1. What are three conclusions you take away from the article? Enumerate them (e.g. First, Second and Third). Do not summarize the article – these are your “take aways.” 2. Cite evidence from the article where Blow expresses that Robertson’s position as expressed by his comments below contribute to human suffering and/or social disorganization.“I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once. Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I’m with the blacks, because we’re white trash. We’re going across the field. …They’re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’ — not a word! …Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.” 3. Consider how this phenomenon, the denial of racism and the role of systematic racial discrimination in our social institutions (e.g., the justice system, public education, and the economy), contributes to human suffering. What is Robertson view? What social instiution and what racism do you see in it? How do both contribute to the suffering of others. You must identify a social institution in your answer. 4. Consider Blow’s discussion of Robertson’s comments and race relations historically. Which one social perspective best fits Blow’s approach and why?. Hint: There is only one correct answer. Think about the entire article when choosing the best perspective. Tell me which perspective first. Then explain why.
- Functional Structural which addresses how the phenomenon contributes to social integration or stability,
- Social Conflict which addresses how the phenomenon generates social conflict as one group endeavors to maintain power over the other,
- or Symbolic Interaction which addresses how the phenomenon creates individuals’ reality through social interaction.
5. Does Blow believe Robertson’s insensitive comments can be described as a “personal trouble” (i.e., a perspective unique to Robertson and his personal life story) or a “social issue” (i.e., a widely shared perspective, the result of historical and/or social forces? Cite the two places in the article where he clearly states his position on this question.6. Give at least two examples that Blow includes in the article, which contradict Robertson’s comments and/or make his position difficult to believe?7. Consider the data presented in The Southern Divide chart at the end of the article.
- Why do you think Blow included the chart and what jumps out at you?
- Now pick a specific question; then, consider and discuss the difference between black and white respondents.
8. What is another question you could add to this survey? Your question should be directly related to the topic in the article; the denial of racism and discrimination by Phil Robertson.9. Based on your consideration of this article, make two recommendations for future research, new laws, public policies or programs to educate people on this social phenomenon. To get credit, your recommendations must be concrete and specific. For example, “we need to have laws against racism” is far too vague.
- Three conclusions
- Evidence that Blow believes Robertson’s statements lead to human suffering or social disorganization
- How the denial of racism and discrimination lead to human suffering and social disorganization today
- Theoretical perspective
- Personal Trouble vs. Social Issue
- Blow’s evidence to challenge Robertson’s position
- Analysis of survey data presented in the chart
- Another survey question
- Recommendations for research, new laws, policies or programs
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DuckDynastyandQuackery31.docx
‘Duck Dynasty’ and Quackery
New York Times December 20, 2013
I must admit that I’m not a watcher of “Duck Dynasty,” but I’m very much aware of it. I, too, am from Louisiana, and the family on the show lives outside the town of Monroe, which is a little over 50 miles from my hometown. We’re all from the sticks.
So, when I became aware of the homophobic and racially insensitive comments that the patriarch on the show, Phil Robertson, made this week in an interview in GQ magazine , I thought: I know that mind-set.
Robertson’s interview reads as a commentary almost without malice, imbued with a matter-of-fact, this-is-just-the-way-I-see-it kind of Southern folksiness. To me, that is part of the problem. You don’t have to operate with a malicious spirit to do tremendous harm. Insensitivity and ignorance are sufficient. In fact, intolerance that is disarming is the most dangerous kind. It can masquerade as morality.
A&E, which airs “Duck Dynasty,” moved quickly to suspend Robertson, as his comments engaged the political culture wars, with liberals condemning him and conservatives — including Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, a possible presidential candidate — rushing to his defense.
Let me first say that Robertson has a constitutionally protected right to voice his opinion and A&E has a corporate right to decide if his views are consistent with its corporate ethos. No one has a constitutional right to a reality show. I have no opinion on the suspension. That’s A&E’s call.
In fact, I don’t want to focus on the employment repercussions of what Robertson said, but on the content of it. In particular, I want to focus on a passage on race from the interview, in which Robertson says:
“I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once. Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I’m with the blacks, because we’re white trash. We’re going across the field. …They’re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’ — not a word! …Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.”
While this is possible, it is highly improbable. Robertson is 67 years old, born into the Jim Crow South. Only a man blind and naïve to the suffering of others could have existed there and not recognized that there was a rampant culture of violence against blacks, with incidents and signs large and small, at every turn, on full display. Whether he personally saw interpersonal mistreatment of them is irrelevant.
