Sociology & Me

...

My racial/ethnic identity and my religious affiliation have provided me with multiple advantages and few disadvantages. Most of my advantages come along with white privilege.

Society is tailored to my race. From the minor advantages like Band-Aids that match my skin tone to major advantages like positive perceptions of my character because of my skin tone, there are most definitely obvious advantages. As mentioned before one of the most prominent advantages is the perception of character based on skin tone. While in middle school, students from the inner city came to my suburban school to learn. These students were typically from broken low income black families. There was an issue between the teachers and these students. The teachers seemed like they had decided that they were the troublesome students prior to them even sitting down at their desks the first day. Within the first week, a teacher even accused an inner city student of stealing her phone when the teacher had simply forgotten it at home that day. The teacher made negative judgements based on stereotypes prior to even meeting them. This is something I never experienced or at least not in a negative way. This comes in tandem with a disadvantage that Caucasian people face. On multiple occasions, I have been accused of being racist or hateful on limited to no grounds. At times, I have been made to feel ashamed of my race because of the things that Caucasian people have done in the past. In the grand scheme of things, this is very minor, but it is still felt. Both the advantages and disadvantages show small glimpses of the prevalence in racism and discrimination that still exist. Finally, I believe that my choice in religion has disadvantaged me. The fact that I have to feign belief in Catholicism to get by speaks volumes in and of itself. I have chosen to be atheist, but am forced to say I’m between Catholic and agnostic so to avoid being harassed for my choices. Being outwardly labelled atheist would consequently cause others to think of me as hateful, unlawful, irreverent, disrespectful and just wrong in general. This just exemplifies the stereotyping involved in religious choices and the discrimination that the minority groups face.

Introduction to Sociology this semester has taught me so much and has opened my eyes to the issues in today’s society. In addition, it had showed me how these issues have developed and how they have continued to exist. This awareness led me to reanalyze my experiences and think of them in a new light.