They were always placed in the lowest skilled jobs, lived in the worst areas, and were paid less than any other worker. This went on for all of the middle 19th century until attention was turned to the Italians, or Greeks, or Polish immigrants (Doran, 2005, p. 3).
And the key to this social inequality is that the "discrimination" is always based on something the minority can't change. Think about it. Blacks have been discriminated against because of the color of their skin, not because they are less intelligent, less educated, less skillful, or less talented. Native American Indians felt social inequality due also to the color of their skin, but as well to the fact that they fought back against those who were invading their land. Could they have changed those things? Catholics have been discriminated against as recently as the 1960s simply because the Pope is head of their church -- not because of what they believe, but simply because of the fear that a Pope in Rome could control a President in Washington D.C.
And on and on it goes.
Jonathon Kozol (1996) wrote a book called Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation. For three years, he visited New York's South Bronx focusing on the poor neighborhood of Mott Haven populated by 2/3 Hispanic and 1/3 Black.
He interviewed teachers, ministers, drug pushers, children, parents and many others. He takes us into rat-infested homes, dirty and overcrowded schools, medical clinics with no doctors, and the main source of nutrition -- soup kitchens.
The point, for purposes of this paper, is that Kozol points specifically to "systemic discrimination," hopelessness, and purposely limited economic opportunities for this "ascribed status" community in the U.S. In the 20th century. Manhattan is the seventh richest congressional district in the nation. The outlying area is Mott Haven. His point, and ours, is the same as Doran's -- that the social inequality against minorities will never change because we accept that it exists. Luxury grocers just south...
Those individuals that are at the low end of the spectrum when it comes to earning wages would be happy to see more money in their paychecks as well, and many of the women that were in the workforce during that time were able to perform the jobs just as well as the men could but they were generally not allowed the opportunity (Frager & Patrias, 2006). Even for
While war is often a major factor in changing the nature of property ownership, much as major depressions, such as that of 1920 to 1940, another factor can be large increases in competition, such as that in industrial production that has risen in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan since the Vietnam War (Capitalism pp). All such developments "put stresses on the ability of individuals to finance and mange their operations (Capitalism
Wake Up; Take a Shower; Take Breakfast With Other Family Members Arrive at the bank; pick a waiting ticket; interaction with service staff; a member of staff in the next counter is having a difficult time with a customer 9:00 am: Arrive at my girlfriend's house; help her with laundry and other household chores; watch a movie together 12:30 pm: Having lunch with my girlfriend in a restaurant; in an adjacent table
Social Inequality There are a number of different causes of social inequality, and the sociological perspective allows for the understanding of how social inequality came about, and why it continues to persist. Social inequality is a basic starting point for organized society in the sense that as society became organized, a miniscule class of landowners held all of the wealth. As society has moved away from that highly inequitable starting position,
For example, in discussing his childhood in "Southie" a poor neighborhood in Boston, Patrick MacDonald talks about the willful ignorance of the people in the neighborhood when he was a child. "They were all here now, all of my neighbors and friends who had died young from violence, drugs, and from the other deadly things we'd been taught didn't happen in Southie" (MacDonald, 1999, p.2). In other words, the
Social Justice Theoretical Constructs and Social Justice What does it mean to say that theory can influence and shape racist, classist, and sexist notions of people, groups, and societies? Theoretical constructs, the text by Finn & Jacobson (2003) tells us, are highly influenced by prevailing political, cultural and social hierarchies. Accordingly, those theories of sociological order which ultimately are accepted as organic and naturally occurring are often tied into certain pointedly hegemonic imperatives.
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