When we analyze today's society and culture, we must first look into the past using the social imagination. To do this, we need to ask ourselves the following questions: what has made our society the way it is, why do people act in certain ways, and, most importantly, how do these differences and categories of race, class and gender emerged and remained so important in society? Today? The similarity between these categories, they were all created by society and allow for consistent division and segregation between individuals within each. Individuals who are either oppressed or empowered based on their position in each intersecting category. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Science seems to play a strong and important role in the past and present. Discovery, biology and facts. As humans, we want facts. We want to know the truth and we believe in the truth based on facts and material evidence. This may have influenced the desire and obsession with distinction and separation between groups of people. Biological and scientific differences that initially lead us to the idea of ​​a superior and inferior group of people based on these useless facts. Race: “a social definition based on shared lineage and real or presumed physical, biological characteristics” (Lect Notes). Race, like gender and sex, is a socially constructed idea. An idea that separates and distinguishes one individual from another, forming different groups based on appearance. Of course, a person's "race" comes from their ancestry. If your ancestors came from Africa, Europe, etc. Previously, we looked at Zinn's A People's History of the United States and saw an interesting look at the actual circumstances in which Columbus used and enslaved seemingly "inferior" races. All this for their own benefit and that of European "dominant" Western culture, in hopes of retaining their own new properties and lands, which would soon become the United States. History has allowed these more powerful and wealthier individuals to take advantage of others, others they considered “animals” (Zinn). This demonstrates and allows us to understand, using the social imagination, exactly how racism and ultimate division, as well as the maintenance of power by the white man, came to be, and this still seems evident in our "free" society. ". As much as we would all like to think, there is still a strong divide between the races. Because of history, black people have always been behind, because that's how they came to America, at a disadvantage. The freedom they received was not complete freedom due to the previous history they encountered. This kept them in the lower class, making them a minority, among other poorer, non-“white” individuals. Having virtually no opportunity or ability to advance due to the circumstances the white Europeans placed them in, because even though I'm sure they were considered "free", the whites still considered them less powerful than them, which ultimately led to equal dislike. between the two. Past circumstances and the inevitable oppression that black people face in our society today are still clear. We see it every day on the news: a white officer shoots a black man. They are always considered inferior and these stereotypes create a divide withoutEND. It's difficult to break a stereotype that history has continually reinforced. No change can be achieved this way, especially since American society does not make it easy for minorities to rise up, relying primarily on continued white power in the government that runs everything. In a society built on wealth, money and power, social class plays a role in every individual's life. Class system: “A hierarchical system based on economics, characterized by cohesive and oppositional groups and loose social mobility” (Lecture Notes). As a 22-year-old white woman, I was automatically born with expectations. My parents always expected me to go to a private school and then to college, without any worries about money. I didn't have to struggle to get into college, I was accepted with the advantage of going to a prestigious private school. It wasn't until college, as I branched out and learned different experiences, that I realized what I had. It was white privilege. Even though my parents had expectations of my life, I never questioned them, not even how easy it was. Using social imagination, I was able to see that if my situation were different, it would be more difficult for me to meet my parents' expectations. If I had grown up in a different area where I couldn't even go to a private school and if I went to a public school with less willingness to meet the needs of the students. If I were a different race, if I lived in a lower class neighborhood, I wouldn't be strong enough to fight for these opportunities myself. My parents gave them to me. Plus, my white ancestors who came to America gave it to me. While these black ancestors worked for the most powerful white people, they received no education, they had no opportunities. Even today, we face this disadvantage, this oppression. Since minorities are considered lower class, living in a poorer neighborhood with less prestigious schools, they still lack these opportunities. They lack the easy-to-maintain education that an upper-class white person would automatically receive. Further affecting their future and chances at university, as well as their future career. What we like to think of as a free country, as a land of opportunity and equality, was built from an unequal and unjust culture of white Europeans whose main concern was money and power . Equality should be clearer today than it was before, because today we see a never-ending impasse for minorities. Not only do white Americans allow an unequal and unjust society, but individual minorities make no attempt to escape it. It’s a different lifestyle and experience to be a young black man in America. Imagine being raised in an environment of violence towards your own kind. Not being able to see your father because he works all day for minimum wage. Being raised by older boys in your neighborhood who were also taught that nothing but violence and theft is the way to live. Being forced to steal food to feed your family. Being raised in this society already gives children no hope for their own future. This leads young black boys to think that this is the only option for them, that it is nothing more. Finally, an intersectional division that separates men from women and which is also socially constructed on the basis of biological factors, gender. Gender: “based on a set of social or cultural distinctions associated with being a man or a woman” (Reading notes)..