SOCIETY

SOCIETY
American society is a mixture of racial, ethnic, immigrant, or multicultural

neighborhoods, city blocks, and suburbs. Critics of the society generally

agree with political scientist Andrew Hackers conclusion that the country is
increasingly divided into Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile,
and Unequal (1995).

CLASS
Generally, people are optimistic

about their lives and think they

can succeed with hard work and
by their own efforts. In every
decade of the twentieth century
except for the 1930s the
middle class improved its living
standards in terms of material
goods, property ownership, and
discretionary income.

Subjective Social Class Membership

Source: https://
new.edu/resources/social-class-in-the-united-states

CLASS
One problem in grasping what it

is to be middle-class is that
having $200,000 a year while
living in Manhattan and having
$35,000 in rural Iowa amount to
similar material rewards and
quality of life certainly the
house would be much bigger in
Iowa. To have $200,000 in Iowa
would be upper-class.

CLASS
Political theorist Michael Lind

uses the term Overclass to

describe the professional
class of bourgeois managers
and politicians who make
between $60,000 and
$200,000 a year in salaries
and stock options and who
have achieved their status
through education, hard work,
and luck. They live in
suburbia, commute to work,
and support their
communities. They seem to
be running the country and
they are.

RURAL AND URBAN

AMERICA

The real divisions, and they are big, are

between conceptions of self and in

where people live. Americans outside
the megalopolises often criticize the
transformations wrought by the 1960s
countercultural, multicultural, and
feminist movements. They favor a
return to traditional, disciplined, strictly
moral, patriotic, and religious family
values. Urban Americans, in contrast,
are more likely to support real equality
between men and women in families,
to have a looser moral code, to be
uneasy with too many open displays of
patriotism, and to describe themselves
as non-religious. Rural white
Americans tend to vote Republican.
Most urban Americans, especially in
the metropolises along the East and
West coasts, vote Democratic.

RURAL AND URBAN

AMERICA
A recent immigration trend has

immigrants locating in small towns

across the South and West which had
lost populations in past decades as
people moved to the cities. Robert
Putnam sees a loss of community
spirit and a middle class withdrawal
syndrome as Americans go bowling
alone, eschewing traditional bigmembership organizations and
community activities, and spending
their free time within a small circle of
friends and family (Putnam, 2000).d
West which had lost populations in
past decades as people moved to the
cities.

RURAL AND URBAN

AMERICA
The events of 11 September

showed how quickly Americans

can unite behind the myths of
one nation, one people, even if
real class divisions exist.

POVERTY AND AFFLUENCE

Poverty has been

omnipresent in American
history with slaves, poor
whites, and successive
waves of low-paid
immigrant workers working
at whatever jobs they could
find. In the early twentieth
century, social critic Jacob
Riis found that 10 percent
of New Yorkers and 20
percent of Bostonians lived
lives of enormous distress
(Riis, 1901: 191).

POVERTY AND AFFLUENCE

The disparity between rich and

poor has widened since the

1980s as the economic boom
helped the richest group get
astonishingly richer, the middle
class get a little richer, and the
poor get significantly poorer.
Much of this polarization
between rich and poor is due to
the changing nature of work,
with the internet revolution, the
loss of industrial jobs to
countries with cheaper labor
costs, and an increasing
emphasis on a well-educated
workforce.

THE AMERICAN FAMILY

Family dynamics have

changed over the past few

decades due to increasing life
spans and the shift from
three- to four generation
families in which children
have long relationships with
their great-grandparents.

THE AMERICAN FAMILY

In 2000, there were 72 million

families in the United States

and 7 out of 10 Americans say
that being married is better
than being single. But
Americans are also marrying
later and having fewer
children. Sixty-two percent of
US households have only one
or two members and the
average family size is 3.2
people (US Census Bureau,
2002a: 49, 52).

THE AMERICAN FAMILY

Middle-class Americans are torn

between traditional and

modern family models and are
deeply ambivalent about the
one they should construct for
themselves. There is a culture
war inside most individuals
between traditional family
values and contemporary
liberalism. Tradition calls for no
divorce, living near other family
members, children obeying
their parents, women focusing
on domestic duties and
motherhood, and everyone
believing in God.

THE AMERICAN FAMILY

In 1970 over half of American

women had more than three

children; in 1995 only 28
percent did. In 1998, 19
percent of American women
over 40 had not yet had a
child. At the peak of the baby
boom in 1960, each 100
women averaged 365 children:
by 1976, the average was 174.
In 2000 it was up to 205,
primarily credited to Latinas
whose rate was 291 per 100
(Hacker, 2000; US Census
Bureau, 2002a: 74).

