Sociology and Me

There are many ways my thought process changed due to sociology. I used to think of race as a scientific fact, how could I not when history books were using it all the time with words like "racism" and "race riots". But now when I see that word written I stop myself and think about the fact that it isn’t true at all. It’s just another word people use to emotionally distance themselves from others. This emotional distancing eventually leads to physical distancing, which is why we expect certain people in certain areas. We are trained to think about poverty in such strict ways that it makes no sense to think any differently. Which is why when I volunteered sat a resale shop I had expectations for who would walk through the door but that is wrong. We are so trained to think that only homeless people are poor but it’s often families that have a house and where the parents work that just don’t have enough money to pay for the basic necessities of life. We usually just assume that if you have a job you make enough money but that is rarely the case. So many people work at minimum wage jobs that these expectations are absolutely ridiculous. An idea I would never have understood if we hadn’t had an entire two weeks devoted to the idea of poverty in the United States.