How do you think your life has been influenced by class, race, and gender stratification.?

Question

How do you think your life has been influenced by class, race, and gender stratification.?

Answer 1

You are asking a question that takes about 5 pages of typed text to answer.  I had a question similar to this on my Social Problem class final exam in college and the answer is not simple. My question to you would be, "have you asked yourself this question"?  Have you answered it?

Answer 2

In lots of rather stupid ways really.  By race I am a Brythonic Celt [Welsh].  Strange how the English seem not to like or trust us, yet half the signatories of the American Declaration of Independence were actually Welsh.  So the small nation of Wales with it's present 3million pop has had a major influence in the world after all.

Therefore the oft expressed English notion that the Welsh have contributed nothing to Western Civilisation is just nonsense.  But, just try explaining it to the English.  You may as well bash your head against a brick wall for all the good it will ever do.

Racism is rife here in UK and I first noticed it when I joined the British Army in 1957 aged 15 [boy soldier].  First the unfounded and unwarranted hatred of the Irish, then more slowly a hatred of black people.  When I was stationed on the Island of Cyprus from 1960-1962 there was a massive amount of race hate expressed by common soldiers of the British Army towards the Cypriot people.

On my demob from the Army in 1965 I moved to London got a job immediately on my arrival and found myself living in a city torn by race conflict.

There are now laws to forbid the race hate of the past but it just does not go away.  I know, because I work with a team of black comrades at work and I know they hurt.  There's nothing I can do about it except never speak ill of others for whatever reason.  Never do it.

I saw Jessie Jackson on TV here in London recently.  He spoke of the need for black folk in America to again go on the march to demand their civil rights.  I am frankly aghast!  Once more the racists have taken over the courts in some American States, where black teens often end up in jail while their white counterparts only get community service, for the self same offence.

There is one big laugh which I can now express to the English and it's about their origins - so far scientifically unknown.  As for my own race, the Welsh, all the DNA tests now being carried out by Oxford Uni are showing that we have a British ancestory going back for about 12,000 years here in UK.

In real terms the only official English are the English aristocracy.  It is they alone who made this country what it is and not the so called common people who live in England.

Although I do not speak Welsh myself, I have discovered quite by chance that in the Welsh language there is no name for England or the English.  It is as if they and their country do not exist.  The Welsh words for England translate from Welsh into Englishto mean "lost land".  That's all there is to it really.

I do not dislike or hate the English but they really do need to get their act together.  They constantly snipe at the Scots and other Celts in Parliament at Westminster as though the UK Parliment were an English Parliament.  Well it is not.  It is the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

Answer 3

Influenced by class: my ethics and how I treat people

influenced by race: my ethics and how others treat me

gender strat: my ethics and how men treat me

Answer 4

My ancestors left the UK in 1638 (actually Ayton, Scotland) due to class stratification & France in 1642 due to religious intollerance. They settled in Virginia & made a new life for themselves & their offspring.  As for race, they were white, thus allowing their offspring (& me) to grow up as members of the privledged class here in the USA.  I am a man, thus adding to both my responsibilities & privledges for most of my life.