better.

For many people it's not: wealth=assests but

wealth= indebtedness

Enviornmental Justice

-Efforts to ensure that hazardous substances are controlleed so that all communities received protection reguardless of race or socioeconomic circumstances.

-Low income communities and areas with significant minority populations are more likely to be adjacent to waste site than affluent White communities.

-Abuse of Native American Reservation Land used as toxic dumping ground to highest bidder  OR Because of economic devistation they seek out becoming a toxic dump.

Affirmative Action

• Positive efforts to recruit subordinate group members including women, for jobs, promotions, and educational opportunities.
• 1st  executive order by President Kennedy in 1961
• Today it is a catch-all term for racial preference programs and goals.

Affirmative Action

Affirmative Action Explained

Aims at procedures that deny equal opportunities, even when their not intended to be overtyly descriminatory.

examples: preferences shown by law and medical schools

height and weight requirements          

seniority rules                                      

nepotism

restrictive employment leave policies

only English spoken in workplace       

standardized acedemic tests geared toward middle class

credit policies of Banking and Leasing institutions

Affirmative Action

The Legal Debate

• How far can affirmative action go before it discriminates against White men?
• Courts have ruled that race can be used a criteria for college admissions but not a strict admission criteria that awards points for minority applicants. (U of M)
  
• does appear that affirmative action has had significant impact.

Reverse Discrimination

• Actions that cause better qualified white men to be passed over for women and minority men.
• Such cases are not unknown, but they are uncommon.

The Glass Ceiling

-The barrier that blocks the promotion of a qualified worker because of gender or minority membership.

-Soul-destroying slights to affluent gender or minority membership.
-Attitude and organizational bias that prevents successful minorities from reaching their full potential.
-Underrepresentation of women and minority males in managerial positions is large part of "glass ceiling".

The Glass Ceiling

 1991 Glass Ceiling Commission

works to eliminate glass barriers

examples: Lack of management committment for acheiving work place diversity and upwart mobility.

pay inequalities and limited opportunites for advancement

race, sex, and ethnicity stereotyping in the work place

unfair recruitment policies

lack of family friendly workplace policies

"parent track" policies

The Glass Ceiling

Glass Walls

Barrier to move laterally in a business to positions that are more likely to lead to upward mobility.

Example: women assigned to positions that reflect stereotypical "helping nature" rather that positions which can open up broader opportunities.

The Glass Ceiling

Glass Escalator

Male advantage experienced in occupations dominated by women

Example: Male nurses becoming supervisors over women.