Ethnicity and Race

Race, Ethnicity, and Crime in the United States

“In the social sense, race is a reality; in the scientific sense, it is not,” according to anthropologist Kenneth Kennedy (quoted in Wheeler 1995: A15). He made this statement when discussing the growing number of American scholars who reject the concepts of race and racial classifications as senseless and objectionable. The American Anthropological Association has formally decided that differentiation of people into biologically defined races is senseless and unscientific. Yet, although race is no longer viewed as a bona fide scientific concept, race continues to have a crucial social meaning; it is still seen as an important way of differentiating among people. The government thinks in racial categories with regard to registration (driver's licenses, birth certificates, education, welfare, crime statistics), and so does the American public. Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to say that America remains obsessed by race.

In the United States, race influences human behavior and attitudes, family life, income, education, politics, and crime. Racism, ideas about superiority and equality, and the national preoccupation with race divides the United States into two parts, as suggested by the title of a popular book: Two Nations, Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal (Hacker 1992). Although blacks are currently America's largest racial minority group, the official and unofficial racial differentiation in the United States goes beyond the simple black/white division. The 2000 U.S. Census used six racial categories: (1) American Indian or Alaska Native; (2) Black (or African American); (3) Asian; (4) Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander; (5) White; and (6) Some Other Race. These six official racial categories are grossly oversimplified: Each of these consists of a large number of subgroups with often widely divergent national, ethnic, or racial backgrounds. Although in popular language, race and ethnicity are often used interchangeably, they have different meanings; ethnicity refers to a shared culture (language, religion, custom), whereas race implies a presumed common genetic heritage (based on visible physical characteristics such as skin color). Again oversimplifying for the purposes of registration, the U.S. Census uses two categories for ethnicity: “Hispanic or Latino,” and “Not Hispanic or Latino.” Hispanics and Latinos may be of any race. Although the scientific validity of official racial and ethnic categories is questionable, most of the research and theorizing on race and ethnicity and crime in the United States does focus on the “big four”: blacks, Hispanics, American Indians, and Asian Americans. For lack of a better alternative, the following discussion will do the same.

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