Race and Ethnicity Essay

Race in America is one of those topics that scholars seldom brooch and are to a great extent criticized for these skips by their components. For this ground. the topic of race and urbanisation felt a proper pick for this concluding paper. Following. we will integrate informations from multiple beginnings including Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner. a novel that examines the agonizing tests of different groups in Afghanistan and what happens to the 1s lucky plenty to get away the force of their fatherland into the safety cyberspace of American dirt ; in an effort to demo the unalienable nexus between race and urbanisation.

This treatment on urbanisation and race in American will besides include a brief treatment on classism. Classism is a portion of the structural organisation of society that can be measured as portion of the lending factors to the socioeconomic divisiveness experienced in this urbanised universe. Some argue that gentrification. in all of its admirations is category based. Others argue it more a affair of ethnicity and race. both may be right. However. the issue of race. as aforesaid should be granted a closer expression.

By analyzing the thoughts and experiences of anthropologists and sociologists past and present this paper will try to stipulate on how classism. racism. and urbanisation are connected. Turning Cities and Ghettos The Industrial Revolution sparked an tremendous moving ridge of migrators and immigrants into American metropoliss making an urban ecology. Chapter 3 of the Giddens et. Al. text. describes the societal motion from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft ; from a community based political orientation in society to a more individualised universe. Afghanistan is an agriculturally based society.

Urbanization is a planetary procedure that draws people off from rural countries and into the metropoliss. Once in those metropoliss. people tend to gravitate to countries that are inhabited by people of their same cultural cloth. In discoursing theories of urbanisation. gentrification and supplanting. John Bentacur ( 2010 ) in Gentrification and Community Fabric in Chicago points out how people are drawn to countries that have a cultural/ethnic connectivity. “immigrants with different features compete for infinite until they get accommodated with similar others in locations that correspond to their competitory strengths” ( p 384 ) .

In the novel. The Kite Runner. Amir and his male parent make the backbreaking migration from Kabul. Afghanistan to Fremont. California. Their low income vicinity of Fremont is ethnically diverse but with a noteworthy concentration of Afghani occupants. It makes sense that when people leave their states of beginning to settle in a new topographic point. they will be drawn to people and countries that are familiar to them. Even with acquaintance jobs arise. urban surveies reveal several troubles that plague dumbly populated urban vicinities ; poorness. offense and bedraggled conditions to call a few.

In Afghanistan Baba. Amir’s male parent. was rich and even wielded some power for being a respected concern adult male and functioning the community by making an orphanhood that would subsequently be destroyed by the Taliban government. In America. there would be no such awards to talk of for their household. In fact. they would populate in a type of poorness. they had ne’er experienced nor barely imagined. They would see the being that many black Americans face with no terminal in sight.

A turning universe population combined with globalisation and the heightened mobility that comes with it has led to the creative activity of metropoliss and a scramble for low-cost lodging. Gentrification besides known as ‘urban regeneration’ or ‘re-urbanization’ is the procedure that happens in a community when it becomes urbanised and consists of the higher income households traveling into lower income countries. During this procedure demographic alterations are noteworthy ; in America. gentrification is notably marked by white households traveling into black vicinities. Race and Ethnicity America is a multicultural state.

Our history of bondage created the black and white groups and the immigrant populations from around the universe contributes to a high assortment of civilization and cultural background. The macro-sociological issue of race and ethnicity has been the beginning of much argument and treatment. The ground for this is that the issue of race has been the root cause of societal and political convulsion. Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton provide the background in history when segregation by race was created in America in their book American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass.

Massey and Denton edify that racial segregation was non ever a fact of life in American society and that in fact ; inkinesss and Whites lived in close propinquity to each other. albeit in the back street ways of the large places occupied by their white neighbours. “industrialization in the North unleashed a set of societal. economic and technological alterations that dramatically altered the urban environment in ways that promoted segregation between societal groups” ( 1993:19-26 ) .

Urbanization and technological promotion ( doing inkinesss in the South to migrate to northern metropoliss by the 10s of 1000s ) would be the foundation for residential segregation where inkinesss and other minorities would be relegated to the outskirts of town. Black ghettos would stay stray from society in a mode that was seldom. experienced by the European immigrants that came to this state during industrialisation.

