According to the Census Bureau, about 28% of adults in the US have earned bachelors degrees, and another 28% have associate degrees or have taken some college courses. As such, about 55% percent of Americans probably know something about the academic field of sociology. It’s too bad that number isn’t higher.<\/p>\n
One of the most important things that sociology teaches, in my opinion, is that we humans do the things we do largely because of social influences. And most of the time, we don’t even know it. A fish in water doesn’t stop to think about water. And a social animal in a society doesn’t usually stop to think about whether the crowd is going in the right direction. As social animals, we mostly go with the flow. <\/p>\n
That’s a good thing, in many ways. But there are cases where it causes problems. Take race relations, for instance. I was browsing a page on pollingreport.com<\/a> recently, which showed the results of various recent polls on race relations. The results clearly show that white people tend to think that racial relations aren’t much of a problem anymore and that discrimination barriers are mostly a thing of the past for blacks. By contrast, black people more often think that race issues have not been settled and that discrimination is still a big problem for them. Another poll<\/a> appearing in the NY Times a few days ago said basically the same thing. So why the difference?<\/p>\n In my opinion, racism is still alive, but it is manifested in a much more subtle way. The days of “back of the bus” and separate white and “colored” restrooms are long gone. But a lot of white people who make decisions that affect blacks, such as teachers deciding on how to instruct students, or business owners deciding who to hire and promote, could well be influenced by race and not even know it. Social notions and evaluation standards, such as who is more trustworthy or more industrious or more likely to cheat or to be violent, are not formed through overt discussion; they come about through subtle signs and unspoken assumptions, sometimes even through sub-conscious processes. So yes, it is entirely possible that a form of continued racism is going on within white American society in a sub-conscious fashion, and is manifested by people who don’t overtly hold any bad feelings towards people of color.<\/p>\n So, blacks complain about continuing racism while whites aren’t sure what they are talking about. Perhaps they think that blacks are just being political or are being outright ‘whiners’. (As to the political aspect, I do believe that some black political leaders draw the racism card too quickly). But mostly what they are trying to say is that a certain sociology is at work, and that whites need to be more aware of this and work to end it. Unfortunately, sociology is not an easy thing to talk about, especially if half the country isn’t very familiar with it. <\/p>\n I’m not saying that popular sociology is the answer to race relations. But it would at least be a way to get some movement from the present stand-off between whites and blacks, a possible grounding for an open, intelligent discussion. (As part of that openness, common black attitudes about whites would also need to be discussed.)<\/p>\n And here’s another sociology problem: our nation is currently in an economic crisis fueled by too much debt. Over the past ten or twenty years, too many people spent too much on housing and consumer items using borrowed money. And now the banks and investors are sweating because it turns out that a whole lot of that debt isn’t going to be repaid. <\/p>\n There have been a lot of “profile” articles in the papers lately on the people who borrowed all this money and are now in hot water over it. You’ve seen the story, e.g. a couple in their late 40s making around $50,000 bought a big house and an SUV and much other good stuff. Then something went wrong and one of them got hurt or was laid off, and had to take a lousy job paying only half of what they used to make. And then the mortgage payments jumped, and they couldn’t refinance to draw out equity because housing values starting sinking. In the article, the couple is quoted to say that they were duped by the lenders and credit card companies who offered them all sorts of easy loans just a few years ago, and are now pestering them day and night about their past-due balances. <\/p>\n