Question

Analyze racism from each of the three sociolodical perspectives(functional, analysis, conflict and symbolic interactionist). Show how sociologist from these perspectives would explain or study this problem.

Answer 1

Racism through three main sociological viewpoints

• The Functionalist Perspective – race is one of the many parts of a unified society. According to the functionalism society is a one single unit and has various constituent elements like rules, ethnicities, customs, and associations. During 1960s, it was disparaged for being not able to being a cause for a social change and thus was also called consensus theory for overlooking systematic disparities which includes gender, class, race which causes conflict and tension. From this point of view, societies are perceived as rational, circumscribed, and essentially relational constructs that functions like creatures, with their different components like race, works together in a cataleptic, automatic fashion in the direction of attaining total social stability.
• The Conflict Perspective - The fundamental principle of conflict theory is that class-based conflict is an intrinsic and vital part for social relation. A conflict theory perspective scrutinizes the many past and present skirmishes between the white dominant class and racial and ethnic minorities of U.S. history, observing explicit conflicts that stimulated when the dominant group professed a danger from the minority group. To some level the racial conflict is connected to class conflict, according to the conflict theorists, class inequality must be curtailed to lessen racial discrimination in society. When we inspect race and how it can provide both benefits and drawbacks, it is imperative to recognize that the way we define race is formed.

• The symbolic Interactionist Perspective - According to the symbolic interactionists, race and ethnicity is responsible for robust symbols as foundations of individuality. Indeed, few sociologist of symbolic interactionist perspective suggest that the symbols of race and not only race leads to racism. According to Herbert Blumer, racial bias is made through communications between members of the leading group. Without these communications, people of the leading group will not have any racist opinions. These interactions bestow to a theoretical picture of the secondary group that consents the leading group to back its opinion of the secondary group, and thus preserves the existing state of affairs. Another way to apply the interactionist perspective is to look at how person describe their and others races.