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Oppression and discrimination
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The sociological issue depicted in this video, Separate and Unequal, is the topic of the intersectionality. Intersectionality is defined as “…the idea that members of any given minority group are affected by the nature of their position in other arrangements of social inequality” (Ritzer 230). There are two types of intersectionality, the matrix of oppression and the matrix of power and advantage. In particular, this video depicts how individuals are affected by the matrix of oppression. One is oppressed when they are part of a minority group of a society. When one is a part of several different minority groups such as, race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, social class, or religion, they are considered to be in a matrix of oppression. …show more content…
Due to poverty, the town struggles with illegal issues such as violence and drugs. Racism gives these citizens a lack of opportunity. Any successful families that live in Jackson move out to get away from the environment, which leaves a lack of role models for the impoverished black citizens. Many young African Americans at Lanier high school in Jackson struggle in school. The boys who struggle in school eventually end up in the streets. The mayor of Jackson believes the African American community is in trouble. A white teacher at Lanier says that the kids have a lack of respect for themselves, their peers, and their professors. This could be due to the culture these citizens are immersed in. For example, Manuel is a student at Lanier high school. His mother is a struggling drug addict. His grandmother also has problems staying afloat because her only income is from social security. Manuel was the tallest basketball player on the team at school. He had the potential to go very far with his basketball skills. However, he had troubles in school. Due to missing too many practices, he was cut off of the basketball team. His troubles worsened and he was constantly late for school. Manuel and his family are a prime example of how the matrix of oppression negatively affects minority …show more content…
The conflict theory focuses on the sources of conflict within a society. For instance, how poverty causes various problems for citizens in Jackson. There is not much that these impoverished citizens can do because they feel they are stuck in this position. The critical theory focuses on the negative effects of an aspect as well but it focuses on culture rather than economy. In particular, some people still argue that race still matters and negatively affect blacks and others. In this video, it shows that racism is still affecting blacks and black citizens find it hard to better their situation. The best sociological method to use in studying something like this would be the quantitative research method. The quantitative research method is used for macro studies because it involves data on groups of people to observe social aspects. The conflict and critical theories focus on macro studies. In particular, it would be best to use descriptive statistics. Descriptive statistics is numerical data that is often used to compare differences between groups. In this case, it would be beneficial to compare income differences between black and white groups to research the phenomenon of
Society is based on two groups the people the haves and the have-nots. In the movie Glory Road, the Caucasians are the haves and the African-Americans are the have-nots. The beliefs of a conflict theorist are that there is competition for scarce resources, some form of inequality to maintain, and social change comes about because of the conflicts (Brinkerhoff 10-11).
In many contemporary spaces, intersectionality is taught and consumed as a static concept of merely listing identities carried by one person simultaneously. It’s used more often as a checklist than a place of analysis or resistance. However, the use of intersectionality as just an apolitical tool, rather than a theory born from the knowledge of Black women experiencing a “triple jeopardy” of oppression and seeking liberation by deconstructing the institutions that bind them, is reductionist at best. In “Intersectionality is Not Neutral”May communicates that intersectionality pushes us to question and challenge the relatively mundane or acceptable norms in society that lend themselves to a continuous legacy of systemic inequality.
This essay will be unpacking and analysing the different elements that create my own intersectionality in my life. This essay will be discussing how class, gender/sex and race have influenced who I am and the experiences I have had throughout my life, and how various structures impact these experiences, with reference to the Crenshaw and Dill and Zambara articles, I will connect their thoughts and ideas to the intersectionality of my own life.
Intersectionality is “an integrative perspective and analytical framework that illuminates how gender, class, nation, sexuality, religion, and other categories of identity, power, privilege, and oppression interconnect to affect the lives of individuals and groups and social, economic, and political phenomena at community, societal, and global levels” (Kirk & Okazawa-Rey, 2013, p. G-3). This term was actually created by Crenshaw. The article focused on Black girls, which put an emphasis on the intersection of race and gender. An assertion in the article that featured intersectionality was that although Black boys and girls face the same obstacles in life, Black girls face many others due to being Black and a woman (Crenshaw, 2015, p. 28). To go into depth about this particular claim, Crenshaw gave examples of other obstacles Black girls face in life based on this intersection. One of these barriers is that “when it comes to disciplinary measures such as suspension and expulsion, Black girls face a higher level of racial disparity than their male counterparts” (p.28). The article being focused on the exclusion Black girls meant that their specific intersection of oppression due to their race and gender would be discussed greatly throughout the
...and ethnic minorities must assimilate into that society (Andersen and Taylor, 2013). Symbolic interactionism looks at two issues in relation to race and ethnicity. They first look at the role of social interaction and how it reduces racial and ethnic hostility. Second, they look at how race and ethnicity are socially constructed. Finally, conflict theorists present the argument that class-based conflict is an inherent and fundamental part of society (Giddens, 1996). So, the argument would be that racial and ethnic conflict is tied to class conflict and that in order to reduce racial and ethnic conflict, class conflict must first be reduced. For the sake of this study and argument, I will continue with a focus on the conflict and functionalist theorists perspectives because I feel they provide the most modern insightful outlooks into this present form of inequality.
