...The American Dream is the idea that through hard work, one can acquire wealth, prosperity and a high position in society. This symbolizes a big house, a nice car, fancy clothes and having money, but having all of these things are very unrealistic for Americans who start low in the economic class. Although this idea is the common representation of America, the land of freedom and opportunity, it is nothing more than an illusion; a dream that is unattainable in this present-day circumstances and time. The Great Gatsby, placed in the 1920s, clearly illustrates the idea of the American Dream and the corruption the Dream causes as a result of the characters trying to pursue it. So although America would like to think it’s providing a land of equal...
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...generally decided now by the prosecutors and more plea bargaining is the norm over trial by jury. Yet so many people in our society today feels that people in the system gets equal opportunities. Although some people end up with different sentences and punishments people say that the American court system is a fair system. America has slowly turned into a system where justice and fairness is overruled by money and power. In the media today many people are committing crimes and walking away with a slap on the wrist. Many social media and news shows the bias in court systems through their broadcasts of issues. The American justice system is biased in their convictions and sentencing through racial disproportion, social structure, and economic standing. Our criminal justice system in biased in convictions and sentencing through racial disproportion. As stated before, the United States of America built their criminal justice system for every person accused to have an equal chance. However in America, racial disparity and racial prejudice has always been an underlying issue. Many people of different races are treated worse than those of Caucasian descent....
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...In “Class in America” Mantsios argues against what he claims are the myth of a classless society in America. He provides evidence regarding the rising socioeconomic gap between the rich and the poor in America and the huge differences in amounts of the top 1% of Americans and the rest of Americans. However, Mantsios arguement is flawed. First of all, his argument assumes that having a society that is not concerned with class is a problem. I don’t. I think that the lack of preoccupation with what class people are in in America only promotes the American creed and is what unites this country. America is a country of immigrants, people who were dissatisfied with the class society back in their old countries so they decided to come to America where they can live and work without worry of social standing. Mantsios claims that class standing is the most important factor in determining your future. However, as we saw in “The Three Lessons of Joe Flom”, anyone can be anyone so long as they try hard and have the right values, the right attitude and look for opportunity. Mantsios’s choice of profile were also biased as well. As a Queens native, I can attest that Bob Farrell’s classmates were not only the son’s of carpenters, teachers, and postal clerks, but of doctors, successful small buisness owners, and lawyers as well, as I attended school in Queens and I have friends who attended school in Queens and the diversity of family backgrounds and socioeconomic standing was great. Albeit all...
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...Berkeley and the rich planters, he should be seen as a hero for standing up for standing up to the wrongdoings of the government (Wertenbaker 211). Thomas Wertenbaker writes: It Put an end to the Berkeleian system of government by corruption, for there were no more long Assemblies in the colony; it brought about reform in local government since many of Bacon’s laws were reenacted in later sessions; it forfeited the people to resist the assault on their liberty known as the second Stuart despotism it gave the English Privy Council a realization of what was to be expected when the Americans were driven to desperation. But after all, the movement was symptomatic rather than conclusive. Bacon’s Declaration of the People was the forerunner of the Declaration of Independence. Though Nathaniel Bacon has never...
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...The essay, “Class In America-2009” by Gregory Santos, it begins with the author talking about how the U.S does not speak of class privileges or class oppression. These words not part of people’s vocabulary in the U.S. Poor people would rarely classify themselves as poor. Instead they prefer to classify themselves based on their race, ethic group, or geographic location. In a study done by Susan Ostrander, she asked wealthy participants they considered their selves in the upper class. Most participants responded that they hated the term “class” because they were just people who were well-born. Although it is unspeakable to talk about the upper and lower class, it is acceptable to talk about the middle class. This is because it seems that the middle class in the U.S, is neither part of the high nor the lower class. They’re four myths that suggests the people in the U.S are ignorant of class differences and how it impacts people daily lives. The first myth is that the rich and...
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...I did enjoy the atmosphere in which it was presented. The museum in open air and the pieces are shown in a way that the landscape seems to interact with them. Walking around I was sure that I would find nothing of interest when literally out of the corner of my eye I saw something interesting. I walked around the corner to find Depression Bread Line, by George Segal. The sculpture was about six feet tall by about seven feet long and depicted five men standing outside of a closed door in a bread line during the depression. From a distance, looking at the piece as a whole, I could see the forms of poor men waiting their turn for a few morsels of food. They are dressed in long shabby coats, and hats with broken brims. As they stood with their heads down hands in their pockets, I was given the impression that they were cold, tired and probably dirty. When I moved around to the front of the piece the emotion became even clearer. The men’s faces were drooping and sad. They were the faces of beaten men, down and out, standing in a place they never thought they would be, doing what needed to be done to feed their families. Similar to the photo, Migrant Mother, Nipomo Valley, this close up view shows that the coats are clearly torn and that the men are wearing tattered scarves, clearly showing the signs of hard times.1 The scarves also help to reinforce the cold, again showing what these men were willing to go through to feed their families. The close up view from the front...
