SOC 101 Reading Test-Chapters 7/8
Ruben Carrion
April 1, 2015

1) Racism is a belief that one’s own race is superior. It includes two phenomena: prejudice and discrimination. Prejudices are negative beliefs about entire groups. Discrimination differs from prejudice that it involves actions rather than beliefs.
Heterosexism or homophobia, these are terms used by biased persons against gays or lesbians. I am by no means a racist or homophobic, I believe everyone has a right to be whatever they want even if family or society doesn’t agree. These concepts are very similar, especially if you are black and gay. That’s like a double whammy. There have been too many instances where people are harassed so much that they even commit suicide.(O’Brien 2001).
2) Race can be defined by as a group of people related by common descent. Ethnicity is a group sharing a common and distinctive culture. Sex is either the female or male division of species. Gender is either the masculine (men) or the feminine (women). I am a Hispanic Mexican American Male. In my Mexican culture there is no crying, whining, alcoholism. If you are associated with any of those, you are weak. For example, there is no alcoholism in my culture, its “he drinks a little too much”. Going to rehab is a sign of weakness. We are supposed to “tough it out”.
3) One basic decision rule is that someone scoring high on these dimensions; income, education, and occupation is “high SES”. Scoring low on all three is “low SES”. Everyone else is “middle SES”. I learned it is inevitable and even necessary for societies to function as a whole. Even in communist countries like China, there are Socioeconomic Disparities.
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