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Role of class in society
Racial inequality and its effects
The division of society by class
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Role of class in society
Racial inequality and its effects
The division of society by class
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Anderson claims that white people have more power in society and because of this, minorities are forced to take it upon the streets. Anderson wants the reader to understand that white people, especially white males, have more power than other races because in our society the reader sees powerful men everyday such as lawyers, policemen, judges, CEO's ,and etc. The reader doesn't see many minority's as high power people. When the author states that “...white rage carries an aura of respectability and has access to the courts, police, legislatures and governors,...” the reader can infers that white people are perceived as higher roles in our society and that the minority's rage carries a aura of disrespect and leads to violence. This allows white people to to be heard easily because of how they are seen in society by other white people, but for minority's they struggle to be heard because nobody pays attention to them because society feels that this is an ongoing issue.
Have you ever wanted to chase the American dream? It might be more impossible than people realize. Gregory Mantsios writes “Class in America-2012” about the growing and obvious class divide in America, yet no one wants to talk about the situation and the effects on the people. I will be analyzing the text and explaining the effects it has on the reader. Throughout the article Mantsios stays consistent with his opinion by providing multiple charts and graphs to back his point.
I’m analyzing the TV program Parks and Recreation in attempts to gain a better understanding of the representation of class structure in TV programs. Parks and Recreation is a show about the city government, particularly the parks department, in the small town of Pawnee, Indiana. The main characters in the program are all of the middle class, however some upper class people of a neighboring town make appearances in a few episodes. The neighboring town, Eagleton, is considered ubiquitously wealthy and the citizens are well dressed and spoken. Although both the middle and upper class are represented, the show rarely, if ever, deals with the poor.
In chapter one, "Privilege, Oppression, and Difference, Allan Johnson begins his argument that "difference is not the problem"( Johnson, pg 5 ). The author goes on to explain that difference by itself is not the problem, rather difference in conjunction with our ideas that cause fear. That being said, discrimination was a bigger problem in the past and it still is today. We starts with talking about Rodney King and racism he had received from police officers in Los Angeles. Johnson continues on with the idea that people are judged not for who they are or the things they have accomplished, but how they are perceived by others.
Throughout history, race has been an ongoing theme. Race was used to define a person as well as the rights that they held. People of races other than white were given little to none respect and were not treated as human beings but instead property. It was a constant battle between races, therefore forming a them versus us society. Through history there were many people who were treated based off their race, there were many different government made laws and documents that defined and laid out the rights of those certain races.
Maya Angelou once said, “Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.” She meant that when prejudice was a major issue in the past it can still threaten our future and leaves the present to the new generations. Leaves the prejudice, racism and current issue to us, lets us do the changing in the world. During the Civil Rights Movement during the 1960s people have been prejudice and have been changing the way the world was at the time. While doing this, racism was forming and more current issues started.
It speaks of the unequal social treatment during the 1920s, but is the same discrimination not still alive today? Presently, muslims and Iraqi people are being accused of terrorism. This is due to groups of people who share the same ethnic backgrounds associating with terrorist organizations. This is creating an unjust terroristic stereotype for these people. Discrimination has always been around, and most likely will always be.
Mantisos in his article, The Class America, talks about how people avoid speaking about social class, describes the economic spectrum, the lifestyles of Americans, and power and oppression. The only class America likes to talk about is the middle class and whether they think it exists or not. People avoid the subject of class because they like to think it does not matter. The trust is it most definitely does and there are so many advantages to being in a higher class than others. The economic spectrum in which we live in is described in depth by Mantisos.
After watching the video “people like us”, I believe that class is made by large number of people with similar economic status or position. On the other hand, you can find people who try to fit in upper social class i.e. “Tammy’s Story”. Tammy lives with her four children’s in a trailer. She works as janitor in a local burger shop. Her job helps her pay the bills.
The Social Class in American Television How many times have you seen an American TV series? Have you realized that they show some of the most common situations in the country, like social classes? They make comedy or a drama about it and that is amazing. For example, 2 Broke Girls, Gossip Girl, 90210, and many others. Max and Caroline from the sitcom 2 Broke Girls are the best example for this and we can see how American television shows to the audience differences and similarities between people that were born rich and people who were not.
There is lower, middle, and upper class, but there are also subcategories that fill the gaps in between, like the impoverished and the top one percenters. “Class in America”, written by Gregory Mantsios, addresses the myths and realities about socioeconomic class in America and how they affect American lives. His article highlights the unequal divide that has persisted over the course of history and will continue to manifest in the future. To introduce the existence of this issue, Mantsios states that this country’s citizens “don’t like to talk about class...or class privileges, or class oppression, or the class nature of society” (Mantsios 378). This is the case in America today because people are neglecting to acknowledge the existence of these elusive
The structure of injustice that is most present in the pieces titled, Imagine a Country by Holly Sklar, and “I am Alena”:Life as a Trans Woman Where Survival Means Living as Christopher by Ed Pilkington was that of institutional classism. Institutional classism can be defined as the intentional or unintentional set of practices and beliefs that assign differential value or discriminate against people based on their socio-economic status. In the excerpts above, institutional classism was displayed through the school system and the healthcare system of the United States. In the piece titled, Imagine a Country by Holly Sklar, Sklar asks the reader to imagine a country with different scenarios that people often associate with being from another country and not the United States.
I believe social classes have defined our society in many ways. In America, they separate people into three different classes: the upper class, middle class, and the lower or working class. Based on wealth and various occupations, social classes determine the population’s status in society. Social classes today define individuals and influence their actions. Although people born in a certain class may choose to stay there, they also have the choice of leaving.
Social classes are a form of social stratification that refers to the existence of structured inequalities between individuals and groups in society. A social class is a group of people of comparable status, power and wealth which are usually classified as upper class, middle class, and lower class. For each class, there are some specific opportunities available that influence their social life. We can understand about the particularity of the chances through unequal distribution of these opportunities between individuals in social classes. In here belonging to a social class seems to be an obstacle for some individuals to obtain equal opportunity, unlike upper class people.
Class struggle is a conflict in a particular society or between a society which is caused by the lack of unity in one society and different perspective of a different group in a society. It is also called class conflict or class warfare. One social issue of a class struggle is the social inequality. According to study.com, Social inequality is an inequity of social class, award, opportunities, religion, position in the community, social status and at some other point respect in a group of society.