The Social Construction Of Difference By Allan Johnson

In the article “Quandaries of Representation,” which was written by Mona El- Gehobashy. She talks about “the ways in which racial rhetoric, informed by prior English understandings of sub- Saharan Africa, disrupts the narrative. Not the least of which is how and where American indigenous groups fit into a larger world order” (Smith). Mona also talks about what she had to grow up with, while trying to get a job in America and being a Muslim. There was also a much deeper fact to her essay, and that was discrimination towards people that might not look, act, or believe the same way as you. Discrimination has always been around, but it seems like it has become more relevant today then what it was in the past.

Throughout history African Americans have had is bad in the United States. First they went through slavery which lasted about two hundred year and was ended around the Civil War which was in the 1860s-1870s. Next after they went through slavery they went through the law of Jim Crow that started after the Civil War which stated, “Separate but Equal”, and that was not the case because African Americans were still treated as second class citizens. After about ninety years around the 1960s Dr. Martin Luther King came on the scene with the civil rights and helped abolish the Jim Crow. Things were good for African Americans for about ten years or so, and then Nixon become president and started a war on drugs. This war was not meant for drugs, it was meant for African Americans. They felt the force that was brought on due to the war on drugs because it was a way to oppress the like in the past. And once again black people were second class citizens.

A Critical Analysis of The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap

Throughout the twentieth century the achievement of social justice was widely contentious. The belief in individual equality was advanced, along with philosophical ideas concerning human nature. In the year 1911, John Jay Chapman, an American poet, witnessed the lynching of an African American man in Coatesville, Pennsylvania. Appalled at the reaction of the crowd, Chapman revisited the town a year later and delivered an address commemorating the event. In Chapman’s essay, “Coatesville,” he examines the cultural foundation that allowed the “honorable” citizens to believe that murder and torture bring forth justice.

Racial discrimination has a great impact on people of various races. Throughout the past generations, many people have faced discrimination because of the way that they look. People have been hated, beaten, killed and made fun of. Many people have been put down because of the way that they look. Adults, teens and even children began thinking less of themselves after the incidents. Many African Americans started considering themselves inferior to whites, which lead them to perform worse in school and daily activities. Looking at the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and the video experiment Brown Eyes and Blue Eyes performed by Jane Elliott, it is evident that African Americans faced discrimination for hundreds of years, which lead them to consider themselves inferior amongst all other people.

We probably know discrimination occurs in any situation, anywhere. I think discrimination depends on individual reasons or social problems because everything around us can make us fall prey to discrimination. Today, we know discrimination of race is unlawful, but it is still existent in some people, and it gets skillfully concealed under some form, or another. For example, in the essay “Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public” by Brent Staples, the author is a black man. He explains a few encounters in which he has been a victim of discrimination because of his skin color. I love America, because this country includes many different races; it makes me think of the beautifully-diverse prairie flowers. I thought

Discrimination often occurs to some races such as black people are treated differently in the society. According to Brent Staples, “black people is often indistinguishable from the muggers who occasionally seeped from the surrounding gheto” (520). This shows that they were treated badly as they are considered a muggers. As a human, we cannot choose to what race we were born to. Everything is planned by God or by nature, and people should have respect others and not stereotyping.

Since the time we are born we are fed the lies of capitalism. We are taught that capitalism hurts no one and that capitalism is the only way. Johnson and Robbins have some very influential ideas about capitalism. Johnson writes about the complexity of privilege. He also addresses why some privileged people do not feel privileged through the matrix of capitalist domination. Robbins gives us a background on how privilege became what it is today. He addresses the anatomy of the working class by drawing attention to how they were mobile, divided, powerless, and anxious for a revolution. Through Johnson and Robbins’ eyes we can begin to see how the world is not the one we were taught it was.

Skin Color Just a Shade Different In her article “In Living Color” Jana King states her view on segregation and race. There are some points in this essay that need to be picked apart a little more to understand them better. So what is it like to be segregated? How much of people’s judgement comes solely from your race?

Society is constructed over different opinions and translations that individuals have over each other. The academic reading, “The Social Construction of Difference”, points out two different views that a group of people may have over another. In the academic reading the author, Allan G. Johnson, defines two different kinds of approaches that are known as privilege and oppression. Privilege is commonly defined as a group of certain people having more value from those who are not consider like one of them. Oppression is defined as privilege groups of people feeling superior in which leads to taking control over those who don’t share common identities with them. Based on the academic reading, “The Social Construction of difference”, the reality of social construction is based upon privilege and oppression.

This is quite recurrent in “The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria” by Judith Ortiz Cofer, where she mentions different situations and unpleasant experiences that she has had to face for being Puerto Rican. She mentions how she has suffered from errors of judgment based in her physical appearance. Several of the experiences that indicates Judith in her essay caused me much displeasure. For example, Cofer talks about how she would get confused with the cleaning staff. In particular, I have never been discriminated against in public and I did not really know how I will to react in a similar situation. I felt bad for her, I think it was too unfair the treatment given to her just for being from a different culture. Moreover, in the case of men they can be discriminated and be categorized as perverse or criminal people just by

Being considered a white person in the United States is almost a blessing. White people are automatically given a certain amount of “white privilege” once they are born. When walking down the street, applying for a job, or university there are very little obstacles a white person will face. A non-white person is seen as threatening walking down the street, and less likely to get a job, or into a university than a white person. When a white man walks into a room people will just call him a guy, but if a black man walks into a room people will automatically refer to him as a “black guy”. This has nothing to do with how he is dressed, how he talks, or how he behaves, but all on the color of his skin. In the U.S., we are brought up to believe white is natural, and if

Native Americans also are discriminated against. A Native American girl named Bella gave her testimony about what happened between her and an 8th grade teacher, “He called us vicious vermin and said we were cannibals. Other kids came up to me after and asked if I ate people.”. Last but not least, African Americans have been experiencing racism since the days of slavery. They had separate facilities than whites, they were considered the lower class, and just everything between whites and blacks were unequal. Those were hard times for black people because Caucasians degraded and devalued them to a grain.

Whether you believe it or not, racial discrimination is not a controversial matter of the past and has a profound impact on society. Nowadays we still inherit unconsciously misconceptions and prejudices that happen to be unnoticed in our day by day. Consequently, in order to raise awareness upon the connotation of this matter, we must educate people on behalf of assertiveness and comprehension. Therefore, it is remarkably important to acknowledge: the negative impact of racial discrimination on the individual and society, the necessity of derogating misconceptions and the values of cultural diversity.

The social conflict paradigm is a theory based on society being a complex system characterized by inequality and conflict that generate social change. Personal life experiences dictate me to believe this theory is true. Discussion of the theory in question and how it pertains to myself will be covered in the paper. Social conflict can be seen all over the world we live in: in sports, politics and normal social engagements. The main point I have experienced with this theory would be the fact that I don’t come from a rich, powerful, and prestigious family, which in turn limits my chances of being successful. Karl Marx studied social conflict His entire life and wanted to reduce social inequality. The social