Straticfication: As Told by Ted Eastwood & Dr. Pac

Stratification: Division of groups within a society according to classes

To the majority of us attending Westminster College, life must be pretty good. I'm sure we all have our short comings and tribulations (every one does), but compared to others in our society we are doing alright. We are attending a four year university, having adequate living conditions, and our families are probably in the middle or even upper classes; after all tuition is pretty expensive. However, as college students we are expected to broaden our societal gaze and tackle with hard to answer questions; such as are all Americans really equal?

Under our constitution and numerous other bills, in legal terms we are all pretty equal. We all enjoy the possibility of social mobility, but do we all share equal opportunities to do? As of now, the answer my friends is sadly no. There is a silent class "war" going on within our beloved country. In a study conducted by the University of California Santa Cruz in 2007, it was shown that the top 1% of the population own 43% of our nations financial wealth; where as the bottom 80% of the population only hold 7% of the financial wealth. The dynamics of our social classes can be used to explain this.

We get a terrific example of how stratification works from the YouTube film "1957 Social Class in America". In the film, we follow three children's' lives from different social classes in a small town. The first is Gilfrod Ayms, the son of the richest man in town and heir apparent to his families business; he is clearly representing the upper class. Then there is Ted Eastwood, son of a white collar worker and respectively in the middle class. Lastly, there is little David Benton; his father is an unskilled factory worker and he is from a large family, definitely represents the lower class.

As the video progresses, we see the clear differences in classes. First difference is noticed in high school graduation. Gilford's family thinks little of his diploma and focuses more on his continuing education. Ted's family is very happy, but still doesn't dwell on the fact that he received a diploma and pushes him to secure a well paying, white collar-Esq job instead of chasing his dreams. David's family on the other hand has a huge family celebration; David is now one of the most educated people in his family and he will immediately start working to contribute to the family income.

Later in the years, we see how these children's' birth places dictated their role in life. Gilford now runs his fathers company, has a beautiful wife, and lives in luxury. Ted actual has risen past is ascribed status from birth and as gained a higher, achieved status. However, when he comes back to his home town and attempts to "hob-nob" with the elite, they still think of him as middle class because of his family's history. Then we come to David; he still lives in the same town, has a wife, works as a mechanic, and has three children. Through these examples we can see how each class prioritizes what one should do in life, and the invisible barriers that dictate how society will label them. We see that while the middle class has more mobility, they are still relegated to being just middle class because of family background and job occupation. It would appear that ascribed status carries much more influence than ones achieved status. In the lower class, it seems that the cycle is perpetuated from generation to generation; never really being able to rise above their meager means.

Can these social classes actually live like this in piece? According to Karl Marx and other Conflict theorists, an uprising of the proletariat (working class) is inevitable. In the US while the rich continue to get richer, the lower class's chances for mobility are hindered by numerous amounts of societal road blocks, their low status is retained, and perpetuated poverty is the result. Only the lower classes population, not there finances, seem to grow. My man Tupac Shakur, famous rapper and self-proclaimed Doctor of sociology, laid out the situation of the lower class in an easy-to-follow example of food. He talks of a hypothetical building that has food. At first, you may see people out front asking for donations. If the population of the hungry continues to grow, more aggressive tactics are utilized. People start chanting "Please give us food" and singing "we are hungry. gives us food". As the problem of hunger continues to go unanswered, the crowd outside begins to threaten those inside. Finally, as the problem is further ignored, we see people breaking in to the building and stealing food.

If you replace the word "food" with "money", does this not depict the problem of poverty and crime in our country? We have for so long focused on other societal problems that we have allowed the poverty rate in the US to explode and many conflicts (especially concerning race) to materialize as well. A line from Tupac's song "Changes" says this perfectly, "Instead of a war on poverty, they got a war on drugs so the police can bother me. And i ain't never did a crime I didn't have to do..." As the rate of poverty and joblessness continues to build, so does the amount of crime. Crime that can be averted if there were systems in place to assure that we all can provide for our families. While we have welfare and other institutions in place to help those less fortunate, there are many institutionalized forms of discrimination still in existence that hinder progression. Not only members of minority groups, but women as well are frequently passed over for employment by organizations; who in turn hire a white male applicant. It is hard to write laws against these types of practices because instead of overt discrimination, we have to deal with a faceless form; one with no clear perpetrator.

So are we doomed to a revolution as Marx as described? I believe that we are not IF action is taken immediately in order to counter act all these years of neglect that the poverty problem has received. Without more attention being given to this stratification problem, we will continue down this path of inequality. This is not the American way and it sure is not the reason why so many have given their lives in defending our countries ideals. We all as Americans are in this together and if we all do not stand up for what is clearly morally right (regardless of class standing), then we indeed have a dark future ahead of us.