Sociology of White Supremacy Groups/Proud Boys

Last night at the debate, the President refused to condemn white supremacy when asked directly by the moderator, Chris Wallace.  The exchange is here at NPR,

WALLACE: You have repeatedly criticized the vice president for not specifically calling out antifa and other left-wing extremist groups. But are you willing, tonight, to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities as we saw in Kenosha and as we've seen in Portland? Are you prepared to specifically do that?
TRUMP: Sure, I'm prepared to do that. But I would say almost everything I see is from the left wing, not from the right wing. If you look, I'm willing to do anything. I want to see peace.
WALLACE: Then do it, sir.
BIDEN: Do it. Say it.
TRUMP: You want to call them? What do you want to call them? Give me a name, give me a name, go ahead — who would you like me to condemn?
WALLACE: White supremacists, white supremacists and right-wing militia.
TRUMP: Proud Boys, stand back and stand by. But I'll tell you what: Somebody's got to do something about antifa and the left. Because this is not a right-wing problem — this is a left-wing problem.

Obviously, people can choose to vote for whomever they would like, but let me be clear about this lesson, there are three relevant reasons to examine this:

I care about you all as students and people.  I do not want you to get wrapped up in a dangerous and violent group like the Proud Boys or other white supremacist organizations, but 2019 was a third straight year in a row that recruiting for white supremacy groups was up.  The ADL reports here,

The 2019 spring semester saw more extremist propaganda on campus than any preceding semester, with 161 incidents on 122 different campuses across 33 states and the District of Columbia. For the complete academic year, California had the most incidents with 58, followed by Kentucky with 22 and Oklahoma with 19.

Additionally, I care about the United States of America.  There are very real threats to our country and to democracy and equality, as you will see below in the section titled, "Why is white nationalism dangerous?"

Sociologically, there is general research about white supremacy and specific research about Proud Boys.  Also, this is an excellent example of ingroups and outgroup homogeneity (Unit 2) as well as the importance of language, shared meaning and culture (Unit 3).

White Supremacy Groups/Proud Boys

Who are Proud Boys?

Sociologist Peter Simi explains here the conclusions of his research about who is likely to join a white supremacy organization.

Vox reporting about Proud Boys

Southern Poverty Law Center about Proud Boys

...rank-and-file Proud Boys and leaders regularly spout white nationalist memes and maintain affiliations with known extremists. They are known for anti-Muslim and misogynistic rhetoric. Proud Boys have appeared alongside other hate groups at extremist gatherings like the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville. Indeed, former Proud Boys member Jason Kessler helped to organize the event, which brought together Klansmen, antisemites, Southern racists, and militias.

Charlottesville and white supremacy
Kessler organized the 2017 protest in Charlottesville, VA when white supremacists turned out to intimidate officials, denounce Jews and threaten public order.  Here is a video from Vice showing it:


Anti-Defamation League about Proud Boys

Misogynistic, Islamophobic, transphobic and anti-immigration. Some members espouse white supremacist and anti-Semitic ideologies and/or engage with white supremacist groups.

 American Swastika on Amazon, A sociological monograph by Peter Simi and Robert Futrell about the white power movement.  From Amazon:

American Swastika takes readers through hidden enclaves of hate in America, exploring how White Supremacy movements thrive nationwide, even as the country on the surface advocates racial equality. The authors explain the difference between movements such as the KKK, the Aryan Nation, and Skinheads, among others, then discuss the various ways White Supremacists cultivate, maintain, and spread their beliefs, largely under the radar of most Americans.

Authors Pete Simi and Robert Futrell draw on over a decade of research and interviews, from the infamous Hayden Lake Aryan compound in Northern Idaho, to private homes in L.A., to hate music concerts around the country. Through descriptive case studies, the authors look at hate in the home, talking with parents who aim to raise "little Hitler" and discussing the impact home schooling and cultural isolation can have on children. The authors also describe Aryan crash pads, Bible studies, and rituals, take readers through the hate music scene from underground bars to massive rallies, and examine how the internet has shaped communication and created disturbing new virtual communities.

American Swastika shows how White Power groups sustain themselves and grow, even in a nation that preaches equality and tolerance, and looks toward how we can work to prevent future violence.

Contexts bibliography of research about white supremacy.

Symbols of hate database from the Anti-Defamation League

The Importance of Symbols and Shared Meaning

More about white supremacy from The Society Pages:

...sociologists have continued to track how more traditional white supremacists have evolved alongside changing social backdrops and history. These scholars have documented how white supremacist movements in the 21st century have been shaped by whites’ perceptions of victimhood following increased immigration, globalization, and diversity in America:

• Jackie Hogan and Kristin Haltinner. 2015. “Floods, Invaders, and Parasites: Immigration Threat Narratives and Right-Wing Populism in the USA, UK and Australia.” Journal of Intercultural Studies 36(5): 520-543.
• Rory McVeigh. 2009. The Rise of the Ku Klux Klan: Right-Wing Movements and National Politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
• Pete Simi, Kathleen Blee, Matthew DeMichele, and Steven Windisch. 2017. “Addicted to Hate: Identity Residual among Former White Supremacists.” American Sociological Review 1-21.

Why is White Supremacy in the Mainstream?

Sociology Literacy:  Importance of Language and Shared Meaning

the [un]surprising alt-right from Contexts Magazine

Robert Futrell is a sociologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Pete Simi is a sociologist at Chapman University. 