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...SOC 100 Week 5 Part 1: Introduction to Sociology – Social Stratification | Slide # | Slide Title | Slide Narration | Slide 1 | Introduction | Welcome to Introduction to Sociology. In this lesson we will introduce and discuss Social Stratification.Next slide. | Slide 2 | Topics | The following topics will be covered in this lesson:What Is Social Stratification?;Caste and Class Systems;The Functions of Social Stratification;Stratification and Conflict; andSocial Stratification: Facts and Values.Next slide. | Slide 3 | What Is Social Stratification? | Social stratification is a system by which a society ranks categories of people in a hierarchy. The study of social stratification across cultures shows that it has four basic principles.First, Social stratification is a trait of society. While personal ability and achievement play an important role in a person’s position in the stratification hierarchy, it is also a function of the social organization one operates under. As an example, children who are born into a wealthy family are more likely to enjoy good health, do well in school, succeed in a career, and live a long life.Second, Social Stratification persists over generations. We can see that stratification influences society by observing how parents pass along their social position to their children. Social mobility, a change in one’s position in the social hierarchy, is a product of a high-income society, but it is constrained by the social stratification processes...
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...A Raisin in the Sun is a play surrounding the life of a black working class family in Chicago. The name of the play is taken from a Langston Hughes called “A Dream Deferred”. The poem describes the possible outcomes of dreams that are cast aside and forgotten. This poem relates the Lorraine Hansberry’s play, as A Raisin in the Sun focuses on the dreams of the family and how society impacts and defers their dreams. The protagonist, Walter Younger, strives to achieve the American dream; however, his economic standing, his race, and his family defer his dreams. Walter Younger dreams of becoming a wealthy entrepreneur so that he can drive his family out of poverty. However, economic circumstance interferes with his dream. In the beginning of...
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...The percentage of Blacks that own their own home is between 46%. The percentage of Asians that own their own home is between 53%. For Hispanics that own their own home is between 46%. The percentage of Whites (Non-Hispanic) is between 74%. 2. In this reading there are “4 myths” in the United States. The first myth is “The United States is fundamentally a classless society. Class distinctions are largely irrelevant today, and whatever differences do exist in economic standing, they are-for the most part-insignificant. Whether rich or poor, we are all equal in the eyes of the law, and such basic, needs like health care and education, are provided to all regardless of economic standing.” Mantsios disproves this myth by saying, “In fact, the United Stated has by far the most unequal distribution of household income.” If people were equal everyone’s status and race would not matter. Everyone would either be in poverty or wealthy, but in today’s economy many people, live in poverty while others are living in the middle working class to wealthy class. The second myth is, “We are, essentially, a middle-class nation. Despite some variations in...
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...either lower or working class citizens including European immigrants. In The Bitter Cry of Children by John Spargo and The Promise Land by Mary Antin, the two authors discuss the similarities and differences of the economic and social societies of the working class as well as the immigrants in America. Today, these documents are valuable to us because it describes the events in the 1900s like children working in dangerous situations and how new immigrants were settling into America. Both Spargo and Antin describe the 1900s as a time where two similar, yet different, classes wanted to head towards the same goal, despite their different starting points. These two documents were grouped together because they both described the economic struggles and the social similarities of each class. John Spargo illustrated the working class using children who worked in mines since their parents were unable to make enough money. Similarly, Antin...
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...Speech Intro: What is Social Status based on? Probably the first thing that comes to our mind is the difference between financial status of these two groups. Upper class societies tend to be wealthier whereas lower class societies tend to have less money and may even face poverty at times. Another huge factor that is used to compare these two classes is character. What I mean by character is this: Upper class individuals are generally viewed as having a higher education, morals,and decorum than lower classes; lower class societies are generally expected to have more social problems. These characteristics lead our society into looking down on lower class people. Social status is an important factor that describes society which is shown through The Jungle, The Notebook, My personal Experience, and through Bill Gates. The Jungle: In the Jungle, Upton Sinclair clearly shows the contrast between upper class and lower class.Throughout the book, many immigrants are faced with the problem of poverty, especially Jurgis Rudkus. He travels to America alongside his family, in search of a better life. Later does he find out that America is not what he expected it to be. Jurgis is in constant struggle for money and being an immigrant does not make it any easier on him or his family. The Rudkus family comes to realize that the cycle of Poverty is carried out by the Capitalist owners of the packing plants as well as local politicians. The owners would purposefully keep wages really low so...
