I’ve wondered how sociology played into my life since the beginning of this academic semester as an African American, based off the television shows, movies, in advertisements, internet and social media. Those are just a couple of the many life situations from others that can help shed knowledge onto sociology and how it plays into my life as an African American.
Sociology is how an individuA encounters of every day life and individual behavior influence, and are influenced by, the wider social environment in which we live” (Layder 2006, p.1. In Society of today, it is easy to catch someone on social media, television shows, news, etc.; blaming themselves of their personal life problems. For example, someone could say an African American boy from poor social class or poverty wouldn’t be successful and blame his social environment in which he lives in due to unavailability to resources and not a high level of education.
Another could be a newly a black male homeowner in a middle to upper class area majority white race could have daily negative arguments that he could not afford to live in that area, he could be doing illegal things to withhold that way of living. These are only two of many examples of outcomes that are related to a bigger world called society this is perfect examples known as sociological imagination. Social Imagination is quality of mind that allows people to see how social forces shapes people lives in society, this means people look at their own personal troubles or others troubles as social issues and construct their outcomes in life with the workings of society. These personal problems are well related to societies issues such as, racial profiling, racial discrimination, social stratification, prejudice, discrimination, etc.; where private issues and public issues become clear.
127 our experts are availableright now
Understanding Sociological imagination, I’ve noticed that the daily choices you make, the school you attend, classes you enroll, the way your parents raise you, the group of people you choose to be around, and what u tend to talk about among your peers are all somehow affected by society issues and what society make us believe what is right and wrong based off of television shows, movies, advertisements, and social media. There are various areas throughout my life and other African Americans where I felt greatly affected by various sociological theories such as events dealing with racism, culture, family, ethnicity, race, social class, social imagination, prejudice, discrimination and social stratification.
today’s society we live in a heavily culturally diverse society where there are many differences amongst numerous racial and ethnic groups. When these diverse groups interact with each other, they interact in many ways, prejudice and discrimination are key factors which is how people understand intergroup relationships. Factors that contributes to prejudice and discrimination is religious ideas or institutions, businesses, government agencies, discriminatory behavior, and stereotyping mainly towards minorities. Sociology is the scientific study of social behavior and human groups.
Sociology simply focuses on social relationships; how one relationship can influence people’s behavior; and how societies, the total of those relationships, develop and change (Schaefer, Page 5). On a sociology stand point you will notice the social relationships pertaining to African Americans from the majority or higher class, was mainly segregation and discrimination on a level where some African Americans thought it was okay, there was a strong inequality from the majority and minority. Those relationships influence African Americans behavior some became fearful, some became outraged which created an uproar, and some thought it was okay that it was just how society was.
As an African American I’ve been through, a lot of societies issues such as, racial profiling where I’ve had a gun to my face because I fit a certain description while being in an upper class area, racial discrimination where I’ve been bagged checked in , social stratification where I’ve been ranked as lower class in societies ranking system where I’ve been told by so called “societies” upper class and middle class that are below societies standards and would never amount to anything above lower class standards. For example, I’ve been pulled over by an officer and was told the cause of me being pulled over just cause that officer felt that I am who I am no matter what; “you are who you are” meaning from societies ranking system I am a lower-class minority that is beneath any upper or middle class and I am labeled as such as anything negative.
A lot of my private issues was being shown on different outlets as television shows, movies, advertisements, internet, and social media making these private issues into public issues across America making it appears lower class is being contained so that societies social stratification would stay the same. There are some Upper class and Middle Class African Americans, but some are still labeled lower class pertaining to society’s social imagination. The African Americans in upper class and middle class that is treated as their class fits the social norms pertaining to societies standards from a sociological perspective.
African-American communities on a national level, we see an appraisal of the ways in which society shapes personal identities of our race, and how a sense of anomie or inability to connect with a community can affect a person’s sense of self of that community.
There has been a long-standing tradition of African American sociology being ignored on most issues pertaining to African Americans or overall minorities, even though we have been in an extensive challenge to commonly accept the norms and truths of sociological knowledge given to us from so called “founding fathers” in which African American or minorities information throughout history have been ignored in a sociological stand point which has been effectively displaced from standard histories of the discipline such that even the challenge mounted in the early 1960s has been largely forgotten even now in the mid-20th century. The attention on the African American tradition here is not to suggest that there have not also been other significant challenges of the dissimilarity forms I have addressed.
US sociology has been historically segregated at least until the 1960s, there were two distinct institutionally organized traditions of sociological thought between the African American race and the European race. Mostly, however, dominant historiographies and sociologies have been soundless on the segregation issues and at least re inform the situation when addressing the US sociological norms and truths.
This is apparent in which early scholars known to me as my “founding fathers” such as WEB Du Bios, E Franklin Frazier, Oliver Cromwell Cox, and so many other African American “Founding Fathers” of Sociology, these are the heart of sociological voices within histories of sociology addressing the absence of African American sociologists from the US sociological histories.
In these Sociological institutions and departments showed no discipline towards sociology, they did not engage with their arguments made by the African American sociologists or from the usual traditional problems that African Americans sociologist located in those institutions and departments. This was merely a continued failure of White sociologists to engage with the problem at hand which was race by other African American sociologists.
Criticism was identified with the white sociologists racialized ethics mainly of the social sciences which was again displaced because it those would be highlight on the continued to be of issue and are, in part, a consequence of processes of the norms and truths of sociology, which are continually being reproduced in modern day. By refusing to acknowledge the racially segregated nature of the history that white Sociologists are speaking, these African American sociologists reshape that segregation for modern times with not only the chapters of history making the broader historical point also being those chapters of history are chapters that address issues of race.
This issue opens a long-standing tradition of Black sociologist in challenging such dominant paradigms of sociology since at least the time of W. E. B Du Bios which then discovers the challenge primarily in the entry of African Americans to historically white institutions, in which they merely reflect on the history of racial segregation that preceded this and demanded the separation of historical black and historically white institutions.
This double subordination of the achievements of Black sociology and of the connections between the traditions is what is missing in ideal-typical depictions of US sociology as presented in past and present histories of Sociology. Not to recognize the ways in which the legacies of histories of racism continue to determine contemporary sociological events is potentially to continue those histories in the present and to undermine the more extensive contributions that have been made by African American sociologists to wide-ranging projects of justice for sociology.
I’ve wondered how sociology played into my life since the beginning of this academic semester as an African American, that can help shed knowledge onto sociology and how it plays into my life as an African American.
