The level of discrimination has varied enormously in the history of human societies, from genocide where, ethnics are killed off through expulsion and, when these extreme forms of discrimination are not possible, through segregation in a ghetto and a narrow range of jobs.
One type of ethnic minority is lower class. Here disproportionate numbers of a population are isolated in slum housing tracts and pushed into the lowest-paying occupations such that they are in the poverty classes of a society. African-Americans have suffered this fate in the United States. Another type of ethnic minority created by discrimination is the middleman minority where members are segregated but, at the same time, allowed to occupy a narrow range of entrepreneurial and professional economic positions which give them some affluence. For example, Jews in feudal and early modem Europe often occupied high positions in banking and finance; and many Asian immigrants in America today have moved into small business niches.
What determines which type of a minority an ethnic population will become One important condition is the resources—money, entrepreneurial know-how, educational credentials—that a population can mobilize. When ethnics have some resources, they can more readily move into intermediary minority positions and live a more middle-class life style. But resources are not the only factor; another is the absolute size of an ethnic population. A small minority with resources can more easily find intermediary niches than a large one, for the simple reason that there are not enough small-business positions for a large population. A large ethnic population will, therefore, be pushed to lower niches especially if their resources are limited and, as a result, their ability to fight off discrimination is low. African-Americans have suffered this fate: They are too large a group to fill middlemen minority positions, and they have insufficient resources to overcome discrimination. Indeed, what often happens is that members of a large minority who can mobilize resources—say, educational credentials— move into middle-class positions, leaving behind their fellow ethnics. For example, many blacks in America have made dramatic strides in moving to the middle-classes in the Post-Civil Rights era, but the fate of the vast majority of blacks in the lower classes has remained the same, or worsened over the last twenty-five years. Black America itself is thus divided by large class differences.What is most likely to happen to the large ethnic minority, according to the last paragraph