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...hunger, poverty, and global awareness all over the world. I got to learn about these issues first hand by taking the place of someone in another country for about an hour. When I first arrived at the Banquet I had to choose from a bowl randomly, what my social standing would be. I ended up in the low income group who all sat on the floor. After talking with people, I learned everyone was from somewhere different in the world. Thus this being about poverty and hunger not just in America, but all over the world. When everyone arrived there were three groups, there was the low, middle, and high income classes. The majority of people were on the floor in the low income group. Seeing this made me truly understand the magnitude of the problem of hunger and poverty across the globe and that these people need our help....
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...Carol Ann Duffy's poem "Standing Female Nude" is an ambiguous dramatic monologue of an unfulfilled proletarian woman. The poem explores the fight for power between the two characters, the ‘nude’ woman and the male artist. It emphasises the issues of social and gender separation (objectification of women) in France and explores Marxist philosophies. The model prostitute tries to “make a few francs”, which suggests that is all she is worth, while the painter tries to create a piece of art to become a great, “serious” artist. They use each other, but it is the woman who is subordinated to the men who gradually throughout the poem gains triumphant power over the man. “Standing Female Nude” is from Duffy’s first collection, when she was in her thirties, where there was a lot of social injustice, both class and gender injustice. The author as a strong feminist had to, like the poem's narrator, lay her soul bare in a male-led world. In the course of the poem, Duffy exploits a range of techniques such as alliteration, “six hours for a few francs”, in order to highlight the model’s irritation and contempt of the disempowered situation she’s in. The author also uses imagery technique - through sexual overtones she belittles the artist, even though at first it is the model who seems to be in the thrall of the artist. “Little man / you’ve not got the money for the arts I sell”, where the words choice - “little” insinuates the man’s reduction in status and being sexually dismissive. ...
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...society. Organized systems of such strata are conceptualized as social stratification system. Social stratification refers to a system by which a society ranks categories of people in a hierarchy. Four basic principles of stratification: 1. Social stratification is characteristic of society, not simply a reflection of individual differences. Children born into wealth families are more likely than born into poverty to enjoy good health, achieve academically, succeed in their life’s work, and live well into old age. Neither rich nor poor people are responsible for creating social stratification, yet this system shapes the lives of them all. 2. Social stratification persists over generations. In all societies parents pass their social position along to their children, so that patterns of inequality stay much the same from generation to generation. Some individual experience change in their position in the social hierarchy. For most people, social standing remains much the same over a lifetime. 3. Social stratification is universal but variable. Social stratification is found everywhere. At the same time, what is unequal and how unequal people are vary from one society to another. 4. Social stratification involves not just inequality but beliefs. Any system of inequality not only gives some people more resources than others but also defines certain arrangements as fair. Just as what is unequal differs from society to society, then so does the explanation of why people should be unequal...
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...Movie In every society, there is inequality. There are people that have better education, more power, and more money than other (Macionis, 2010). Social stratification ranks people in different categories based on social class. It is much like the feudal system in Europe where you are born into Nobility. The movie Trading Places shows the differences in social class. Trading Places is a movie about an upper class commodities broker, Louis Winthorpe, and a homeless street hustler, Billy Ray Valentine, whose live cross paths when they are unknowingly become a part of a huge bet. Mortimer and Randolph Duke, the owners of the commodities company where Louis Winthorpe worked, are responsible for putting the elaborate plan together to switch places with the two of them. The bet was that neither one of them would be able to function outside of their normal elements and lifestyles. Louis Winthorpe came from high society and was well educated. He also looked down upon those who were less fortunate than himself. Billy Valentine was an uneducated homeless hustler from the streets. He spent his time trying to get quick money through schemes and crime. He wanted to live like Winthorpe. Throughout the entire, Winthorpe got to experience how it felt to be poor. He was subjected to drugs, prostitution, jail and a theft. It gave him a chance to see how it felt to be on the lower end. He saw how he treated other people. Valentine on the other hand got to experience the good life...
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