Louisiana helped to establish the architecture for Jim Crow. First, there were the Black Codes that sought to control interactions between blacks and whites and constrain black freedom. The Jim Crow Encyclopedia even points out that in one Louisiana town, Opelousas, “freedmen needed the permission of their employers to enter town.”
Then, in 1890, the State Legislature passed the Separate Car Act, which stipulated that all railway companies in the state “shall provide equal but separate accommodations for the white, and colored races” in their coaches. The landmark Plessy v. Ferguson case was a Louisiana case challenging that law. The United States Supreme Court upheld the law, a ruling that provided the underpinning for state-sponsored racial segregation, and Jim Crow laws spread.
Robertson’s comments conjure the insidious mythology of historical Southern fiction, that of contented slave and benevolent master, of the oppressed and the oppressors gleefully abiding the oppression, happily accepting their wildly variant social stations. This mythology posits that there were two waves of ruination for Southern culture, the Civil War and the civil rights movement, that made blacks get upset and things go downhill.
Robertson’s comments also display a staggering ignorance about the place and meaning of song in African-American suffering. As for the singing of the blues in particular, the jazz musician Amina Claudine Myers points out in an essay that the blues was heard in the late 1800s and “came from the second generation of slaves, Black work songs, shouts and field hollers, which originated from African call-and-response singing.” Work songs, the blues and spirituals were not easily separated.
Furthermore, Robertson doesn’t seem to acknowledge the possibility that black workers he encountered possessed the most minimal social sophistication and survival skills necessary to not confess dissatisfaction to a white person on a cotton farm (no matter how “trashy” that white person might think himself).
It’s impossible to know if Robertson recognizes the historical resonance and logical improbability of his comments. But that’s not an excuse.
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USEFUL NOTES
Functional Structural which addresses how the phenomenon contributes to social integration or stability,
Introduction
Social interactionism, symbolic-interactionism, and structural functionalism all help to explain the connection between people and their culture. They are also used to describe the way in which social systems work together to maintain stability or change.
Social Interactionism which is about interactions among people and how those interactions contribute to larger systems such as culture,
Social interactionism is a perspective in sociology that emphasizes the importance of social interactions in the development of human beings. It is based on the idea that humans are shaped by their interactions with others, and that these interactions have an impact on individuals’ self-concepts, values, beliefs about themselves and others.
Social interactionists view social life as a complex network of relationships between individuals or groups; it includes material resources (such as money), power relations (between individuals or groups), symbolic meanings (e.g., cultural symbols), personal characteristics such as personality traits or attitudes toward gender roles; physical space where we live together; time spent together doing things like eating meals together at home while watching television programs on TV sets inside our homes or interacting with other people outside of the home.
A social exchange perspective focuses on an individual’s need to balance personal gain with the needs of others in their social network. This perspective assumes that individuals are motivated by a desire for rewards, such as material possessions and status within society; more broadly, it suggests that people are primarily motivated by opportunities to achieve goals they set for themselves. Interactionism is a sociological theory that emphasizes the importance of interactions between individuals as opposed to examining them individually or in groups
Symbolic-Interactionism which is about how people form beliefs and meanings that guide their everyday lives.
These beliefs and meanings are influenced by the interactions with others, with the environment, and even themselves. The way we interact with ourselves is important because it influences our ability to make decisions about what we do each day.
The main point of symbolic-interactionism is that there are many different ways for people to interact with one another in society. Each individual has their own unique way of interacting with others based on personal experiences, culture and upbringing (elements which contribute greatly toward shaping cultural identity). The main focus of symbolic-interactionism is on the interactions between individuals in society, and how these interactions are manifested through the use of symbols. The theory seeks to explain how culture can shape people’s actions and behaviors. It focuses on the meaning systems that people use to make sense of their world; how they interpret events and experiences; and how these meanings affect their behavior (i.e., what you do). The theory is based on the idea that people have a natural tendency to view the world through their own unique lens, which is shaped by their personal experiences, culture and upbringing. This approach suggests that each person has a different perception of what it means to be human; therefore, even though people may share similar characteristics or behaviors, they interpret these things differently because of their unique perspective. For example, two people can both be very creative but interpret this trait differently based on how they were raised and what values were instilled in them by their parents—this would mean that their definition of creativity would differ from one another’s even though
Conclusion
In the social sciences, there are three main types of theories that describe how phenomena contribute to social integration or stability. These theories include functional structuralism, symbolic interactionism and social interactionism. Each type addresses how people interact with each other on different levels by examining their interactions in terms of structure, meaning and action.