Contextualizing Race Relations Through the Lens of Sociological Theory (67418)
Session Chair: Robert Hamilton
Sunday, January 8, 2023 (14:05)
Session: Session 1
Room: Live-Stream E
Presentation Type:Live-Stream Presentation
As educators, we are presented with the challenge of teaching students to engage in critical thinking. The history of race relations in the United States from a sociological approach can be understood utilizing C. Wright Mill's conceptualization of social problems. For Mills, social problems can only be properly analyzed within their historical and social structural contexts, providing a deeper critical understanding than viewing history as a collection of unique events.
This paper focuses on a case study of a young African American killed in Mobile, Alabama in 1981. The police dismissed the incident as a drug deal gone bad, but the victim's mother along with community members and the involvement of leading civil rights activists drew the FBI into the case. Ultimately two members of the Ku Klux Klan were convicted of the killing. This case is about the killing of an innocent victim, but it also illustrates how normative arrangements affect race relations in the United States.
To illustrate the importance of the sociological lens, I examine the applicability of both Scapegoat Theory and Normative Theory as perspectives for critically analyzing this case. I argue that both theories are useful heuristically, but they diverge in their commitment to social structural and historical explanatory factors. Recognizing both the theoretical strengths and weaknesses of these approaches allows us not only a better understanding of race relations, but insight into improving the theories themselves.
Authors:
Mark Beeman, Northern Arizona University, United States
About the Presenter(s)
Professor Mark Beeman is a University Professor/Principal Lecturer at , United States
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