Ryan Furlow
Argosy University Atlanta
Social Stratification
June 10, 2014 Social Stratification and social mobility are important factors in our personal development. In the current US economic situation, class ranking or social status can be a critical inhibiter to your personal growth as well as gender, age, or ethnicity.
Social mobility and success are important motivators to the people living in a monetary society, without success labels and social stratification work as a deterrent to success. Very few people are able to rise out of the situation they were born into and create different of better situations for them selves. In most situations, those of us born into poverty will more than likely remain so for the duration of their life. The following are personal accounts of two men and their experiences with social stratification during their professional journey.

Chef Larry Powers is the Executive Chef at an Irish Fine Dining Restaurant in Roswell GA, he is 46 and a proud Irishman, from Dublin. Despite his parents immigrating to Georgia from Ireland at age six, Chef Larry remains a proud Irishman.
Chef Larry describes his child hood as normal middle-class environment, three bedroom house two cars and a dog. When questioned about his teen years the Chef was hesitant, he went on to explain that his teen years are what shaped his life. Being an overweight kid, Chef endured teasing and ostracizing from his peers. His only acceptance came as a football player and although he liked being accepted, football did not provide the stimulus his creative side needed. Chef came across a documentary about a restaurant named El Bulli, in Spain, that was home to the most artistic culinary minds in the world and decided then what he wanted to do with his life. Chef Larry went on to express his conflict in generally being interested in creating Art through food, but was hesitant because of social stratification involved in being overweight; “Society has always painted overweight people as glutinous slobs, in my opinion the world did not need another fat Chef.” Despite his misgivings about being another stereotype Chef embraced his role and his passion and really broke out of his shell during college at Atlanta’s Art Institute. After graduating, Chef spent the next 15 years working under various well-known Chefs, polishing his skills while remaining true to his rustic home-cooking Irish way of cooking. The year before his 40th birthday Chef received a job offer from Blue Ribbon Grille to become a Sous Chef and remained so for about five years until receiving a job offer to run his own Kitchen cooking his traditional Irish food at Mac McGees where he plans to stay. When asked if being an Irish white man ultimately helped or hurt his overall growth he stated; being a white guy sometimes you become nameless in interviews you look like everyone else, shirt and tie. It can be harder to separate yourself when everyone is like you. My family was not rich, we were not poor but we didn’t drive Mercedes. No one was helping me get interviews or paying for my college, I was taught not to accept handouts and to work harder than the next man. People only think that being a white guy gives you the keys to the kingdom but that only applies to the 1%, guys like me get crapped on their whole life just to get ahead an inch. After the interview you begin to realize the importance the symbol of success means to the individual person, working for other people no matter how good you are is not as fulfilling as working for yourself. Success did not come with a degree or a job in a famous restaurant, success in his mind came when the menu became his own. The next person interviewed is a native Panamanian shipping Capt. Carlos Humberto Castillo. Captain Castillo is 59 and has been working the Panama shipping canal for 35 years and has worked his way up from mule to captain. The Panama Canal is the only body of water in the world where incoming vessels are surrendered to foreign captains upon arrival at a shipping port. For 100 years, the US controlled the rights to any proceeds made off of the transport and trading through the canal. The Panamanian Government stipulated that all port Captains should possess Panamanian citizenship in order to gain that specific title. Then, in 1999 the Torrijos-Carter treaty is comes to effect, giving control of the canal back to Panama, he distinctly remembers getting a 30% increase in salary over the next three years.
Captain Castillo remembers having to start out as a mule risking his life as a steer, guiding ships throughout the canal. The captain reminisces on having to enroll in the Panamanian Nautical School for 4 years before he could get a job as a mule. Then, he spent another five years as a mule before finally getting promoted to captain. Captain Castillo went on to say; “you have to understand this was and is still a male dominated workforce, we currently do not have any women Captains, so you better know how to speak the language of men.” Early on, Capt. Castillo spoke about his experiences with African American soldiers, canal employees, or servants visiting or residing in Panama. He recalls seeing the limitations their “black” skin gave them within their own community, he noticed a change in the way they walked and talked and was as aware as they were of how their employers and friends perceived them. Yet somehow these men were content with their position as “niggers” and decided then and there that people would take him more serious.
Captain Castillo made a point to be as educated as he could, just because he shared the same skin tone with the other “blacks” he decided there would be a distinction between his family and himself, and the other dark skinned Panamanians or African Americans in the area. Capt. Castillo went on to describe situation were other members of his community looked at him with scorn because he was educating an advancing himself. “Sometimes I caught more hell from my own ethnic community, because I wanted to separate myself and my family from the stigmas involved in receiving educations from the poorer part of town”. Captain Castillo did not want his children to be viewed as inferior just because of their address, education or skin color. “I wanted my kids to have a chance”. Captain Castillo made an effort to be the exact opposite of what everyone expected of a dark skinned person.
Without realizing structural functionalism and social conflict have shaped and molded his existence. The experiences of extreme wealth and poverty helped give a unique perspective on racial stereotypes. Early on he realized the public opinion of anyone with dark skin was negative, in most cases people did not even attempt to distinguish the difference between Latino and African decent. They are all the same seems to be the generally accepted norm about “black people” everywhere you go. Conflicts arise when a man realizes he has an uphill battle and begins to take steps to reverse his position in life through education or in some cases crime.
Interviews can be a very tough way to gain a sociological perspective on a specific situation because people have their own point of view. Personal interpretation helps shape morality, ethics and logic (Brannigan, 2005) so finding and account that is unbiased is going to be hard. A YouTube video shows an elderly woman sitting on a bus with her purse on her lap, throughout the next 30 min three separate people get on the bus sit next to her and get off the bus; a white male 30’s, tee-shirt and jeans (picture John Mayer); 20’s something single mom with a child in tow, and 18 year old pimple face white kid with red hair freckles and glasses. Each of these bus riders sit next to the old lady and she pays them no mind, even engaging the little kid and offering the child a piece of hard candy from her purse. After the last kid with glasses gets off the bus a black guy wearing a black hoodie and baggy pants gets on the bus and takes the seat next to her. Without hesitation she grips her purse tight to her chest and slowly pushes it to her opposite side of her body, away from the black guy. The most interesting thing about this video was her body language; during the other drivers the old lady’s legs were facing the front of the bus never deviating from its original stance. Even during the moment where the child is playing she never moves an inch, the moment the black guy sits next to her she shifts her body weight so that her legs are now facing the window. By placing her back to the guy she eliminates any opportunity for a random conversation, shifting and gripping her purse all in one swift movement. What was it about this guy that made her immediately become tense and defensive?
Stereotypes and stigmas are a part of our daily life. Fat people are supposed to be able to cook, all black people are lazy felons, Jews are good with managing money and white guys have little penises. Each of us will deal with some sort of social stigma during our life, how we react to diversity is what defines our character. Each group of ethnicity has a different social stigma to overcome, whether from innominate existence within the majority, or fighting the stereotype of the “immigrant” and “black person” we all have an issue to overcome.

Reference
Brannigan, c. M. (2005). Ethics Across Cultures. McGraw-Hill Learning Solutions.