11.1.1Compare and contrast contemporary sociologists’ and Max Weber’s definitions of race and ethnicity.
Max Weber (1864–1920), one of sociology’s founding figures, was also one of the first sociologists to define ethnicity and race. Weber described ethnic groups as “those human groups that entertain a subjective belief in their common descent,” spelling out that “it does not matter whether or not an objective blood relationship exists” (Weber [1922] 1978, pp. 389, 385). The most striking aspect of Weber’s definition is that the key ingredient for ethnic membership is belief in shared descent. The subjective dimension of ethnicity would go on to become a central fixture of later sociologists’ thinking.
Weber did not portray race as equally subjective, however. Instead, like most scholars of his era, he felt that races stemmed from “common inherited and inheritable traits that actually derive from common descent.” This view of race is called essentialism; that is, it presumes an individual’s identity depends on fundamental and innate characteristics that are deep-seated, inherited, and unchangeable. These traits are thought to be part of people’s “essence,” their very being. Whereas Weber observed that many different characteristics or experiences could serve to indicate who belonged to which ethnic group—including physical resemblance, historical memories, and common cultural practices—he believed that physical makeup alone determines an individual’s race. In a nutshell, for Weber, ethnicity is based on people’s cultural practices, and race is based on their biological traits.
Not all early sociologists held an essentialist view of race. Across many books and essays examining racial oppression in America, W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963) challenged the view that distinctive traits had a biological component common to all African Americans and that those traits could be determined by examining how blacks in America live and work. Du Bois argued that the racism so prevalent in American society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries made it impossible for blacks to find jobs or achieve success in the way that whites could. High unemployment among African Americans did not mean that blacks were lazy. The reluctance of white employers to hire blacks created some of the very “facts” used to confirm the stereotype about laziness.
While contemporary sociologists share Weber’s view of ethnicity, most reject his definition of race in favor of the position Du Bois advocated. Sociologists today believe racial identification is as subjective a process as ethnic classification. The major difference between race and ethnicity lies in the basis on which group boundaries are drawn. In other words, we look for different clues or signs when we think about people’s ethnicity as compared to their race.
Why exactly do contemporary sociologists reject Weber’s description of race as based solely on inherited physical traits? The difference in viewpoints is subtle but meaningful. In a sense, today’s sociologists have taken to heart Weber’s message about the subjectivity of group definitions and have come to believe that even our perceptions of biological similarity are subjective. So our racial classifications are based not on some objective measure of physical resemblances (as Weber claimed) but rather on our beliefs and socially influenced perceptions of which kinds of people are biologically similar and which are different. A useful illustration comes from the United States‘ one-drop rule.
In this chapter, we define ethnicity as a system for classifying people who are believed to share common descent based on perceived cultural similarities. We define race as a system for classifying people who are believed to share common descent based on perceived innate physical similarities. Framing the two concepts in this way makes clear how much they have in common, but it also highlights the fundamental difference between them.