Race-Based Sociological Analysis

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Urbanization is the concentration of communities in a metropolitan dynamic system. In the U.S., cities are often shaped by the racial dynamics within them. In fact, race is often a determining factor that could be used to predict socioeconomic status, access to opportunities, or level of access to education in many communities. This is due to historical, race-based subjugation that is woven into the very fabric of United States infrastructure. Some believe racism is a driving force behind the way urbanization functions in modern society. Others argue racism is merely a consequence of a larger, class-based socioeconomic system. In a racial capitalist system, race cannot be separated from class or location as a main factor in urban design.

Brooke
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Though assimilation is one method of creating a false sense of urban unity, certain populations are strategically barred from social climbing to prevent division among privileged groups. In his analysis, Danztler notes that Black Americans are excluded from Park and Burgess’ idea of unity in an urban landscape. They claim there is a biological factor that prevents people of African descent from becoming functioning members of American urban society. This theory, of course, has since been discredited. Danztler, however, this exclusion functionally remains, even among scholars that might consider themselves progressive. For example, the theory that African Americans’ lack of social mobility is caused by biology has largely been replaced by the inclusion of historical racism and segregation. In other words, Black people were not able to integrate into urban society because they were legally prevented from doing so. This is vastly more factual than Park and Burgess’ idea, but it still promotes the idea of Black people being unable to be integrated into a larger American society. Rather than question the reason all immigrants or those of African descent seemed to be placed at the bottom of an arbitrary socioeconomic hierarchy, the scholars Danztler quote simply look for a legal solution, or state there is none. As Danztler argues, neither of these arguments account for the fact that subjugation of people of color is the reason American society is able to exist as it is. As Neely and Samura argue, capitalism is kept afloat by the maintaining of a lower socioeconomic class. Race is the mechanism used to provide societal benefits to the upper