The effect of "Social Stratification"

Social Stratification
By:Shanteeca Reid


The year 2012 signifies 300 years since Willie Lynch a plantation owner in the West Indies made his speech about how to control slaves. His theory was to point out the differences that were among them as a people, which would divide them as a people and thus they would never be fully united in order to rebel or up rise against plantation owners. By turning light skin against dark skin, tall against short, domestic slaves against field slaves the plantation owners were able to control the society through social stratification.  

Today our society is still stratified however done a little differently where we are divided by financial status, education, family background, religion, the color of our skins and even politics. Why is it that we (as humans) separate and stratify our society at every given opportunity?

Some people express that social stratification is inevitable and in some ways it is; for example economically and in terms of class as some people will work harder to achieve their goals than others and some people have classy taste while some don’t and this will never change as class is not something you can buy or acquire over night ,it’s just your personal preferences.

Unfortunately those are two of the things that are not readily overlooked today but for other issues like the color of your skin; many of us are still affected daily by the  saying “if your brown stick around, if your white, it’s alright and if your black stay to the back” others define us by  our complexions and not by our qualifications, intelligences or capabilities to do different tasks; also financial status and occupation where the rich is against the poor and nurses are against doctors can be seen as just ignorance on both sides.  

 For any society to function efficiently it will take different types of people to make it flow easier and different roles that we all have to play. Some of these roles may sometimes be doubted as it relates to importance in the society but without someone to play these roles our society would not flow. Imagine a world with vendors and no consumers or a community without garbage men and their trucks to take up our garbage. A man should not be judge by the titles of their jobs but instead by the quality of work that the put out.  

An issue that people have struggled with over the years as well is their identity being tied to their addresses; this is where they are automatically rejected or accepted based on their address. The fact that one lives in an upper class, middle class,  lower class society, country or city does not and should not define you as a person and does not make you more or less capable of carrying out a specific task, popular reggae artist Etana expressed the issues face by this phenomenon in her single “Wrong Address”.

Many agree that this is a poor mentality that we all should grow out of in order to access our full potentials as a people and social stratification and division among each other influences and encourages violence.  Social stratification may be inevitable but we can change the way we view it as it takes all types of people to make our world spin and regardless of our positions or roles in life we are all humans and should be treated as such with equal opportunities and the freedom to make our life decisions without being judged or labeled; and importantly at the end of the day no matter the color of our skins, our lifestyles, professions or address, we are one people.