The Sociological Imagination: race and racism
The sociological imagination is a capacity, ability, and a quality of mind that allows an individual to understand and connect her or his life with the forces and dynamics that impact it. It is about not blaming others for what they do, it is about judging ourselves before we judge others and understand people as if we understand ourselves for example if a student comes late to class there could be many reasons behind this student being late; there could have been traffic or an accident on the way that made him or her come late to class, so we should not judge but understand.
Although we should separate between personal trouble and public issue, for example a student could be coming to class late all the time because of his or her laziness this would be called a personal trouble but if all students are coming late to class than this is called a public issue, meaning there is something wrong with the class.
Sociological imagination engages in, the minority status, gender, socioeconomic status and the family structure.
Sociological imagination is a social fact and empathy; social fact is the idea, feeling, behaviour of individuals. An example of social fact is when the sun is rising, this is a social fact that we cannot change whether we like it or not it will still rise. Empathizing is verstehen meaning when I ask myself what If I was this person or what if I was in this persons place.
There are many sociological issues in society; one of the issues learned in this course is the race and racism issue.
Race and racism are two different issues race is a social constructed aspect of identity in all cultures, race is not biological it is powerful; it is what makes us who we are for example what we are born with like hair texture and skin colour.
Racism is an interlocking system of advantage based on race existing at individual and cultural symbolic. Racism comes from power, and culture. Racism happens when some social groups have more power over another social groups, but racism have changed even if it still exist it is not visible in which it is been described as dangerous or a hidden fact. Racism is racism that it can’t be better or worse in any country. even though being born with a specific skin colour is a cause of geographic conditions, in which where the person is born for example being born in a sunny place is different than being born in a place in which doesn’t have sun, so all humans are the same if we put skin colour a side, also black people are born with more melanin in their skin and that protects them from getting cancer that’s why white skin coloured people are more likely to get cancer than people with dark skin. So there are always advantages and disadvantages about what we have and what we don’t have.