Here are some questions to help you formulate your first discussion post for this topic.

• First, why can a person be from a numerical minority group, yet still be part of a dominant social group?
• How many of the experiences of minority groups from this week's lecture, can you relate to?

In our first week of discussions, we shared some of the discomfort and difficulties in talking about race and ethnicity. This week we delved into the unequal treatment that many minority group members encounter, yet these experiences are often difficult to share with a dominant group member, or perhaps another minority group member. Why do you think this is so?

Categoric knowing is a term used by sociologists to describe the "classification of others on the basis of limited information. In other words, when we meet someone for the first time, we often associate that person with a category, such as "woman" or "adult". In the context of race, and especially when we have limited or unfavorable contact with members of other groups, we tend to experience a new person based on their racial or ethnic category, rather than as an individual. Often, of course, this type of 'knowing' is inaccurate.

Minority groups are subordinate groups in a society, whose members are disadvantaged and are subject to unequal treatment by the dominant group. The concept of minority as used in this context does not carry a numerical connotation. In fact, it is often the case that the dominant group in societies is a numerical minority group.

The dominant group refers to those groups whose members are advantaged and receive an unequal share of social rewards, including power. The dominant group controls or influences the major social institutions in society. A person can belong to a dominant group based on a number of social statuses, including race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, level of physical ability, and the list goes on. For the purposes of this course and module, we will focus on racial and ethnic minorities.

Minority group members tend to have certain traits and experiences in common. For example, minority group membership is involuntary; it is an ascribed status (a status that one is born into). Many also have distinguishing physical or cultural traits, such as skin color, the size, and shape of a nose, or hair color. These first two characteristics have an impact on minority group member experiences. For example, many group members receive differential and unequal treatment, compared to dominant group members. This can occur in each of the five systems outlined by the structural-functional theory: the workplace, schools, religion, families, and government. They will encounter collective discrimination as a representative of their race or ethnicity, rather than as an individual.

Most minority group members who encounter these inequalities are aware of this subordination, yet often have a difficult time conveying these inequalities to dominant group members.

Finally, minority group members tend to have a high rate of endogamy (marrying within one's own group), and causality could be a combination of intra-group preference, or inter-group discrimination.

Quite often, subordinate groups are the object of prejudice and discrimination. Prejudice is a negative attitude towards an entire category of people, generally based on faulty generalizations or stereotypes. Prejudice may lead to discrimination, which is the denial of opportunities and equal rights to individuals and groups based on their membership in racial or ethnic groups, though not always.

Prejudice and discrimination are supported by an overarching system of racism. It's important to understand that racism is not an attitude or an isolated behavior. Rather, racism is a system of oppression that facilitates both prejudice and discrimination.