Issues of race and ethnicity are very common in every culture, nation, country and groups. It can be analyzed through three main sociological perspectives: functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism
Functionalism
According to functionalism, ethnic and racial disproportion should have performed a crucial outcome just in order to have existence as long as they are having. This concept is very problematic. How is that possible that discrimination and racism can contribute positively to a society? So as a functionalist he might see at “functions” and “dysfunctions” that are actually caused by racial disproportion. Nash (1964) based his argument that how racism is beneficial for the supreme group, for example, proposing that racism simply provide a rationale for unequal society. Just take example of how slave owners give grounds for slavery in the South, by believing that black people were literally inferior to white and literally preferred black people for slavery. There is one more way to apply this functionalist view to racism just to discuss that how racism can actually contribute in a positive way to the overall functioning of the society by making stronger the bonds between group members through the banish of the out-group members. Just focus on how a community can increase agreement by rejecting to allow the access of outsiders. On the other way, Rose (1951) gave his suggestion that dysfunctions kindred with racism that includes the nonsuccess to take benefit of expertise in the defeated group.so that a society must turn aside from other objectives and the effort and time needed to keep false built racial limitations. Consider that how much time effort, money just went towards keeping unequal and separate educational systems preceding the civil rights movement (Lumen, 2018).
Conflict Theory
Conflict theories are applicable for the inequalities in social class, gender, race, ethnicity and education. The perspective of the conflict theory is exist in the world history and examination is done in numerous ways covering the past and present struggles among white, who are the ruling class, ethnic minorities and racial groups, observing the particular conflict, which have risen at the time when a dominant group started to perceive the minority group as a threat. In 19th century, black Americans were rising their power after Civil War, which resulted in the Jim Crow Laws’ draconian, which strictly restricted the black social and political power. For instance, Vivien Thomas (1910–1985), was the black surgical-technician, and he helped in development of groundbreaking techniques in surgeries, which saves many lives of the “blue babies”, despite a fact of his surgical experiments implications were complicated at that time. It has been suggested that effects of the class, race, sexual orientation, gender, and others cannot be separated. Race bring both negative and positive impact on the society. It is necessary to consider both, depends on the situation and on the society (Murji, and Solomos, 2015).
Interactionism
For the interactionist, race and ethnicity provides the impressive symbols of spring identity. Primarily, some interactionist show the symbols of racism not by themselves, but as the guide. There is a famous interactionist named Herbert Blumer (1958) suggested that that preconception of race is formulates by proper interactions among leading members of the groups. So without these proper interactions, individuals that are in the leading group would not hold their racist views .And these interactions bestowed to an abstract image of the inferior group that allows the leading group to reinforce its view of the inferior group, and maintains the status quo. Example of this may be some individual whose views about some particular group are actually based on pictures transferred in popular social media, and those are actually unquestionably approved because the individual has never ever personally met the member of that particular group. One more way to register the interactionist view is to see that how people describe the race of others and their own races .Here discussed in relation to the social structure of race, since few people claim that a white identity have greater skin pigmentation than other people who themselves claim a black identity, how did they actually define themselves as white or black? (Forster, Hitchcock, and Lyimo, 2000).
Culture of Prejudice
Culture of prejudice actually refers to the concept that prejudice is inserted in our own culture. We all grow up neighboring by pictures of stereotypes and natural expressions of prejudice and racism. Focus on the casually racist pictures on shopping store shelves or the casual stereotypes that in actually filling the famous movies and tv commercials. Nowadays, it is so easy to see that how someone lives in the Northeastern States, who might know no Mexican personally, might also get a stereotyped intuition from such type of sources as Taco Bell’s talking Chihuahua. As we are all being exposed to such images and feelings, it is totally impossible to understand to what length they have actually influenced our own thought processes (Back, and Solomos, 2013).
Some views of racial study the dominant role and inferior groups play its role to create a sturdy social composition. Conflict concepts consider power disparities and clash between different ethnic and racial groups. Interactionists also see ethnicity and race as very important spring of personal identity and social symbolism. The theory of culture of prejudice analyzes that every individual is subject to stereotypes that are imbedded in their culture.
References
Back, L. and Solomos, J., 2013. Theories of race and racism: A reader. Routledge.
Forster, P.G., Hitchcock, M. and Lyimo, F.F., 2000. Theories of Race and Ethnicity. In Race and Ethnicity in East Africa (pp. 16-34). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Lumen, 2018. Theories of Race and Ethnicity. [Online], Available at: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/sociology/chapter/theories-of-race-and-ethnicity/, [Accessed on: 30th April, 2018].
Murji, K. and Solomos, J. eds., 2015. Theories of Race and Ethnicity. Cambridge University Press.