Of The Invisibility of Social Privilege and Institutional Racism
October 26th, 2008 by SocProf and tagged Institutional Discrimination, Racism, Social Inequalities, Social Institutions, Social Interaction, Social Privilege, Social Selection, Social Stratification, Social Structure, Sociology, Structural Violence, Symbolic Violence
Via the indispensable Ampersand:
This should be mandatory material for any introduction to sociology course to explain the simple yet often hard to understand for our students fact that we do not all experience the social structure and interact with its social institutions in a similar fashion. Our social statuses, here race, generate a whole set of social circumstances, privileges and disadvantages that are often left unexamined. Which is why it is absurd to even discuss "equal opportunities" as something other than clever propaganda and foundational myth.
Moreover, social disadvantages and privileges are invisible, especially for the dominant categories (and sometimes even to the disadvantaged who might buy into the dominant ideology). That society is overall experienced as more structurally and interpersonally violent for the disadvantaged is a greatly under-discussed social fact that contributes to the reproduction of these forms of violence.
Posted in Humor, Institutional Racism, Social Discrimination, Social Inequalities, Social Institutions, Social Interaction, Social Privilege, Social Stratification, Social Structure, Sociology, Structural Violence, Symbolic Violence, Teaching Sociology | No Comments »
