Sociology of Work: Contemporary and Historical Discrimination - Term Paper Example

Sociology of Work: Contemporary and Historical Discrimination It is a heavily held American belief that if individual exercises enough self-discipline and work hard enough, they will succeed. However, sociologists prove that a person effort has never been sufficient to succeed. Majority of Americans feel that young white men normally have a labor market advantage more than young black men since whites are smarter, willing to work harder, or have better work orientations, yet the genesis of this is attributed to market-orientation. Comparing the white versus the black and Latino men, there are no character, academic, or work-orientation differences, yet Latino and black men fared the worst in the labor market, unlike their white peers. One may ask, what may be causing the differences? The answer reside in the racially and incredibly rich exclusive networks that white men have, which enable them to learn more about opportunities and in fact, get jobs. Black and Latino workers never learn about these opportunities. The combination of believing in rhetoric concerning "reverse racism" and living in segregated spaces created a potent disincentive for counting African American and Latino in the powerful networks of the white tradesmen who are actually the gatekeepers of job opportunities. From market-orientation perspective, African Americans are not automatically members of the gate-keeping networks as far as entry into the blue-collar trades is concerned. Customarily, whites have tried to shield blue-collar opportunities from other minority workers. This system of racial privilege inside the working class has not significantly changed, despite the “Philadelphia Plan” as well as other “hometown” plans which were designed to improve the representation of African American and other minority group like Latino workers in fields like construction. While any one would hardly dispute that conventional white racism is totally gone, its heyday might be long past. On that note, Majority are truly bewildered by the gaps that keep on emerging even amid equally promising young African American. Others suggest there is a need to be optimistic, because these gaps have narrowed down with time. Sociologists have endorsed this market-oriented perspective, which means that undeserved white privilege has been successfully disrupted. (Waldinger & Lichter, 2003) Isolate the main factors which explain the existence of unskilled immigrants midst American society and how market-orientation that renders it hard for blacks or immigrants to access blue-collar opportunities. From the embeddedness perspective, contemporary and historical discrimination have converged in the present, implying the persistent pattern of opportunity-hoarding amongst whites have caused exploitative economic and political conditions that harm blacks. (Royster, 2003) explore how institutional arrangements shape network-based job finding behaviors among American. An examination of cross-national survey data shows that informal job matching is extremely clustered among specific firms and types of individuals in the United States, compared to Germany where it`s more ubiquitous. These differences are associated with hierarchical and loosely regulated employment relations in America that ease network dominance in particular economic sectors. These findings exemplify how social institutions influence access to economic resources via network relations. (Royster, 2003, p. 19) tries to determine why African American men are somehow less desirable as workers compared to their white peers. Royster seeks an answer with conduction of her own extensive research and studies of the experience of 25 white men and 25 African American men who graduated from a similar vocational school and required jobs in the same blue-collar job market in early 1990s. From the moment of Booker T. Washington, African American and Latino men have since been advised to get a fair share, but it`s not so easy as it sounds. Royster seeks to reveal the discrepancies of workplace which favors the white job-seeker and not African American or Latino by trying to comprehend how same working-class White and African American assess and pursue opportunities through having, with both groups, face to face conversations.   Royster intends to build a comfort zone in which people can discuss their intimate details concerning work and life at home. Generally, to discuss these staffs with whites were particularly found to be hard. Normally, whites do not volunteer to split their intimate details with researchers. Moreover, most black scholars try to evade speaking on the topic mostly for wise reasons. However, Royster decided to go against this norm and pursued her research because of the necessity to understand, on a first-hand account, how working class whites have taken over skilled blue-collar opportunities as well as why they live a modest lifestyle with no college training or inheriting a considerable amount of wealth from kin of the lottery. Royster is herself mixed but she can pass as a white person, and so often Caucasian individuals often held no obstacle when talking about other races before her. Normally, whites appear to act color neutral whenever people of other color are in the vicinity of the conversation. Hence, both blacks and white that Royster interviewed appeared comfortable to engage in considerable levels of some private racial talk. In this stunning success of field research regarding the social processes which structure America's market-orientation, (Waldinger & Lichter, 2003) disclose the most original as well as a powerful theory in history that is advanced to explore how 'unskilled' immigrants have trickle into America only to work at extremely high rates whereas inner city blacks keep on to languish. Just like “When Work Disappears” by Wilson and Denton and Massey`s American Apartheid, Waldinger and Lichter `s “How the Other Half Works”, definitely will prepare the stage for a fresh regime of poverty research. (Waldinger & Lichter, 2003) scrutinize Los Angeles as being the quintessential suburban metropolis as well as a paradigm of multi-ethnic America. The book is unreservedly among the most important works done on immigration and its relations to the social nature of work within contemporary America. Addressing a number of the most vexing labor and 'race' issues of our time, (Waldinger & Lichter, 2003) offers persuasive and original answers that challenge the existing wisdom of economists, who argue immigrants can replace natives as well as work alongside natives. Immigrants definitely raises the supply of labor, more so in the labor market`s lower rungs. This expanded pool of labor makes it more difficult for the already struggling less educated African American to get work and depress wages for the lucky ones who got jobs. Work Cited Waldinger, Roger and Michael I. Lichter. How The Other Half Works: Immigration and the Social Organization of Labor, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Royster, Deirdre. Race and the Invisible Hand: How White Networks Exclude Black Men From Blue Collar Jobs, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Read More