THE AMERICAN FAMILY

For the vast majority of

American teenagers, life

outside the family revolves
around school, part-time
jobs, shopping, worrying
about getting into college,
athletics, and friends. Most
teens get drivers licenses
when they are 16 and,
quickly thereafter, a car of
their own. This is especially
the case for suburbanites
with both parents working.

THE AMERICAN FAMILY

Contemporary American families have

new reference points in the lifestyles

they see on television or among their
professional coworkers and bosses. By
trying to emulate these groups, a
family can put its household economy
and personal well-being at risk.
America is and always has been a
culture of desire, but the concept of
need has changed as the must
have items now include cellular
phones, home computers, and the
newest shoes. Parents who lack the
money to provide for the wants of
their children suffer real pain, feel
deprived, and blame themselves for
failing (Schor, 1998: 39).

WOMEN

For at least two centuries,

American women have been a

majority within the nations
population, but, until the last
two decades, they have faced
limited choices in the job
market. Moreover, the
divisions of race, class, marital
status, political philosophy,
and immigration divide women
as much as they do men. In
contemporary America, women
have risen to near-equality in
access to jobs, education, and
aspirations; and yet, nearequality is not equality and
the struggle continues on how
to create a more just society.

WOMEN
Feminists from the 1830s

and 1840s protested this

inequality, but it would take
until 1920 for women to
push through the
Nineteenth Amendment to
win womens suffrage in
national elections. Most of
the gains focused on white
women, with minority
women stigmatized by race.
World War II and the social
revolutions of the 1960s
accelerated womens rise in
the marketplace.

WOMEN
As early as 1923, feminists

believed that to change

things, the country needed
to adopt an Equal Rights
Amendment (ERA): Equality
of rights under law shall not
be denied or abridged by the
United States or by any State
on account of sex. Efforts to
get Congress to consider
such an amendment fell flat
until it was resurrected in
1972, with Congress quickly
passing the ERA and sending
it to the states for
ratification.

WOMEN
Madeleine K. Albright was the first

woman to serve as secretary of state

(19982000) and, in 2001, Condoleezza
Rice became the first woman and second
African American to hold the crucial post
of National Security Advisor (Colin Powell
briefly held this position in the Reagan
Administration). In 2001, more women
than men took university degrees, which
enabled them to enter the workforce at
equal pay with their male counterparts.
Women have reached historic highs in
elected positions. In 2002, 13 women
held US Senate seats including both
senators from Maine, California, and
Washington; 61 held seats in the House
of Representatives; there were hundreds
of female judges; a black woman, Shirley
Franklin, became Atlantas mayor; and
two women served on the US Supreme
Court.

WOMEN

The abortion controversy is a touchstone issue in American politics, dividing

conservatives from liberals. The Court continues to hear cases that ask it to
decide between the constitutional rights of women to control their own
bodies and the rights of society to protect human lives, born or unborn.

WOMEN
But in 2000, when

all the numbers

were added up,
women earned only
about two-thirds of
what men earned,
were twice as likely
to live in poverty,
and were almost
non-existent at the
highest levels of
corporate life.

RACE

America is a society highly

conscious of color, usually in

terms of black and white.
Racial equality remains a
dream deferred.

In one of the most

comprehensive new studies of

race, Stephan and Abigail
Thernstrom argue that racial
preferences are still all too
common in hiring and
promoting, in loaning money
for new homes, in buying
homes in certain
neighborhoods, and in myths
about intelligence and
criminality.

RACE
Before World War II about 87 percent of the

black population was mired in poverty and

uneducated. In contemporary America, 74
percent are above the poverty line, 93
percent of those who are active in the labor
force (working or looking for work) have
found jobs, 75 percent of those above 25
years old have graduated from high school,
16.5 percent have earned bachelors
degrees, 75,000 have doctorates, and
75,000 hold medical, dental, or law
degrees. 1.4 million African American
students are currently enrolled in college
(US Census Bureau, 2002: 41; Thernstrom,
1999: 18). Everyone knows of basketball
superstar Michael Jordan, talk-show queen
Oprah Winfrey, and Secretary of State Colin
Powell, as well as hundreds of musicians
and sports figures. Undoubtedly, things
have changed for the better.

RACE

The legal system is full of

cases alleging discrimination

because of skin color. In
November 2000, in the largest
racial discrimination lawsuit in
American history, the CocaCola company was ordered to
pay $192 million to African
American workers who had
been passed over for
promotions. In 1997, the
Texaco oil company paid out
$176 million for similar
practices (Schafer, 2000).
These cases show that
Americans, through their legal
system, are unwilling to
sanction further discrimination
when it comes to opportunity.

