Ethnic identity is the foundation of any healthy society. Despite the social foundations of race and ethnicity, sociologists recognize that they are extremely important. Race and nationality form the social stratification that underlies individual and group identity, determine the models of social conflict and the life priorities of entire nations. The concept of ethnic identity and identity is very important for understanding the race. The prominent scientist George Fredrickson defines it as “a consciousness of status and identity based on a common pedigree and skin color."
Between Weber and Marx
Frederickson traces interest in race and the formation of ethnic identity in the 1970s debate between neo-Marxists and Weber supporters about the origins of American racism. Until that time, the latter term was interpreted in the light of psychological constructions, including ignorance, prejudice and the projection of hostility into low-status groups. Rejecting the causal significance of these factors, Marxist scholars such as Eugene Genovese emphasized the economic benefits that slaveholders gained from exploiting people of African descent. They argued that anti-black ideologies were determined by production relations and reflected the class consciousness of slave owners, who imposed these views on non-workers who owned white workers. Recognizing the importance of the class in racial inequality, Fredrickson and his colleagues opposed the claims of the Marxists on the economic basis of racism, reviving the controversy first made in the 1940s by W.E. B. Du Bois. They pointed out that poor whites, who had little interest in exploiting the labor of African Americans, were nonetheless passionate supporters of Suprematism. Race and ethnicity were significant determinants of social differentiation per se. To paraphrase Marx, Frederickson used the term "racial consciousness" as an alternative to class identity in the formation of identification and solidarity.
Race and Ethnicity in Sociology
Studies by Van Ausdale and Feigin show the primacy of racial consciousness in personality building, demonstrating that children under the age of 3 are well aware of this classification and unfold curious differences based on their understanding.
Significant sociological knowledge of the nature and functioning of racial and ethnic relations is rooted in an analysis of the highly structured situation in the American South before the Civil Rights Movement. However, recent studies conducted in the most diverse, multicultural, and globalized modern social environments in which migrants make up a large part of the local population, and frankly racist statements are taboo, provide a much more complex and diverse set of racial and ethnic situations than in earlier times. Although the race and ethnic identity of the ethnic group remains a powerful force in such conditions, their codification is much more complicated. Vinant, Bonilla Silva and others argue in their theories that racism has many causes, affects groups in different ways and varies in time, place, class and gender. This is where the characteristic problems of national identity arise.
Migration
Migration can radically transform the prisms and boundaries through which race consciousness is formulated. Accordingly, systems of national classification and consciousness ignore general principles and should be studied at the local level. For example, literature on African immigrants in North America shows that despite the widespread phenotypically based ideology of racism that exists in the United States, black newcomers often reject the American classification system and use language, social practices, and selective social interaction models to free yourself from this.
In a large analysis of research on immigrant children in California and Florida, Portes and Rumbout found that the more these young people assimilate, the less likely they are to call themselves Americans, and the more likely they are to identify with their country of origin. Thus, their self-proclaimed foreignness is "made in the USA." In contrast, immigrant children in the United Kingdom downplay their national identities and instead emphasize their parents' religions, preferring to be classified as Hindus, Muslims, or Sikhs in their interactions with Native Britons, even if they do not practice their faith more diligently than most of the subjects of the Kingdom practice Christianity .
Racial issue
In his study of the white identity in the black majority of Detroit, John Hartigan found that the white working class attributes the deteriorating quality of life in their neighborhoods not to African Americans. Here, rather, the racial category of “fortifications” is defined, “relative newcomers who entered the Motor City from the Appalachians in search of industrial jobs.” Finally, some groups with strong minority identities, such as Jews from the former Soviet Union who arrive in the United States and Canada, are surprised to consider themselves members of the white majority, albeit with a foreign accent.
Sociologists Jennifer Lee and Frank Bean have studied the changing nature of the color line in the United States, as the country includes a growing population of mixed race and numerous immigrants who are neither black nor white. The authors examine theories and evidence that suggests that growing diversity will make American society either care less about such differences (bringing a color blind society) or shift the color line. Recalling the low rates of segregation in residential areas and the high rates of mixed marriages between Asians and Hispanics and native whites, compared with lower rates of black and white interaction, the authors conclude that a new color line that distinguishes blacks from all others may occur, leaving African Americans in unfavorable situations that are not qualitatively different from those maintained by the traditional black and white division.
