Reflection On The Mistreatment Of African Americans

1.) Considering everything I have learned in this course, I feel the three most important themes of the class were the spectrum of intergroup relations, understanding undocumented immigrants, and “The Danger of a Single Story”. These topics were ones that proved most interesting, and were most applicable to real life. How these topics influence my personal life and careers is relevant in shaping my mindset and opinions on certain people and situations. The spectrum of intergroup relations provides me with a scale of which I can place actions that people make from degrees of hostility to inclusion. When I interact with people in my career, I can use to this Spectrum to rank their feelings and even measure my own opinions, in the effort …show more content…
These there concepts I feel are important because they help to shape my opinions of others, and make me better at my chosen career.
2.) Throughout history African Americans, have been subjected mistreatment which has allowed them to me applied into all three sociological theories; functionalist, Conflict, and symbolic interactionism. In consideration of the functionalist theory, African Americans and their unfortunate treatment has been relatively benifitual to the economical side of society. Their enslavement provided a reliable source of labor to plantations and other businesses. They also were also a target to society’s hate. This gave society a populace to hate and blame problems on. The African Americans became a scapegoat so that the main stream white people could continue their destructive ways. In a Functionalist perspective African Americans have contributed a crucial, and unfortunate, role in society. Now, in terms of conflict theory there is a strong conflict between African Americans and white society. The white society had all the resources while the African Americans had none. The white people had enslaved them, and exploded them for labor. Even without slavery we see that the …show more content…
This video also bring up important point concerning ethnocentrism and cultural relativism. Ethnocentrism is the concept of looking at other cultures, and comparing them in relation to your own culture. Using ethnocentrism usually causes the person to see other cultures as barbaric or inferior, while seeing their own culture as superior. This strongly relates to the video “The Danger of a Single Story” because when a person receives only a “single story” of a culture and uses ethnocentrism, that person becomes ignorant of the rest of that person’s identity. That represents an unfortunate missed opportunity to connect with diverse people socially. Cultural Relativism is the concept of viewing a culture absent of the person’s personal cultural bias. This allows them to view traditions that others may perceive as abnormal, and see how the culture incorporates it into their identity. Using some means of cultural relativism is a good way to view other cultures in a health unbiased way, but make sure not to use to much cultural relativism as a means to justify immoral actions. In relations to immigrations issues both Nationally and globally, I feel that ethnocentrism and the “single story” are the main issues that cause tension for immigrants. The rampant stereotyping of immigrants and their discrimination cause strong tensions to be