The Sociological Sogination, And Implications Of Race

To understand our place in society, we interact with others and develop a set of shared notions, institutions, and structures. Sociology, the systematic study of human society, helps us understand these interactions. In particular, applying the sociological imagination to the social construct of race yields insight into its fallacy and utility. In this essay, I examine the historical origin, functions, and implications of race in the United States. I also connect race to sociologists Barbara J. Fields, Kingsley Davis, Wilbert E. Moore, Marianne Bertrand, and Sendhil Mullainathan. In a larger context, the social construct of race is a system of schematism; race is a socially assigned grouping based on human appearance. Although the notion of race seems innocuous, it is in reality an insidious and overly simplified social …show more content…
The importance of societal stratification is made clear in Davis and Moore 's "Some Principles of Stratification. They contend that "no society is "classless or unstratified" and that "placing and motivating individuals in the social structure" is a requirement of all societies. Race serves as a way to stratify individuals within a society. For example, the United States government currently uses race as a census benchmark to collect data on self-identification. Historically, census data was collected to determine the populations of free whites, slaves, immigrants, and etc. Certain racial groups, particularly free whites, were given privileges and rights others were not afforded. The United States government, then, used the notion of race to structure socioeconomic and sociopolitical divides. White ethnocentrism dominated, and continues to dominate, American society. It is in the ruling group 's interest, after all, to maintain the status quo in a power