Blacks and subsequently. Latinos. would be destined to populate stray and neglected from societal organisations and deprived from many of the benefits enjoyed by white communities with small hope of flight. “not merely was the segregation of European cultural groups lower. it was besides impermanent. Whereas Europeans isolation indices began to drop shortly after 1920. the spacial isolation features of inkinesss had become a lasting characteristic of the residential construction of big American metropoliss by 1940” ( Massey and Denton 1993:57 ) .

In America. race and ethnicity is more clearly defined than in topographic points like Afghanistan. Harmonizing to informations gathered from the PBS News Hour web site. Afghanistan has nine different cultural groups that reside in different districts of the state. They have fought and go on to contend civil wars. over civilization ( faith ) . legislative power and district. Afghanistan and the U. S. are similar in their historical subjugation of one cultural group over another. In Afghanistan. the Pashtun/Sunni have for a long clip ruled the land and claimed rule over the Hazara/Shites.

The Hazara group can be considered the equivalent to the Black demographic in America where historically they were the slave category. but are presently represented in authorities. Statistics In a quickly modernizing universe. Afghanistan is among the badly developing states of the Middle East. As antecedently mentioned. Afghanistan is a multiethnic/multifaith. agriculturally based democracy. with a history of force. And it possibly it is this history. in add-on to deep spiritual belief systems that have kept this land from fall ining the remainder of the modern universe.

In reexamining the Millennium Development Goals indexs. informations collected by the United Nations Statistics Division ( UNSD ) . I reviewed several indexs that point to the fact that Afghanistan has a long route in front. Afghanistan is doing slow but certain advancement seeking to convey itself into a socially. politically and economically stable topographic point. The first index measured the figure of scraggy kids less than 59 months. The UNSD defines this index as a high figure of reasonably to badly scraggy kids. “whose weights for age are less than two standard deviations” .

Harmonizing to the study a healthy population will hold 2. 3 per centum of their kids in this class. In 2004. 32. 9 per centum of Afghanistan’s kids were reportedly scraggy. compared to 44. 9 per centum in 1997. This index points to the poorness degree and deficiency of nutriment recorded within a seven twelvemonth period in Afghanistan. A 2nd index steps women’s rights and representation in authorities. This index is defined as. “the part of seats held by adult females in national parliament” increased from 3. 7 per centum in 1990 to 27.

3 per centum in 2006. The measuring was sustained through 2012 at 27. 7 per centum. More work demands to be done and educating the population should be the topographic point to get down. Theological Link The Modernization Theory discussed in the text looks to explicate the underdevelopment of states like Afghanistan. Marx worried about capitalist economy and the effects it had on the low-class population and thereby. the democratic procedure. Marx’s Conflict Theory dictates that societies are ruled by a little group of elite that create societal order for the larger population.

In this. we have the creative activity of divisions by category ( division of labour ) . a cardinal subject of discourse since the beginning of industrialised times. The Gallic Revolution of 1787 ( besides known as the rebellion of the businessperson or middle-class society ) making capitalist economy and thereby usurping authorities power from sovereign. Karl Marx hated democracy. “Democracy is the route to socialism” ( Karl Marx ) Capitalism created tensenesss between the working and businessperson categories. Drumhead Race and urbanisation are indivisibly linked. Marxism and Class Conflict is the most applicable theory of today’s society.

Sing the current events and position of universe order. it is undeniable ; capitalist economy continues to be the most powerful political orientation in the universe. The United States is a powerful state and the manner it retains power is by firm keeping capitalistic political orientation and take parting in planetary struggle around the universe in defence of this political orientation. “power. political orientation. and struggle are ever closely connected” ( Giddens 2012:20 ) . Societies are based on trust and these trusts are broken by the people that create and uphold unjust regulations for the population of colour and the hapless. Works Cited.

Betancur. John. 2010. “Gentrification and community cloth in Chicago. ” Urban Studies Journal Foundation. Sage 48 ( 2 ) : 383 – 407. Retrieved from hypertext transfer protocol: //usj. sagepub. com/content/48/2/383 Giddens. Anthony. Mitchell Duneier. Richard P. Applebaum and Deborah Carr. 2012. “Introduction to sociology. ” New York: W. W. Norton and Company. Eighth erectile dysfunction. . pp. 15-78. Massey. Douglas and Nancy A. Denton. 1993. “The building of the ghetto. ” Pp 17-59 in American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making for the Underclass. Harvard University Press.

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