The Racial Contract And Sexual Contract Affect Poverty

The readings examined how classism has negatively affected economics in the United States, how oppression manifests in taking financial advantage of groups of people who cannot advance financially, and systemic issues contributing to low wage and inability to move out of one’s social class. I was struck by the idea that most people in the United States are disadvantaged financially based on the way the country has set up its economic policies. From the beginning, black people have been oppressed by the inability to attain wealth, which continued through the end of WWII. I unnecessarily read a chapter speaking about financial companies targeting poor people, particularly people of color, with money schemes so they are losing their hard-earned money to fees and interest rates. This scheme continues to keep people in debt and living paycheck to paycheck. I related to the reading about college loans creating a paradox that students with degrees enter the workforce unable to find a job in their their field of study. Then the added paradox of not being able to find work making

In Thomas Shapiro’s “The Hidden Cost of Being African American”, Shapiro goes in depth on how wealth in America is disproportionately dispersed between different nationalities. Mainly between Caucasians and African Americans. Shapiro has helped paint the image of wealth inequality and has shown how this is even more staggering than the wage gap between African Americans and Caucasians. Some of the theories he indirectly uses in his book and that I will be exemplifying are generational wealth and support systems, education, and the idea of how poverty only begets more poverty.

|poverty and inequality using sociological theories. Ending this report you will read into the effects of poverty and inequality in |

In Chapter 9, “Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom,” of A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn takes about the slave rebellions, abolition movement, the Civil War, and these effects on African Americans. Zinn included this chapter to explain the life of African Americans before and after the Civil War and their treatment accordingly. Howard Zinn explains how the life of an African American remained cruel and taken advantage of through explaining the life of a slave before the War and then the mentality that whites were better than blacks that continued after, seen through the effects of the Klu Klux Klan.

Racial discrimination is the main and ongoing problem in the social life of Americans. When we look at the gap of incomes between White and African Americans, we can see the inequality between these two groups. In general, whites have more annual earnings than their black counterparts in America. Lori Ann Campbell and Robert L. Kaufman emphasized that the wealth determinants, which are the indicators of socio-economic status, have effected more on Whites than Blacks. And even when society is organized, there is still some disparities on account of race and ethnicity. (Campbell and Kaufman, 2006). And income disparities between African and White Americans have definitely effected the peace of the social life. According to Campell and

Zinn’s writing of racism during slavery showed the truth about the malevolent side of America. Zinn agreed with Schweikart that slavery started due to starvation of the settlers, and the need for workers to grow cash crops for profit. He also had similar views that African slaves were easier to control than white servants and Indians as well. The description of the sufferings of the slaves brought to America in 1619 was more severe and accurate than what Schweikart had described, evident from personal accounts and experiences of hardships. For example, a document described that the slaves received mistreatment even before arriving in America because many would die from suffocation inside the crowded ship. In Zinn’s writing, the theme of Peopling

Today in society it can be agreed that women have indeed gained many rights that were not accessible to them 100 years before. Although, despite the mentality that men and women are treated equally there are still very many discrepancies between the treatment of genders. Many of which can be attributed to the expectations placed on the genders, gender roles between both genders, and women in the workplace. These issues have caused a great rift to form between the genders, a rift that has caused one gender to claim dominance over the other and this can develop a sense of inferiority by the submissive gender.

In The White Scourge, Neil Foley gives detailed facts about the construction and reconstruction of whiteness and the connection of this whiteness to power, mainly on cotton culture in central Texas. Foley 's book analyzes “whiteness” through detailed analysis of race, class, and gender. What was most intriguing about this book is its comparison of whiteness on various racial groups and classes, for and how each struggled in comparison to the other in order to thrive and exist with one another. In this book, Foley shows a racial system that continues to produce both poverty material wise and poverty of where you stand racially. It is also very interesting that the system exploits not only Mexicans and Blacks, but also the poor whites who competed with them for work.

(Andersen and Taylor 234-243) These family ties are the believed reasoning to minority’s imperfections. For example, history’s patterns of slavery and discrimination are said to be the foundation of many social problems. Even after slavery was abolished, people still continued to see those certain groups as slaves. The reasoning being groups of people who feel they were once “superior” to others often continue to hold these beliefs. Things such as high divorce rates, children born out of wedlock, welfare dependency, and female-headed households are many times seen as a result of the slavery and discrimination that people once heavily dealt with. However, this explanation concentrates on blaming the victim and disregards the flaws in society’s structure. (Lauer) Yet, this belief is still a common perception among the American society. A third explanation concentrates on the use of racism on the majority of society whom hold prejudiced attitudes. This bias explanation suggests that Caucasians generate institutional and individual racism to preserve their placement in the social stratification system. Their hatred based on actions and standardized perceptions are a reaction to the struggle of resources and jobs between races. However, prejudiced attitudes can’t be the sole underlying explanation behind racism. Many white

The structure of gender relations throughout these transitions, help us understand the sense of minority group powerlessness. Slaves in the American system were brutally repressed and exploited, but females faced greater subordination. For black female slaves, inequalities tripled and they became the most vulnerable group to sexual victimization. For example, the men of the dominant group saw their female slaves as a resource for more profit. They were often raped and used to breed more slaves for their owners to sell. Under the Jim Crow system, African American women were “free” but were relegated to domestic service or agricultural positions, and denied access to the education needed for social mobility. In the postindustrial era, structural inequality is less overt, but exclusions for opportunity abound in housing, and career mobility.

The impact on minorities due to inequality
Introduction 
During the course of this class I have learned about social problems within the society in which we live and around the world. It is disturbing to learn that poverty, social inequality, race and cultural discrimination, gender stratification, environmental damage, population growth, and urbanization are among the social problems and controversial issues that still exist in the United States.

Race and ethnicity is key factor to poverty in the U.S. since an African-American is three times more likely to be in poverty than a non-Hispanic white. People with different ethnic backgrounds may experience alienation, or discrimination as a result of their differences with the people around them. Blaming the victim is a common explanation for poverty, but it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny since there are countless factors

Although slavery and segregation laws are obsolete, racial inequality remains visible within our society. Throughout the course readings, one thing is for sure: the slave trade is the primary cause of racial inequality from 1500 to the present. Those sold into slavery become the property and a product of violence. Moreover, throughout the 15th to mid-18th centuries, slavery caused people to despise those who looked different from them, based on skin color. Slavery has caused numerous gaps among the privileged white community and minorities who have a history of slavery. This created a divided society based on skin color, with effects that continue to be a small part of our contemporary world.

“1]. How does social inequality impact people of different nationalities [ethnicities & races], classes, and genders in society.”

The Social Contract is a theory that many philosophers have analyzed and wrote about over many years. The main concept of the social contract theory is that society transforms from a state of nature to a civilized state where there will be a government entity that will rule over the people and enforce a moral and political code of living. In the social contract, everyone is born equal. As with all theories though there are people who criticized it, Charles W. Mills criticized the social contract theory by introducing the Racial contract. Mills introduces the concept of white privilege to his readers through this book, where white men categorize race into two parts: white and non-white.