Prof. Shaleen Seward SOC. 301, Race/Class/Gender
Writing Assignment
December 4, 2012
"I am an American," says over 308,745,538 people in the United States this year ("2010 Census Data.") These people originate from everywhere; America is a "melting pot" of culture, and that can unfortunately cause social inequalities to arise through the Matrix of Domination, a theory that mirrors the intersectionality of race, class, and gender, as coauthor of Race, Class, & Gender, an Anthology Patricia Hill Collins claims (Andersen, and Collins xi-xiii.) These two terms give label to the commonplace phenomena of race, class, and gender work within a system of social relationships. The understanding of people from other cultures has grown in many ways over the history of the United States. America is starting to realize that the ethnocentric, or judging of others culture through the values of their own, is no longer an acceptable way to approach others. There is still a long way to go to more firmly develop a country with a general appreciation of diversity and inclusive thought. Knowledge is the power that will keep populations in peaceful, cultural awareness and harmonious equality. Anderson and Collins share many views of American life and morality through the different cultural perspectives of its citizens (and noncitizens.) These articles prove that race, class, and gender all play separate, dynamic roles in the interrelated origins of discrimination. In the article, The Culture of Black Femininity and School Success, the realization that black women have historically been raised to consciously be more aggressively determined to succeed as they had the least amount of power in the education system. The conflict between young, black females and school officials usually ended up in a positive social change because the understanding that their race, class, and gender is constantly pinned up against them (Lewis, Mueller, and et al 187-193.) In our
Cited: Andersen, Margaret, and Patricia Collins. Race, Class, & Gender. 8th ed. . Belmont: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010. xi-xiii. Print. Gallagher, Charles. "Color-Blind Privilege." Trans. Array Race, Class, & Gender. Margaret Anderson and Patricia Collins. 8th ed. Belmont: Wadsworth & Cengage Learning, 2010. 91-95. Print. Lewis, R. L, Jennifer Mueller, et al. "The Culture of Black Femininity and School Success." Trans. Array Race, Class, & Gender. Margaret Andersen and Patricia Collins. 8th ed. Belmont: Wadsworth & Cengage Learning, 2010. 187-193. Print. "National Civil Rights Timeline." Jackson Sun [Jackson] 2003, n. pag. Web. 2 Dec. 2012. . "Rodney King." 2012. . Shakur, Tupac, writ. Changes. 1998. Song. 1 Dec 2012. Theoharis, Jeanne. "I Hate It When People Treat Me Like a F&up." Trans. Array Race, Class, & Gender. Margaret Andersen and Patricia Collins. 8th ed. Belmont: Wadsworth & Cengage Learning, 2010. Print. United States. U.S. Census Bureau. 2010 Census Data. Washington, D.C.: , 2012. Web. .