Professor’s comment: This essay assignment was designed to equip students with an understanding of academic research, theories, and concepts on race relations and then use that as a basis from which to critically think about, analyze, and develop strategies for change, both for themselves and for the world around them.
Crenshaw explains the concept of intersectionality as a description of the way different types of oppression can be experienced by one person all at once. She uses the analogy of traffic at an intersection to explain intersectionality. Consider a situation where there is traffic in a four-way intersection where the traffic is coming from all four directions. Discrimination is each flow of traffic. If an accident happens in that intersection, it could be caused by cars traveling from any one of those directions or from all directions. Crenshaw’s central argument is that Black women in particular are discriminated against in ways that often do not fit neatly within the legal categories they are often put in and because of this legal and institutionalized framework, Black women are often rendered legally “invisible”. Crenshaw describes several discrimination-based lawsuits to illustrate how Black women’s complaints often fall between the cracks precisely because they are discriminated against both as women and as black persons. The ruling in one such case, DeGraffenreid v. General Motors, filed by five Black women in 1976, demonstrates this point
In Kimberle Crenshaw's definition of intersectionality there are three different aspects that make up the term, separated as followed: Structural, Political, and Representational. In this essay, I will first explain Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality. I will then explain how intersectionality contributes to Critical Race Theory in furthering the critical understanding of law, mainly by using her examples of violence against women of color. I will also provide my own examples of intersectionality, which is the 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster as it supports Crenshaw's understanding and the notion of identity politics she addressed.
In the story, A Social Worker’s Reflection on Power, Privilege, and Oppression, Michael S. Spencer touches on some very important details when it comes to oppression, power, and privilege of different groups. The impacted groups can include those made up of people who are racially diverse, those who are a different gender or those who are part of the LGBT community. (Spencer) Each of these groups can experience oppression in different ways. When it comes to people with a different color
This builds upon the previous pieces by McIntosh and DiAngelo because these papers mostly rely on race as the primary category and Hills-Collins highlights that gender and class area also salient categories when describing systems of oppression. Dichotomous thinking in relies on categories and schemas and reduces the complexity of the systems of oppression and people’s true experiences. Therefore, Hills-Collins recommends considering how our race, class, and gender are interlocking to contribute to our positions as oppressors and the oppressed, to build coalitions around common causes, and to build empathy for both our oppressors and those we
We live in a world full of many societal issues. The aspects that determine whether one will have a successful or unsuccessful life is due to their characteristics such as race, gender, and social status. In the book Is Everyone Really Equal, Ozlem Sensoy and Robin DiAngelo’s exigence is to express the following issues and to encourage the reader to work upon changing the world through social injustice, oppression, power, and community.
To explain this Kimberlé Crenshaw, in her TedTalk, “The Urgancy of Intersectionality,” suggests the idea of intersectionality, which is: the overlapping of social justice problems that create many degrees of social injustice (Crenshaw). Her particular studies hinge of the fact that the intersectionality of being African American and a woman leaves women of color to often “fall through the cracks” of both the feminist and anti-racism movements (Crenshaw). In her article, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color”, in the Stanford Law Review, Crenshaw describes a time she was trying to get statistics of domestic violence arrests from the LAPD but she was unable to see the data because activist, on both sides, thought the data would be used undermine their respective causes; for feminists, it could be interpreted that domestic violence is a minority issue thus not an issue to address as aggressively, and to anti-racists the data would paint men of minorities as more violent therefore reinforcing stereotypes of men of color (Crenshaw, 1252-1253). This demonstrates the underrepresentation of women of color on the feminist and anti-racist front, demonstrating Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality. Also in contest to Frye’s
Conflict Theory is a theoretical orientation emphasizing the opposition among individuals, groups, or social structures. In the movie, the conflict theory was the black community verses the white community. For example, in the movie, Vernon Johns decided to enter a restaurant that was labeled whites only. As a black man by law he was not allowed to enter. At his own risk, he went inside anyways. As he entered, the white people inside suddenly stopped what they were doing. They all stared him down with an unwelcoming look. They shouted racial slurs at him as he sat down at the counter. There was a conflict between the two communities all because of the color of their skin
In relation to the Critical Race Theory, the idea of the “gap between law, politics, economics, and sociological reality of racialized lives” (Critical Race Theory slides). The critical race theory gives us a guide to analyze privileges and hardships that comes across different races and gender. For example, analyzing how and why a “black” or “indigenous” woman may experience more hardships versus not only a “white” man, but a “white”