Underclass

It Is More Than a Role: POC vs. Popular Culture The misrepresentation of people of color in popular culture has become a cataclysm in our society. Regrettably, the blatant misrepresentation had not received as much cognizance until recent controversies surrounding the 2016 Oscars. The visual of the homogeneous audience that night became a catalyst for awareness. The tension from the issue unveiled how there was still an undercurrent of racism present within the system, and that in turn exposed…

Regula Burckhardt Qureshi compiles ten essays by contributing authors ranging from musicologists, ethnomusicologists, political scientists, and historians, all providing prospective for studying music through a Marxist lens. In Music and Marx: Ideas, Practice, Politics, the chapters highlight the place of music in society by engaging Marxist theories on society. The book provides “music-directed approaches to Marx,” which express the issues of musical thinking and theorizing as it relates to…

The New Jim Crow was a very interesting point of view. In the book Michelle Alexander expresses to us her opinion that the war on drugs is the way to legally discriminate against African Americans and people of color. In the book she encourages us, as United States Citizens to discuss the criminal justice system and how it is not how it should be. In chapter one we are introduced on how the discrimination has made come back according to Michelle Alexander. She did acknowledge that some African…

A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn conveys history as told in the preceptive of slaves, revolutionaries,women, and lower class men. It starts with Christopher Columbus finding the Caribbean and ends with the 2000 and terrorism. A People’s History of the United States starts by talking about Christopher Columbus arriving at the Caribbean and meeting the native people,the Arawak.Often portrayed as an enlightened leader and a friend,Zinn portrayed him as conquerers who only…

In A World of Gangs: Armed Young Men, written by John Hagedorn, the audience sees the connection Hagedorn’s makes between politics, socioeconomic status, racism, and it’s unwavering resistance to change. Street gangs are complex and cannot be reduced to simplistic pathologies, especially with the lack of research and unexplored history by scholars. The book focuses on the more social-cultural psychological concepts, stating straight off the bat that street gangs are not apart of “a subset of…

The period 110-30 B.C., often included in what is called the ‘Crisis of the Roman Republic’ was an extended period of time in which Rome teetered between political stability and political chaos. During this period, the military underwent massive overhauls, changing from conscription oriented to a standing, professional army, based around personal allegiance to the commanding general. However, though the element of personal loyalty was a direct result of the changes that the army saw in the early…

Pager’s (2003) American Journal of Sociology article characterizes mass incarceration as the steady increase in U.S inmates, for increasing reasons coupled with increased sentences. The American Civil Liberties Union’s (2016) article, “What’s at Stake” juxtaposes America’s most famous theme, “Home of the Free” to the current state of mass incarceration experienced in the African American community. African Americans only comprise 13% of the United States population, yet they account for 40% of…

The Disembodied Universe The Accidental Universe, by Alan Lightman, is considered one of the most controversial and fascinating novels. Lightman ponders unanswered questions about the universe, as well as the emotional questions such as molecular biology and other scientific discoveries. For example, in the chapter titled “The Disembodied Universe”, Alan Lightman mentions that there have been particular molecules discovered that encode the instructions for making new human beings. After reading…

In the following documents, The Declarations of the rights of man and citizens, The Haitian Declaration of Independence, and the Peoples Charter, all share similar context. Working-class consists of men and women who are employed for wages. In the texts of 'Declaration of the Rights of Man & the Citizen', it states/argues that all individuals must be equally treated, by law. Through the article of Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, it reads 17 different points about being equal…

1. What did C. Wright Mills mean by the term "power elite"? How do the power elite manage to maintain their influence? Has the power elite become more or less Mills introduced the term in the 1950s? In the 1950s, C. Wright Mills explained that power is, “the ability to get your way despite resistence” (Henslin, 2014, p. 226). This ability he added, is only owned by a few members of society. On a…