Sociology Of Racial Discrimination

I have been confused about the discrimination of race on a larger scale and how it affects society. I think I grasp the concept of discrimination on a surface level as it is treating people unfairly based on race or sex. However, I wanted to dig deeper to find out more facts about it because I have heard many arguments from both sides of the spectrum either arguing that racial discrimination/white privilege is a myth or blown out of proportion, or that racial discrimination is indeed a real thing and still alive in society today. I read a very in depth peer reviewed article about this called, “The Sociology of Discrimination”. The article addressed many areas that I had questions about such as what is discrimination, how do we measure it, why it happens and more. The article begins breaking down racial discrimination into a two part …show more content…
This section actually surprised me as there are a lot of different ways you measure. One of the most common ways is to survey. For instance, it is found that 1/3 of blacks have reported that they have been passed over for a job promotion because of race. Other ways include, interviews among employers, looking at statistical analyses where patterns can be detected, experimental approaches and studies of laws and legal records. The authors, however, did note that there are drawbacks to each one. For example, when looking at the survey method results can be misconstrued as events can be easily overlooked or misperceived. I related this example back to my Dad’s company he works for. There was an African American man that tried to file a lawsuit for racial discrimination because he claimed the company fired him because of his race. Where in reality it had nothing to do with his race but everything to do with his job performance. Clearly this is just one instance and I believe surveys can be a reliable measure of