The Meaning of Difference "Framework Essay"

Brian Bates
Professor Altman
Ethnic Studies

The main statement or thesis of the article that the author is trying to convey to the audience is that is that are four important questions about difference. The questions are how is it constructed, how is it experienced by individuals, how meaning is attributed to difference, and how differences can be bridged.
The author of this article believes that the main source of difference between Americans is the master statuses, which are people’s position in a social structure. The author believes that the master status affects every aspect of people’s lives including their personal identity. They also believe that racial categories are always present in every social process, and are thought to be the real difference that separates everyone. The author uses examples of not only race but also sexual orientation as another large aspect which largely differentiates people from one another. Throughout the article we learn of other ways people are separated through ways of naming, and then there are ways they are brought or lumped together by one generalization of an ethnic background. The use of dichotomizing is also a major focus point of the article, by dividing things two into parts like race, sexual orientation, class, and sex.
During the section of the article my group was assigned to pay extra attention to which was Creating Categories of People. I learned some new important facts of how the government creates and conducts a census of the general population. The census has always counted race since the first one in 1790 so different racial groups were always accounted for in some aspect. The census in 1970 was the first to allow the household to identify which racial/ethnic background in which the family should be identified as, but yet there was no still no identification of people who were from multi-racial backgrounds they could only choose one definitive section in which they could be accounted for. Also many groups like Hispanics, or people who lived in lower income environments were undercounted because they moved a lot and could not be contacted, or non-English speaking citizens. The data collected on race allowed the monitoring of many issues like the Voting Rights Act, equal opportunity employment programs, and racial disparities in health, birth, and death rates. The census also showed the under representation of minority groups in society in 2000 was the first census in which a person could identify themselves as person from more than one descent. Yet there is still an ongoing issue in which gay or lesbian people are highly undercounted, because they are not fully recognized as actual couples.
I personally think that the information in the text brings up valid issues and points that need to be addressed in order for our society to accurately account for all people. I think the country has finally started making steps of progression in the right direction, although they have a long way to go and still need to work on various problems that need to be corrected.