We Are Not Unusual Anymore Analysis

For this second Sociology In Print assignment, I chose to analyze this article from the New York Times titled, “We Are Not Unusual Anymore: 50 Years of Mixed-Race Marriage in U.S.”, written by Jennifer Medina. It may seem that marriage is a basic, essential human right that everyone should be able to attain. However, this is not the case for Leon Watson and Rosina Rodriquez, a mixed-race couple who married in the 1950s. The article is mainly about the difficulties experienced by the Watsons because of their interracial marriage. Back in the early past century when racism existed in the conservative society, the couple was segregated based on their skin colors in different social events. For instance, when the Watsons went to the movie theater

According to the textbook definition, Race is “a social definition based on some real or presumed physical, biological, characteristic, such as skin color or hair texture, as well as a shared lineage” (Ritzer 2016). The discriminations and unfair treatments faced by the Watsons were solely based on their skin colors, or more specifically - their races. Fear of being ostracized by her colleagues at work, Mrs. Watson never told people that she married a black man because she “didn’t want to be rejected” (Medina 2017). She understood that racial issues were still hot topics in the South and telling people that she married a black man would only lure people’s attention and could possibly make her family as a target of extreme hate groups. The first concept mentioned in the article is Majority-Minority Relations, which means “those in the dominant (majority) group are prone to exploit and marginalize members of a subordinate (minority) group” (Parkhouse 2017). In the Watsons’ situation, the white people in their neighborhood immediately moved out of the area after they knew of their interracial marriage. They marginalized the Watsons and prevented them from interacting with the white people (Medina 2017). The relationships between the Watsons (the minority) and their white neighbors (the majority) were not well because the majority group marginalized the family, so that the Watsons would not be able to lower the social status of the white people near them. Another important concept discussed in the article is Institutional Racism, which is a “race-based discrimination that results from the day-to-day operation of social institutions and social structures and their rules, policies, and practices” (Ritzer 2016). Throughout the article there are many examples of this concept. For instance, the separated entrance in the movie theater mentioned earlier is a perfect