Sociological Theory Essay

In the textbook Classical and Contemporary Sociological Theory, we are introduced to some of the first sociologists and their theories. Two sociologists that are relevant to present issues about racism would be Emile Durkheim and W.E.B. Du Bois. In Durkheim’s The Rules of Sociological Method, he mentions that crime is necessary for society because it “defines the moral boundaries of a society” (Appelrouth and Edles 2016: 99). Basically without crime, people would not realize what the definition of right and wrong behavior is. Having crime in our society makes us realize our morals and basically institutes the idea in our head that criminal acts are not appropriate behaviors. Durkheim’s theory about crimes being necessary in our society is relevant

A recent civil rights activist movement that has come to light is called Black Lives Matter. This movement became a trend when the cop incidents began to occur because it was a way for people to stand up for themselves and fight for equality. In one of their recent protests, they have addressed Alfred Olango’s unfair murder. This man was killed on September 27, 2016 after an “officer simultaneously fired his firearm several times” (Association Press 2016). Just weeks prior to this incident there was also a shooting in Tulsa, Oklahoma and one in Charlotte, North Carolina which also lead to the death of two black men (2016). The major point at issue is that all of them have consisted of white cops against black unarmed men. Based on Durkheim’s perception of crime, he would see this crime and those similar to this one as fitting to his theory because after all the incidents made their way into the media, many have been very outspoken about the corruption in our justice system. Communities have actually come together to fight these inequalities and have been forced to see that crimes such as these should not be occurring. For Du Bois, even though he sought to address race inequality and white supremacy, incident such as Alfred Olango’s would probably disappoint him considering we have failed to address the issues he believed should have been fixed. There is also