The Social Construction of Difference & Inequalities, Essay Example

Experiencing Difference and Inequality in Everyday Life

Introduction

Social differences and inequalities exist in every society. The social difference and inequalities may not be high in communities with few social statuses and roles. The differences create boundaries between individuals in the society that make them judge each other and place them at different levels which technically do not exist. The result involves restricting the people who did not create the system and historical exploitation, e.g., a black woman may be put in a low social structure based on her gender and skin color. The historical set up of the structure is based on racism created long in the past to have control of groups that were being colonized. In that context, the person suffering is being subjected to an unnecessary social difference that is not supposed to be in existence since it doesn’t give a life category of an individual. There are several issues associated with the inequality, including social class, race, gender, and sexuality which affect everybody. The effects may affect the victimized individual or a significant population in his/her community. Currently, many social institutions are trying to contain the inequalities and social control operations that attempt to solve cases of violence and threats of violence associated with the inequalities.

Readings’ overview

Ortiz Cofer, The Story of My Body

In Ortiz Cofer’s “The Story of My Body,” the narrator’s body affects the transition from her native country when she is moving to an adopted country. The narrator discovers that she had some privileges associated with her being a white girl through experiences with color discrimination while she was living in the US (Ore, 2013). By that, the narration relates identity with other people’s perception of the body, based on the argument from the formation of Latina identifies. The narrator gains a status of immigration, and the body concept embeds her race when she says that she became a brown by immigrating to the US though she had been born white in Puerto Rico. Her appearance is fragmented into four based on size, looks, color, and skin (Ore, 2013).

As the narrator describes the episodes that helped her in the modification of personal perceptions in childhood, I see the relationship with social inequalities I experienced in high school based on my size. Puerto Ricans surrounded her body with their perceptions of race and beauty just like it happened to me. Most of the mares had a similar understanding that prominent sized people are not appealing and have a lower class compared to other people.  The US’s prevailing ideas of body and beauty got into her after some transformation of her body when she left the place with her family. My experiences differ with the narrator’s since I remained at the school attending classes in the same school with all the discrimination and social differences until I graduated. My experience for the social inequality, therefore, lasted like a whole time to me.

Language and Silence: Making Systems of Privilege Visible

Wildman and Davis discuss the notion of privilege in their work “Making systems of privilege visible.” In the works, they argue that opportunities even as part of the popular culture are hardly recognized in legal doctrines and languages. The result is widening the gap in legal reasoning which reduces the ability and ideas to use and address systematic unfairness cases. Oppression and fear may also be a result, leading to silence (Ore, 2013). Words that seem linguistically neutral oppose the regeneration and visibility of the privileges. The fact, as expressed by Wildman and Davis relate closely to my changed individual behavior as a result of the language I found in the University. The vocabularies I had been used to were discriminating and affected my perception of my body and abilities. Later, I understood their natural context and was able to feel fit in the society. However, my language remained unchanged as I had tried my best to always be unbiased in my choice of words.

Memorable day

One the day of releasing the final exam day, I faced discrimination based on my skin color. My grades were not entered correctly and affected my overall GPA. So, I immediately went to the registrar office. I waited for a while since she wasn’t around at that time. On arrival, the registrar avoided communicating to me, though, I excused her behavior, as a result of her being busy, or maybe not seeing me, or just that I failed to greet her loudly enough for her to recognize me. Though, I started feeling resentful since she had initially ignored me. She walked past me and greeted one of my friends, a white lady who was seated beside me, before entering her office, as if I was not present. I was astonished, and could not hide my disgust. I went to her office, mainly to inquire about how my grades could be rectified before graduation day, since, she was the one in charge of the entire results in the institution. She looked up, then went back to what she was doing without any explanation. I, later on, realized that the results were tampered with to suit in some students, and it was purely on a racial ground.

The case may not have been significant, but its results are still active in my life today. After reading a book against discrimination by Tracy Ore, I discovered it is possible to live a happy life, even with the inequality (Ore, 2013). I decided to start a new academic plan aimed at succeeding rather than evading the last positions in the performance list. I moved to a new institution, within a year, my performance improved drastically with encouragement from parents until I became among the best performance. My current academic achievements are based on the decisions I made that day. I did not pay close attention even to my new desk mate, and with time, the racism pressure went down. The pressure reduction was after the schoolmates exercising racism discovered we had grown stronger and we had no psychological effects as a result. The skin color that seemed to have a measure of intelligence was neglected and everybody aimed at achieving excellent qualifications for higher learning.

References

Ore, T. E. (2013). The Social Construction of Difference and Inequality: Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality (6th Edition). New York City: McGraw-Hill Education.