Fruitvale Station and the four factors of racial inequality It is established that there are four factors of racial inequality among African Americans. The four factors are: prejudism, difference in work capital, difference in family structure, and residential/social segregations. In the movie “Fruitvale Station”, there are many examples that are that tie the four factors/reasons of racial inequality (among African Americans) and the movie. By understanding the relationship between the factors and how it is demonstrated in the movie, one will be able to understand it’s connection in modern society. Prejudism, with regards to the four factors of racial inequality among African Americans, can be defined as the unfair treatment of African Americans. …show more content…
This can include: skills, work experience, and qualifications. Work capital is based on the professional work experiences of an individual. High leveled experiences (that would boost one’s work capital) are not accessible to everyone. This entails that not everyone is able to build their respective work capital to a high level. Social/residential segregation is the separation of individuals based on their social status and their socioeconomic status. These two factors often tie into each other. With regards to the movie, the difference in work capital and social/residential segregation was featured when the jobs that are available in Oscar’s neighborhood are demonstrated and when Oscar was offered a job during his trip to San Francisco. Oscar’s previous job was working at the meats and seafood department of a supermarket. These kinds of jobs do not necessarily build an individual's work capital as it is something that doesn’t build particular work skills that are valuable in the job world. Most of the businesses in Oscar’s neighborhood consist of employment opportunities that do not necessarily build an individual’s work capital. In addition, Oscar’s girlfriend, Sophina had a job at another …show more content…
From that moment, he was indirectly offered an employment opportunity within the company. A future opportunity such as this is more likely to build Oscar’s work capital because of the kind of the valuable skills (computer skills, web designing skills, etc.) it will develop and how may lead to further opportunities in the particular industry. This would depict the concept that opportunities to develop one’s work capital are found based on location as a result of social/residential
William Julius Wilson creates a thrilling new systematic framework to three politically tense social problems: “the plight of low-skilled black males, the persistence of the inner-city ghetto, and the fragmentation of the African American family” (Wilson, 36). Though the conversation of racial inequality is classically divided. Wilson challenges the relationship between institutional and cultural factors as reasons of the racial forces, which are inseparably linked, but public policy can only change the racial status quo by reforming the institutions that support it.
Based on the title of the book alone, it is easy to say that racism is one of the many social issues this book will address. Unlike the normal racism of Caucasians versus African Americans, this book focuses on racism of the black elite versus African Americans, also known as colorism. Colorism is the discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone, typically by others of the same racial group. Margo Jefferson says, “Negroland is my name for a small region of Negro America where residents were sheltered by a certain amount of privilege and plenty” (p. 1).
Racial inequality is a disparity in opportunity and treatment that occurs as a result of someone 's race. Racial inequality has been affecting our country since it was founded. This research paper, however, will be limited to the racial injustice and inequality of African-Americans. Since the start of slavery, African Americans have been racially unequal to the power majority race. It was not until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when African Americans received racial equality under the laws of the United States. Many authors write about racial injustice before and after the Civil Rights Act. In “Sonny’s Blues”, James Baldwin tells a fictional story of an African American who struggles to achieve racial equality and prosper
I know I talked about this earlier in the paper, but inequality is still a major issue that we still have in the United States today. African Americans today still are not treated the same as the white majority. In the case of Detroit, there were inequalities in the work place and in housing. There were laws that were enacted to help to prevent these types of discrimination, for example the Fair Housing Act. There were also laws to help prevent workplace discrimination.
In her book, Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life, Annette Lareau argues out that the influences of social class, as well as, race result in unequal childhoods (Lareau 1). However, one could query the inequality of childhood. To understand this, it is necessary to infer from the book and assess the manner in which race and social class tend to shape the life of a family. As the scholar demonstrates, each race and social class usually has its own unique way of child upbringing based on circumstances. To affirm this, the different examples that the scholar presents in the book could be used. Foremost, citing the case of both the White and the African American families, the scholar advances that the broader economics of racial inequality has continued to hamper the educational advancement and blocks access to high-paying jobs with regard to the Blacks as opposed to the Whites. Other researchers have affirmed this where they indicate that the rate of unemployment among the African Americans is twice that of the White Americans. Research further advances that, in contrast to the Whites, for those African Americans who are employed, there is usually a greater chance that they have been underemployed, receive lower wages, as well as, inconsistent employment. This is how the case of unequal childhood based on race comes about; children from the Black families will continue residing in poverty as opposed to those from the white families.
Prejudice is an unfavorable opinion or feeling, formed beforehand (e.g., before even meeting a person) based on non-personal characteristics (e.g., skin color, religious, gender). One form of prejudice is racism. Racism is negative attitudes and values held by people about other people based on their race. It is this attitude which causes one to discriminate against another. Discrimination is treating people unfavorably on the basis of race, color or sex. Prejudice and discrimination were prevalent in the 1950s and 1960s. This era was a time of hatred, a time of violence, a time when black people were colonized by the white colonizer, and it was a time of white-on-black racial violence. Because of this hatred, the whites discriminated against the blacks.