Theoretical base
Since the 1960s, sociologists have increasingly begun to agree that ethnic self-awareness is the basis for assessing group status and the accompanying formation of collective identities. Herbert Blumer's theory of racial relations, describing them as a sense of group position, argued that this feeling was crucial for the relationship between dominant and subordinate groups in society. This provided the dominant culture with its perceptions, values, sensitivity and emotions. A later point of view considers the position of the group as applicable to subordinates and to dominant groups.
Theorists involved in national mobilization and the economy, social capital, argue that the general concepts of ethnic and racial consciousness are the basis of forms of trust, political and economic cooperation and mobilization. In their key work on social capital, Portes and colleagues identify a unified national consciousness as contributing to the achievement of common goals. Among them are raising investment capital, encouraging academic success, promoting political activism, and encouraging self-help charity. At the same time, they remind us that social capital may be lacking, so that members of the same ethnic group will sometimes despise assimilation, achievement and upward mobility, violating group norms. Those who engage in authorized behavior will be considered disloyal and not having access to group-based resources.
Consciousness and oppression
Racial and ethnic identity are social instincts that are strongest in societies where the population is clearly divided and scarce and valuable resources are unevenly distributed based on very national characteristics. Often, the process is initiated as an elite group - for example, white slave owners in the pre-war south - combines dominance among a minority - Africans - using state power to legitimize the socio-economic structures that underlie inequality. This, in turn, strengthens the consciousness of the oppressed group, leading to conflict.
The practice of destroying racial and ethnic identity
From the 1960s to the 1990s, several states, unfortunately, pursued a policy of destroying the identity of ethnic communities, and therefore left many problems for their descendants. This often included the involvement of two related policies that stimulated assimilation and minimized racial, ethnic, and gender differences in job distribution, education, and other social benefits, while also promoting group awareness through affirmative action and multicultural programs (maintaining language, identity, political incorporation and religious practice). Michael Bunton offers an interpretation of this obvious paradox, arguing that an individual goal seeks to reduce group consciousness and promotes assimilation, but certain goals (for example, public goods) can only be achieved through collective action.
The collapse of the USSR and the revival of nationalism
However, after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990, which led to the obsolescence of state socialism, outbreaks of terrible ethnic conflicts in the Balkan region and the events of September 11, 2001 were noted. Many states have become much more cynical about their ability to manage the negative manifestations of racial and ethnic consciousness through tolerance and moderate government support. Instead, major movements from the United States and the Netherlands to Zimbabwe and Iran argued that major social conflicts are best resolved by providing an idealized version of the cultural, religious, racial and national roots of these states, while limiting immigration and making small concessions. In developed countries, such a policy would lead to a positive increase in the ethnic identity of the people, while in third world countries any attempt to revive self-awareness sooner or later leads to radicalism and terrorism.
"World in fire"
In his provocatively titled book, World On Fire (2003), lawyer Amy Chua argued that, for at least a short time, the correlates of Western modernization — expanding free markets plus democratization — would increase, not reduce, ethnic conflicts. This is because, under the conditions of economic liberalization, the increased wealth of ethnically isolated minorities contrasts sharply with the difficult circumstances commonly encountered by the local majority. As a result, entrepreneurial “outsiders,” including South Asians in Fiji, Chinese in Malaysia, Jewish “oligarchs” in Russia and whites in Zimbabwe and Bolivia were ostracized by impoverished indigenous people who, as a national majority, had far greater influence within a democratic society.
Given the diverse nature of ethnic and racial identity in the modern global world, characterized by economic transformations, transnational ties, the intersection of social and religious movements on the border, and increased access to communication and travel, it seems likely that forms of national consciousness will continue to have a tremendous impact on the political situation. in the world. This is the main problem of ethnic identity.