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Political & Economic Sociology / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Sociology of Culture

Joe the Plumber and Good Ol' American Reductionism

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U67Eg-3jP5k] by PThrelfall Joe the Plumber, the Johnny-come-late hero of the failing McCain-Palin presidential campaign, was a call to Americans to identify themselves, and hence the candidates, using a perspective that assumes that we are what we do.  Moreover, the subliminal message was that we are who we associate with.  In this sense, the campaign was attempting to build their social capital with a particular segment of middle American voters.  Theories of social capital include arduous debates on issues of...

Political & Economic Sociology / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

The Huxtables: America's original first family

by bmckernan Since Barack Obama first announced his candidacy, social commentators have repeatedly wondered if Americans are ready to elect an African-American president. Numerous comedians responded by jokingly pointing out that America has already had a black president, in hit television shows such as 24 and Hollywood blockbusters like Deep Impact (see LA Times article). The success of Barack Obama’s campaign has sent media outlets scrambling to determine what has changed in America, when just days earlier they were interpreting...

Gender & Sexuality / Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Culture

"Pretty" enough to run for office?

A recent psychology study (see below) at Northwestern University reveals that one reason that we look for female political candidates to be “attractive” is due to human instincts for “mate selection.”  The authors of the study assert that these judgements about the attractiveness of a female candidate occur unconsciously, therefore insinuating that a) mate selection is transhistorical and is based on modern standards of attraction, b) mate selection is heteronormatively essentialized and c) male preferences and instincts are human instincts,...

Race & Ethnicity Studies

Assimilative Success

by: brianchung The success and integration of immigrant minority groups in North American labour markets have always been quite futile in comparison to their North-American and European-born counterparts. Recent findings from the 2006 census, released by Statistics Canada, show that the children of Chinese and South Asian immigrants to Canada fare much better over time than children of Blacks, Filipinos and Latin Americans. Second- and third-generation Chinese and Japanese Canadians have surpassed the income of all other groups of newcomers,...