Roughnecks And Marginalized Communities Essay

An interesting sociological insight that I picked up from this article, is a relation between the Roughnecks and marginalized communities. While marginalized communities are clearly at a much larger scale, I noticed that the concept that defines a marginalized community, that they are a material legacy of injustice, can apply to the Roughnecks too. There were several reasons throughout the article as to why the Roughnecks were termed as more delinquent than the Saints, even though their respective deviances were relatively the same. One of these differences was their “visibility” and this was referring to how the Saints have access to an automobile whereas the Roughnecks do not. Due to the access to a car, the Saints were able to avoid being seen by public figures, because they were able to travel to the Big City or went to the edge of town. The Roughnecks had to meet locally and therefore ran into many public figures that saw their time wasting. The Roughnecks inherited the inability to gain access to a car, whereas the Saints …show more content…
I mentioned earlier that the Roughnecks are marginalized, but this can also lead to the different social forces that are at play. The economic trends of the Roughnecks may play a role here. Compared to the Saints, they are less well off, and that may change the way that they choose to express their deviance. An example from the article is that the Saints would steal a lamp, but the Roughnecks would steal a wallet they would find. A wallet has monetary implications and could be seen as a way to make a few extra dollars. This could also lead to their appearance. The Roughnecks are dressed less appealing to the public due to them having less money to buy nicer clothing. This leads to their visual aspect being less appealing as well, giving them a negative visual to the public, simply because they cannot buy nicer