Simmel and DuBois
Georg Simmel and W.E.B DuBois are both two instrumental sociologist. Simmel and DuBois come from very different backgrounds and countries; Simmel is from Germany, whereas DuBois is an African American man writing in the United States. However, they both touched on the issue of race, one more blatantly than the other. Though they were writing at different times their theories are still prevalent today. In today’s society the issue of race is still evident, let us take a look at some of the controversial issues; the shooting of Trayvon Martin, the shooting of Michael Brown, or just recently December 3rd, to be specific a white New York police officer put a chokehold on an unarmed black man and killed him. It is clear in the video that the African American man was unarmed and he repeatedly…show more content… As DuBois predicted “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line—the relation of the darker to lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea” (DuBois 269). Minorities continue to be separated from their white counterparts because of the color line. It is a continuous struggle between blacks and whites when a white cop injures or kills an African American it immediately becomes a racial spectacle with people picking side usually before hearing all the facts. When a white cop kills an unarmed black man, many blacks see a pattern of prejudice that generates official suspicion, hostility and abuse based on skin color. Some whites, however, according to Steve Chapman, say it's the fault of blacks. If they didn't commit so much crime, they wouldn't get so much attention from police.” Basically Chapman is saying that blacks created the problem and blacks need to solve it. The problem with this argument is that it fails is in its assumption that blacks are complacent about these realities and that whites are
