What Is The Key Role Of Social Stratification In The United States?

Social stratification has been a key role affecting the lives of many people in the Unites States. As a country that once allowed slavery, the United States has been a place in where inequality base not only in skin color, but gender, class, and ethnicity has always been present. Although we are now living in a country that had abolished slavery and has laws against discriminations, inequality still affects the lives of many people.
In order for individuals to succeed and socially and intellectually develop they need to have access to important social resources such as education, food, shelter, health care, and such (pg. 208). However because of the unequally distribution of resources many have been left out. As stated in the book, 10% of the population in the United States own 72% of the national wealth while the remaining 90% of the population have access to just 28% of wealth (pg. 228). The consequence of the inequality affects individual’s education because they will not have access to an appropriate education system, individual’s health, and housing.
Although, it is true that individuals that do not have high life chances will be more vulnerable to inequality, their race also plays a key role in the way they are perceive by the rest of society.
the book define race as “a category of people who have been single out as inferior or superior, often on the basis of real or alleged physical characteristics such as skin color, hair texture, eye shape, or other subjectively selected attributes” (pg.274). Through history the views on race has been changing, during ancient time race was perceive to be related to a person’s culture, it then shifted to a person’s family and ancestors, until it came to been seen as a person’s physical
attribute.
During the colonization period since people valued physical characteristics, the dominant group and most developed group which were white Eastern-European people declared and seemed themselves as the dominant race. Because other members of other societies were not as developed as the Europeans they were easily dominated. In the United States during and after slavery many believed and still believe that white and non-white individuals are biologically different and since whites constitute is the dominant or majority population they see themselves as better.
Race is attached to prejudice. Many people judge a person just by observing him or her. If a person is part of a particular race they are believed to behave in specific ways. If that person breaks the stereotype than that person is an exception. Per example if a person of color succeed in life, he or she has broken the stereotype that “all blacks are lazy and delinquent”, but what it is not taking into consideration that a “race is not what define a person’s behavior. It is their life chances, their access to optimum education, their family disposition towards education and discipline, and self-disposition that had made possible for that individual to succeed in life.
It is because prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination towards members of the subordinate or minority class experience inequality. And as consequence their likelihood of having access to societal resources diminish every day.