The Stratification Implication

I have been marinating on the far reaching implications of social stratification. Social stratification is a many layered like an onion and complicated issue to grapple with that seems to reach every aspect of a person’s life. In class we learned that social stratification is the ranking of different categories of people in society based on their control or access to the social resources that exist. That’s a very big mouth full just to say that everyone is judged all their lives and those that have power are the ones doing the judging. This is very frightening to me. I have always felt like in life I have had a freedom of chooses but this implies that some of my “choices” were very limited based on my inability to access resources that were not available to me. Life chances have such a profound effect on all people. What is sad to me is that some people born with the silver spoon in their mouths never can understand what it is like for others to be hungry. Hunger is not something you can read about to understand it something that can make you weak and tired or spur you to try to do better when you are older. Food scarcity issues for the have nots can last a lifetime. The ascribed statuses we were born into seem to have a big affect on how society views us and what we are expected to do with these labels. Labels are society’s way of trying to understand and name what other people are instead of who people are. These labels are hard to overcome. As a child I was labeled a whole list of bad things. For a long time I tried to prove them all right which was not healthy and or good for my soul. The rebel in me decided that I was not those things and never could be so I decided “I’s going be a lady someday but I didn’t know when or how.” I have worked very hard to be a better person. This is a source of pride to me because trust me when I say I have come a very long way. Some people never get the chance or even realize they can be something besides what they have been labeled. They use this as a negative self-fulfilling prophecy. This is a horrible trap for so many of society to be in. The world to some can be a plentiful garden while others can barely get a carrot to come up saying “as long as I live neither me or any of my kin shall go hungry again.” When you stand back from the big ole stinky layered onion of social stratification you realize how this part of society can definitely hinder the have nots in society. The implication of social stratification is that it is a perpetual garden that is in constant motion with little or no help from individuals but seems to spur the masses on to furthering the same cycle of stagnation. The rebel in me wants to brake this moldy onion up and plant something new to help make everyone’s life better because somehow we have to make society a better place for future generations.