RACE
In the working-class town

of Vallejo, California,
population 116,760, the
2001 population was 30.4
percent white, 24 percent
black, 26.1 percent Asian,
and 16 percent Latino
making it one of the
nations most raciallybalanced cities. Yet,
residents say that there is
little interaction between
groups, except for children
playing together in the
streets.

RACE

Latino and Asian immigrants

have had an easier time

integrating, even though it was
not always so. Both groups
have a long history of
mistreatment by Euro-American
racists. But during the last two
decades, Asian Americans and
Hispanic Americans have leapt
over African Americans: Asian
Americans now command the
highest education levels and
salaries in America surpassing
the median income for whites
by more than $2,000 and
Hispanics have become the
largest minority group (Hacker,
1997: 23).

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Americans rely on legal remedies

to maintain order, equality, and

freedom in a multicultural society.
With more lawyers than any other
nation in the world, Americans use
the court system to settle disputes,
large and small, and put real faith
in the ability of the judges to
ensure that constitutional
guarantees overcome unfair
actions by individuals, groups, the
government, or even the law itself.
The courts follow federal and state
law, the Constitution and decisions
from similar cases, called
precedents, to establish verdicts
and set sentencing.

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Typically, a police officer must

say:

You have the right to remain

silent. If you give up the right to

remain silent, anything you say
can and will be used against you
in a court of law. You have the
right to an attorney and to have
an attorney present during
questioning. If you cannot afford
an attorney, one will be appointed
for you without charge. Do you
understand these rights as I have
explained them to you?

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

The United States has a notoriously high

crime rate and the vitality of the legal

system makes most observers believe
that America has even more crime than it
really does. Nearly every Hollywood movie
revolves around a crime or includes a
crime in the plot; newspapers and
television news shows attract viewers
with the news of one misfortune after
another, knowing that horror sells better
than feel good stories; and television
ratings continue to show that viewers
want to see dramas which let them watch
the courts and police in action. There is a
love affair for violent spectacle.

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

The United States also has

a greater percentage of
people in prison than any
country in the world, with
more people 673,000
put in prison during the
Clinton years than at any
other time in American
history. In contemporary
America, more than two
million prisoners are
behind bars and 6 million
more are on probation and
parole (US Census Bureau,
2002: 200, 202, 294;
Butterfield: 2002).

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

The vast numbers of guns available

throughout society probably increases the

number of violent crimes and undoubtedly
increases the Contemporary America
number of accidental shootings by children,
although opinions range widely concerning
the former. For example, in Cartersville,
Georgia, a town ordinance requires every
family to own a gun and keep it ready to
stop intruders; those without guns are
heavily fined. Burglaries in Cartersville
have dropped to near-zero. The pro-gun
lobby, led by the National Rifle Association
(NRA), continues to use snappy slogans
such as Guns dont kill people; people kill
people! and If guns were outlawed, only
outlaws would have guns! to lobby for
individual, not government, responsibility.

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

The Court continues to interpret

the 2nd Amendment as giving

individuals the constitutional right
to bear firearms for self-defense.
The country grew up with
weaponry, killed the French,
Spanish, British, Indians,
Mexicans, and each other, as it
shot its way westward. There are
presently so many weapons in the
US that they could never be
collected and seem certain to
remain a fixed feature in American
life. In the aftermath of 11
September, Americans purchased
handguns and ammunition in
record numbers, with 1,029,691
new guns bought in the single
month of October 2001 (Baker,
2001).

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

In only one instance, Furman v. Georgia

(1972), did the Supreme Court outlaw

the death penalty by judging it cruel
and unusual punishment prohibited by
the 8th Amendment. At that time, there
had been no execution in the US for five
years. Four years later, the Court
reversed itself and the states began
executing people again . In 2002, there
were more than 3,600 people on death
row awaiting lethal injection,
electrocution, or hanging; the average
time spent awaiting execution averages
twelve years (Amnesty International,
2002).

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

To describe American society, the

cohesion or culture wars in its midst,

and the speed of change due to
large-scale continuing immigration is
a difficult proposition. Inequities in
race, gender, and class abound the
first two categories moving rapidly
toward more equal treatment and the
latter category widening between the
richest and the poorest Americans.
The institutions of education and
religion are highly significant portions
of the story, as are the social
programs put in place by government
to provide for the general welfare of
the citizenry. And, of course, any real
understandings of the workings of
society depend upon acknowledge of
the power of the overarching culture

SOCIETY

The End