A Theory of Ethnic Oppression: Toward a Reintegration of Cultural and Structural Concepts in Ethnic Relations Theory

Abstract

Recent theories of racial and ethnic oppression, with their focus on social structural variables, have tended to ignore the impact of culture. This oversight is redressed by considering the effects of cultural values and beliefs on patterns of racial oppression against black Americans. Beginning with a concise summary of the structure of racial oppression and racial beliefs in American history, we note patterns and then present, in propositional form, a theory incorporating both structural and cultural variables. Beliefs are seen to legitimate, as well as pose periodic challenges to, the structure of racial oppression. The study of minority relations in America has moved through several distinctive phases. Prior to the last decade, minority groups were viewed as the victims of prejudice and discrimnination and the moral dilemmas represented by this fact seemed to dominate sociologists' work (cf. Allport; Myrdal; Westie). Not only did sociological analysis of minority problems suffer from the limitations of such concepts as prejudice and discrimination, as well as a preoccupation with moral dilemmas, it tended to be individualistic, ahistorical, and confined to the United States. During the 1960s, however, a clear reaction to these shortcomings occurred, as sociologists began to view structural patterns of discrimination. Moreover, analysis became historical and comparative as scholars sought to find universal principles of structured oppression. In keeping with the rejection of functional analysis, emphasis shifted to concern with power, control, and conflict relations among different ethnic populations. By the end of the decade, a number of theories of minority oppression had emerged (e.g., Blauner; Lieberson; Noel; Schermerhorn; van den Berghe). And into the present decade, minority relations research has tended to concentrate on structural variables and their opera