social structure
...minant over the female, reinforcing the social structure of gender. When taking a look at social structures based on race we can look at the interactions between blacks and whites. I would like to use the example of Rodney. It has been over 20 years since I have seen Rodney, yet I remember his name. I am ashamed to admit that the only reason I remember him at all, is because he was the only black student at my school. He stood out like a sore-thumb. It was like there was this imaginary line between him and the rest of the hundreds of students. The other kids didn’t know what to make of Rodney, and most of them assumed he was no good. “Most conventional people learn to fear black youths from reading about crimes in the local papers and seeing reports of violence on television, but also by living so near and having the chance to observe them. Every time there is a violent crime, this image of young blacks gains credibility” (Anderson, 232). I think that the media had portrayed blacks involved in crimes so much, that most of us thought that Rodney was going to steal something or hurt somebody. I hate to say it, but this was our stereotype of a black kid. “A stereotype is a rigid, oversimplified, often exaggerated BELIEF that is applied both to an entire SOCIAL CATEGORY of people and to each individual within it (Johnson, 312). Our stereotype was the basis behind our prejudice towards him. Rodney didn’t socialize too much with the other kids. “Blacks appeared less willing than Whites to interact” (Dickenson, et. al). This was the case with Rodney, although there were some white kids in the school that tried to befriend him. Whites tend to be less accepting of Blacks when the mix is 50/50” (Dickenson, et. al). Because Rodney was the only black student there were some people that didn’t feel as threatened by him, while others just created a social structure within the institution. Over twenty years later, our social structure of race has not changed too much. I had a job a few years ago where I worked with a colored lady. She used to tell me that she had three things going “against” her; she was an over-weight black women. I never thought about why she used to say that, because in my naïve way I thought things had really changed. It was through our daily interactions with our co-workers that I started to see what she was talking about. One can gain insight into the maintenance of ethnic (and gender) groups by examining the boundary that defines them rather than by looking at what Barth calls “the cultural stuff that it encloses” [Barth 1969, p 15]. (Thorne, 221) Most of the other ladies at work assumed that she was poor, because she was black. One day Robin (I will call her) came to work with a Dooney & Bourke bag on hanging off of her shoulder. Dooney & Bourke are designer leather handbags and wallets that retail at obscene prices. Only people with money usually own one of their bags, because of how “pricey” they can be. Anyway, Robin had gone into the break room at work that day sporting her Dooney & Bourke bag. I hadn’t even noticed it until one of the other ladies in the break-room says, “Where did you get your “knock-off” Dooney & Bourke bag?” Robin, just looked at her and said, “It’s not a knock-off it’s an original.” All the ladies in the break room looked shocked as their jaws dropped! One lady said, “It can’t be, you’re bl---c, “ as she stopped herself from actually saying it. [H]uman society [is] people engaged in living. Such living is a process of ongoing activity in which participants are developing lines of action in the multitudinous situations they encounter. They are caught up in a vast process of interaction in which they have to fit their developing actions to one another. This process of interaction consists in making indications to others of what to do and in interpreting the indication as made by others…. This general process should be seen, of course, in the differentiated character which it necessarily has by virtue of the fact that people cluster in different groups, belong to different associations, and occupy different positions. They accordingly approach each other differently live in different worlds, and guide themselves by different set of meanings. Nevertheless, whether one is dealing with a family, a boy’s gang and industrial corporation, or a political party, one must see the activities of the collectivity as being formed through the process of designation and interpretation. (Blumer, 219) After that day, some of the ladies that didn’t socialize with Robin before now thought of her as being a part of their group, while others just continued to gossip about her. Robin told me once that her dad wanted her to have all of the things that the “whites” had. Robin’s dad earned his living at a chicken hatchery and he wanted more for his daughter. He wanted Robin to do something “big” with her life, his enthusiasm reminded me of a movie I saw once called, “The Ditch Digger’s Daughters.” The movie was about a black man who was a ditch-digger who not only made very little money, but he also dealt with a lot of prejudice from other people. The father wanted all six of his daughters to get a college education. He didn’t want them to be one of the dreaded three M’s: “Mommies, mammies, or maids” (Donald Thornton). Just like the ditch-digger, Robins’ dad wanted more for her. Robin’s father often said he had to manage his emotions while working at the hatchery. The working conditions were anything but ideal. “Our work often requires us to do things that we find morally troubling ...