ABSTRACT
This book concentrates on socially excluded minorities, without power, marginalized, frequently illiterate, usually undereducated, and nearly always the victims of discrimination at the hands of their fellow citizens. Its basic query is why such groups remain the poorest of the poor, at the bottom of their social hierarchies even in the most promising situations such as long citizenship in wealthy nations committed to equal opportunity and other egalitarian values. I have in mind stigmatized, low-status minorities such as Roma (Gypsies), America’s blacks, Australian aborigines, India’s Dalits (Untouchables), Hazaras of Afghanistan, and hundreds, if not thousands, of indigenous peoples recently dispossessed of homeland and culture. Why do such groups suffer persistent poverty at higher rates than other
groups? Most obviously, they are or recently were victims of economic discrimination and exploitation. Even, however, in many cases where public and private efforts plus various social forces have eliminated the most injurious and obvious forms of discrimination, they continue to make slow progress into the economic mainstream. Impeded access to education is part of the explanation. Lack of economic growth is also fundamental. In developing countries, slow growth implies scarcity of middle-class employment opportunities and limited access to public education. It also implies persistence of the status quo such that entrenched political forces (traditional elites, ruling tribes, religious authorities, etc.) and traditional social institutions (e.g., customs, norms) are unlikely to permit rapid redefinition of highly discriminatory social roles. Perhaps a more controversial cause lies in the cultural heritages of some excluded groups. Traumatic histories, such as enslavement or conquest and ensuing exploitation, have led to patterns of behavior and belief among the victims passed on from generation to generation that reduce their upward
mobility. Together these interacting variables suggest a theory that responds to the basic query. I formalize this theorizing in two steps. First, in Chapter 2, I define the
socially excluded as the set of stigmatized, ranked, ethnic, low-status, involuntary minorities, or SRELIM. I only include as SRELIM those ethno-racial groups that have endured overpowering economic discrimination and other injury within the last century as a consequence of being descendants of slaves, or indigenous groups deprived of their homeland and culture, or social outcasts and who still suffer discrimination today. So defined, such minorities have been and generally are still “ranked,” that is forced into a position subordinate to the dominant groups of their countries. So defined, SRELIM also have much in common because they have all suffered similar injury and exploitation. Specifically:
The indicators of status, income, employment, education, life expectancy, health, and social deviance of SRELIM are always less favorable than those of the dominant majority.
