Exploring the Architecture of Everyday Life
Fourth Edition David Newman - DePauw University

 

There are three Parts I, II and III. There are 14 Chapters.

Part I- The Individual and Society chapters 1-2

Part II - The Construction of Self and Society Chapters 3- 8

Part III - Social Structure, Institutions, and Everyday life Chapters 9-14. Includes Stratification of Society Social class and Inequality, Chapter 11 Architecture of Inequality- Race and Ethnicity, as well as Sex and Gender, Demographic Dynamics and finally Chapter 14 [for dreamers and doers my words. VM] entitled, Architects of change- reconstructing society. I began to recall what I had learned about the arduous journey and dangerous challenges, demanding tasks and exhilarating possibilities faced by Architects of Change. Mahatma Gandhiji lovingly referred to as Bapu offered us these insights: Policy Screening Test.

• Before you do anything, stop and recall the face of the poorest, most helpless destitute person you have seen and ask yourself this, “Is what I am about to do going to help him.”
• “My notion of democracy is that under it the weakest shall have the same opportunities as the strongest…No country in the world today shows any but patronizing regard for the weak...True democracy cannot be worked by twenty men sitting at the center. It has to be worked from below, by the people of every village.”
• Even if you are a minority of one, the Truth is the Truth.

 

Chapter 11 covers Race and Ethnicity: More Than Just Biology, -Histories of Oppression and Inequality, - Racial and Ethnic Relations, - Global Perspectives on Racism.

Affirmative Action: Program designed to seek out members of minority groups for positions from which they had previously been excluded, thereby seeking to overcome institutional racism.

Colorism: Skin color prejudice within an ethno-racial group, most notably between light-skinned and dark-skinned Blacks.

Discrimination: Unfair treatment of people based on some social characteristic, such as race, ethnicity, or sex.

Ethnicity: Sense of community that derives from the cultural heritage shared by a category of people with common ancestry.

Institutional Racism: Laws, customs, and practices that systematically reflect and produce racial and ethnic inequalities in a society, whether or not the individuals maintaining these laws, customs, and practices have racist intentions.

Pan-ethnic Labels: General terms applied to diverse subgroups that are assumed to have something in common.

Personal Racism: Individual expression of racist attitudes or behaviors.

Prejudice: Rigidly held, unfavorable attitudes, beliefs, and feelings about members of a different group, based on a social characteristic such as race, ethnicity, or gender.

Quiet Racism: Form of racism expressed subtly and indirectly through feelings of discomfort, uneasiness, and fear, which motivate avoidance rather that blatant discrimination.

Race: Category of people labeled and treated as similar because of some common biological traits, such as skin color, texture of hair, and shape of eyes. [It is a sociological and legal category- there is only one biological entity Homo-sapiens- represented by the human race.]

Racial Transparency: Tendency for the race of a society's majority to be so obvious, normative, and unremarkable that it becomes, for all intents and purposes, invisible.

Racism: Belief that humans are subdivided into distinct groups that are different in their social behavior and innate capabilities and the can be ranked as superior or inferior.

Stereotype: Overgeneralized belief that a certain trait, behavior, or attitude characterizes all members of some identifiable group.

Personal reflections: Velandy Manohar, MD

Perusing this Book, I began to recall what I had learned about the arduous journey and dangerous challenges, demanding tasks and exhilarating possibilities faced by Architects of Change. Mahatma Gandhiji lovingly referred to as Bapu offered us these insights: Policy Screening Test.

• Before you do anything, stop and recall the face of the poorest, most helpless destitute person you have seen and ask yourself this, “Is what I am about to do going to help him.”
• “My notion of democracy is that under it the weakest shall have the same opportunities as the strongest…No country in the world today shows any but patronizing regard for the weak...True democracy cannot be worked by twenty men sitting at the center. It has to be worked from below, by the people of every village.”
• Even if you are a minority of one, the Truth is the Truth.

Nobelist Rabindranath Tagore affectionately and respectfully referred to as Rabi Thakur Ji offered these precepts,

“Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.”

“Civilization must be judged and prized, not by the amount of power it has developed, but by how much it has evolved and given expression to, by its laws and institutions, the love of humanity.”

“When we define a man by the market value of the service we can expect of him, we know him imperfectly.”

Nobelist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. our revered, martyred brother taught u, “…the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” I offer you the historical context to add meaning and emotional content. The following eloquent and heartbreaking, compelling and evocative expressions of outrage and pain preceded the answer to the question “How Long?

“I know you are asking today: "How long will it take?" Somebody's asking: "How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright-eyed Wisdom from her sacred throne?" Somebody's asking: "When will wounded Justice, lying prostrate on the streets of Selma and Birmingham and communities all over the South, be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men?" Somebody's asking: "When will the radiant star of hope be plunged against the nocturnal bosom of this lonely night, plucked from weary souls with chains of fear and the manacles of death? How long will Justice be crucified, and Truth bear it?"

                Dr. King then answered this question many times, beginning with the basic "it will not be long," and building to the most famous quotation from this speech: How long? Not long…the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Brother Martin’s “Our God is marching on” speech at the conclusion of the March from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama, March 26, 1965

In his Memphis TN speech, on April 3,1968 the day before he was assassinated.

“Now, let me say as I move to my conclusion that we've got to give ourselves to this struggle until the end.”

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now.  Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.