America is considered to be a county where white privilege is unearned, where social status is dignified and the whites are highly educated. In a society that favors one group, there are some similarities between the “people of color”, like Asian Americans and African Americans, who share an identity of struggle. Broad physical similarities, such as skin color, are now used efficiently, if also often inaccurately, to identify the difference between racial groups. However, economic, political and social forces in the US work to keep these groups separated from the privileged society.
From slavery to Jim Crow, the impact of racial discrimination has had a long lasting influence on the lives of African Americans. While inequality is by no means a new concept within the United States, the after effects have continued to have an unmatched impact on the racial disparities in society. Specifically, in the housing market, as residential segregation persists along racial and ethnic lines. Moreover, limiting the resources available to black communities such as homeownership, quality education, and wealth accumulation. Essentially leaving African Americans with an unequal access of resources and greatly affecting their ability to move upward in society due to being segregated in impoverished neighborhoods. Thus, residential segregation plays a significant role in
In the level of institutionalized racism, it is what all community organizers strive to overcome. This form of racism entails the power and access to materials that everyone should be able to obtain. When there is racism involved, there is a level of differentiation in the access that each race is entitled to. For example, Blacks have less access to nutritional food and health care when the live in an urban residential area. These inequities are the result of an institutionalized difference between racial groups and it may lead to health disparities. Dr. Jones believes that the root of association between socioeconomic status and race in the United States is in direct correlation to this form of racism.
Society is faced with various problems that hinder the development of its communities. These issues affect the society in a numerous of ways and has a major effect on the citizens of the community as well. Social adversities causes grief and is also the cause of crimes and other miscellaneous activities that occur in inequitable areas. In the film, Fruitvale Station, there are abundant amounts of these adversities and societal issues that are illustrated. Fruitvale Station is a great example of a film that shows accurate social issues that occur in today’s society. The movie demonstrates issues of inequality, racial prejudice, gang involvement and also unemployment. It also shows how the people who are forced to live with these issues, fight for survival to maintain to see another day.
First, racism still plays a big factor in today’s society as it did fifty years ago. Some might say that everyone has equal opportunity, but some people in America will never see that blacks and whites are equal. Humans have the tendency to judge what is on the outside before seeing who the person really is. The South is the main area where the darker colors mean there is less opportunity and lighter colors mean that there’s more. In today’s society the ability to attain the American Dream is heavily influenced by race. While it is still p...
Throughout history many African Americans have been treated cruelly. Slavery and Jim Crow Laws have really hurt African American families in the past. Many people today believe that the justice system is bias towards African Americans. Many people would say there is still racial inequality from: arrest rates, bailing acceptance, and sentencing of African Americans. African Americans are suffering from discrimination throughout America from the Criminal Justice System.
Social Stratification in the African American community has changed over the years. Social stratification is defined as a rigid subdivision of a society into a hierarchy of layers, differentiated on the basis of power, prestige, and wealth according to Webster’s dictionary. David Newman in Sociology Exploring the Architecture of Everyday Life describes stratification as a ranking system for groups of people that perpetuates unequal rewards and life chances in society. From slavery to the present, the African American community has been seen to have lower status compared to white people. Today, the stratification or hierarchy difference between whites and black are not really noticeable, but it is still present. However, during slavery, the difference in social stratification was noticeable. Whites dominated over the blacks and mulattoes (offspring of a white and black parent). The mulattoes were seen to have a higher stratification than an offspring of black ancestry. Because the mulattoes were related to the whites, they were able to obtain higher education and better occupations than blacks. For example, most slaves of a lighter skin tone worked in the houses and darker slaves worked in the fields. As the people of light skin tone had children, they were able to have advantages too. The advantages have led into the society of today. In this paper I will discuss how stratification has been affected in the African American community over time by skin tone to make mulattoes more privileged than dark skin blacks.
Before any steps could be taken for the equality of human kind, we had the tackle the idea of intergrationism. This time is often referred to as the Nadir of American Race Relations, which simply put means that racism was at its worst during the time period of the Civil Rights Movement. Pulling together for equality proved to be a grueling task for Americans. In order to move into the future, one must let go of the past, and many people were not eager to abandon the beliefs that had been engrained in them since birth. Racial discrimination was present nationwide but the outrageous violence of African Americans in southern states became know as Jim Crow Laws.
John Singleton director of “Boyz N the Hood” is trying to give a parallel description that explains how life was like in the projects. Throughout the movie “Boys in the Hood”, real life forms of discrimination are brought about. There is discrimination against women, mothers being discriminating against their children just because of who their father is, and African Americans being discriminating against African Americans, which is what I would like to focus upon.