Social Scholarship
As I have matured as a student and a scholar it has become more clear to me
that in today's society with all it's talk of multi-culturalism and melting pot
rhetoric it is blatantly clear that much of the discourse regarding the social
world is rooted in Euro-centric research and ideology. As such, I content that
it is the role of the African American sociologist to shift the center of
analysis from a European focus to one that is inclusive of all people
represented in this society. This can only be achieved by giving voice to those
whose experiences have been traditional marginalized in the discourse concerning
the social world.
A fifteen-year-old girl finds out that she is pregnant.
Although she and her boyfriend have been together since she was thirteen, she is
afraid she will lose him if she tells him. She feels as if she has finally found
someone to love. This man loves her more than the men in her family who sexually
abused her did. He loves her more than her father who is never home. Despite her
fear, and because of that love, she tells him.
He is seventeen and afraid
of fatherhood. After all, he never had a father. What was he going to be able to
impart to the new life he had created? How would he be able to teach a daughter
how to demand respect from a man when he was not certain if respected women? How
would he teach manhood to a son when he was still a boy himself? These questions
and more raged through his head. All of Nevertheless, he knew what he must do.
He would marry her After all, he did love her or so he thought and besides it
was the right thing to do.
This couple bore a son born with mental and
physically disabilities. They became married at the age of sixteen and eighteen.
One year later, they had a second child. The girl quit high school in ninth
grade and the boy joined the military. However, the pressures of life began to
weigh heavily on them and the both turned to drug use. The military would have
none of that and the boy was demoted and stopped using drugs. Unfortunately,
with the pressures of being a wife and mother weighing on her restless soul, the
girl was unable to stop and her use turned into a crippling addiction. After
thirteen years of marriage the boy and girl, know man and woman, divorced. Their
lives changed irreconcilably forever addiction.
Various aspects of this
story play out everyday in families across the country. This story could be
anyone's tale but it is specifically the story of my parents. I have seen and
experienced first hand the detriment that issues of teen pregnancy, drug use,
sexual abuse and disability can have not, only on society as a whole but on
individual families. It has been this exposure that has fueled my intellectual
growth and strengthened my desire to add to the much-needed discourse of the
African American family in Black sociology. Sociology has allowed me to view my
life experiences through a critical scholarly lens. This discipline has allowed
me to see the internal connection between my experiences and the larger social
world. My life has been a testament to the need to have African Americans who
are trained in this discipline and are able to put forth a framework by which to
view our social issues without victim blaming ideologies. It is for this reason
that my interests have been propelled toward African American
sociology.
My experiences as an African American woman has shaped and
molded my philosophies and beliefs about my particular role as a black
sociologist. It has been my experience that each interaction, connection, and
moment in one's life is a brick. The collection of those bricks eventually
builds the houses in which our souls will dwell. As human beings, either we can
place those bricks in a position that yields strength and endurance for this
house or we can place them haphazardly in a formation that does not support or
maintain the house. It is how we decide to build our house that inevitably
determines whether we will live in a mansion or a shack. It is my role as a
sociologist to give society the tools to help its inhabitants build mansions. By
offering research, discourse and possible solutions to the social issues facing
this society I am able to illuminate the multiple experiences of those people
who have for too long been silenced by the hegemonic ideas of the dominant
group. It should the role of all Black sociologist to offer a perspective that
is inclusive of all people simply because we share the experience of at some
time, not being heard. Not only is it my responsibility to enlighten society
about social issues, it is also my duty to help change the world I live in for
the better. Discussion yields no results if no one takes the words and puts
action behind them. Regardless of whether or not we want to be, each of us is a
participant in life. I once read an anonymous quote that stated that there are
three types of people in the world. There are those people who things happen to,
those who make things happen, and those who wonder what happened. If I have the
desire to live in a better world then I must be about the business of creating
that better world.
Teenage pregnancy and teen sexuality have always been
very important issues to me. Consequently, when I was seventeen I became peer
educator with Family Health Councils Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program in
Pittsburgh, PA. I facilitated groups and spoke with teens about abstinence,
safer sex, and sexually transmitted diseases. As this program grew, we went to
various schools and communities and discovered that sexuality was related to
self-esteem, decision making and communication skills. With this knowledge, we
expanded our program to include workshops on these issues. Soon we began
training other teens on how to start programs of their own. Eventually, this
program began reaching teens all over the state and teen pregnancy rates began
to fall. This did not happen because one messiah came and changed the world. It
happened because young people decided that they wanted to make a difference in
their community. This must be the goal of Black sociology or the tree that is
this discipline will bear no fruit.
My role as an African American
sociologist is to change the world around me by offering an intellectual
prowess, a dedicated spirit, and a focus on giving voice to the unheard by
challenging the Euro-centric view of African American life. Anything less is a
disservice to my discipline, my community, and myself.