The night that Barack Obama was elected President in 2008, the White supremacist web forum Stormfront lit up with posts about racial extremists’ fantastical visions of violence to combat “White racial genocide.” On election night 2016, Stormfront lit up again as White supremacists expressed triumph with Donald Trump’s victory. They celebrated: “We finally have one of us in the White House again!”

Since the election, observers have tried to explain the sudden rise of the so-called alt-right, but to those who track the far right, there’s nothing sudden about it. Long before election night, White supremacists had become savvy at outwardly masking their real beliefs and intentions while most wrote them off as politically innocuous wackos. Having bided their time, they are reemerging to try to capitalize on a racially recharged political climate.

The collective surprise at White supremacists’ arrival on the national stage reflects a lack of attention to the varied and persistent forms of racial extremism that have long simmered in America. Since their heyday in the mid-1920s through the Civil Rights era, white-hooded Ku Klux Klansmen have stood as the timeworn face of White supremacy. In the 1980s, neo-Nazi skinheads fused a racist ideology and a punk youth aesthetic with visions of a global Aryan movement. Their militant public displays drew new attention, along with strong challenges from authorities and anti-racist groups.

Facing a mainstream culture that vilified racial extremism, White supremacists gradually withdrew from most public forms of activism. Movement leaders told their followers to avoid repression by limiting overt displays of their allegiance. Thus, many racial extremists began living double lives: they covered their racist tattoos, grew out their hair, hid extremist insignia, and outwardly projected an image that concealed their beliefs. Leaders also encouraged them to infiltrate institutions to secure influence. For instance, the FBI has watched White supremacists quietly maintain an active presence in police departments and other law enforcement agencies, while others nurtured their hatred in seemingly benign, everyday settings such as family homes, Bible study meetings, and local bars. They found sanctuary on the Internet, embracing concealment as a savvy survival strategy. As leaders advocated lone-wolf attacks to spark a “race war,” White supremacist activism morphed into a mostly veiled struggle to withstand integrationist forces.

Some racial extremists also worked to reframe their rhetoric to appeal to mainstream conservative Whites. To neutralize the public stigma associated with White supremacy, they recast racial and anti-Semitic hatred as “White heritage preservation,” “White nationalism,” and, most recently, “the alt-right.” This sanitized “white-collar supremacy,” as religious historian Kelly J. Baker calls it, casts Whites as minority victims facing reverse discrimination. Their rebranded White supremacy aligns with broader populist conspiratorial anxieties about demographic change, immigration, and governmental overreach pushed by far-right pundits and networks of militia, sovereign citizens, nativists, Patriots, Tea Partiers, Oathkeepers, and Birthers.

We must be clear: White supremacists beliefs have not changed. They only hope to create a softer veneer for their virulent racial and anti-Semitic hate. As the ADL notes, the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement, recently declared a ban on the swastika as a cosmetic overhaul intended to rebrand their look, draw in patriotic White Americans, and secure political power. These efforts are nothing more than a ploy to disguise the worst form of racial extremism.

We must also come to terms with the very real dangers racial extremism poses. For generations, White supremacy has spawned terror. Lone wolves like Dylan Roof lash out, believing they can save White America. For his part, Roof was directly inspired by the Council of Conservative Citizens’ “cleaned up” and rebranded White nationalism, which many observers thought would not motivate violence. The post-election wave of racial and ethnically charged crimes reflects a new boldness among racists and anti-Semites. But, if they do not attain the political power they feel entitled to during Trump’s presidency, we may still reasonably fear more extreme violence from those frustrated by the limits of institutional politics.

Sociology Literacy:  Ingroups and Outgroups

the algorithmic rise of the “alt-right” by Jessie Daniels in Contexts (winter 2018)

There are two strands of conventional wisdom unfolding in popular accounts of the rise of the alt-right. One says that what’s really happening can be attributed to a crisis in White identity: the alt-right is simply a manifestation of the angry White male who has status anxiety about his declining social power. Others contend that the alt-right is an unfortunate eddy in the vast ocean of Internet culture. Related to this is the idea that polarization, exacerbated by filter bubbles, has facilitated the spread of Internet memes and fake news promulgated by the alt-right. While the first explanation tends to ignore the influence of the Internet, the second dismisses the importance of White nationalism.  I contend that we have to understand both at the same time.

A Sociological Investigation of #NoWanks from The Cut
Sarah Diefendorf, a sociologist and Scholars Strategy Network postdoctoral fellow at the University of Utah finds that membership in Proud Boys and other white nationalist groups is tied to gender;  males are reacting to their decreasing status by trying to claim ownership over women and their bodies. 

But note the language under the stipulations for the group’s fourth degree of membership: “engaging in a major conflict for the cause.” It’s a little unclear what that cause actually is, but this line on the Proud Boys USA homepage gives us a clue: “I Am A Western Chauvinist And I Refuse To Apologize For Creating The Modern World.” Though the Proud Boys claim to be open to all races and sexualities, and even seem to draw the rare non-white, non-straight member, they have attracted the attention of the Southern Poverty Law Center, who cite concerns over the group’s fondness for white nationalist memes, as well as their anti-Muslim and misogynist rhetoric. 

If we look at these groups in the aggregate, we see something they all have in common,” Diefendorf says. “They are all talking about their relationships to sex and sexuality, and approaching those questions differently. But what they all have in common is their understanding of women.”

And that understanding, Diefendorf explains, involves a virulent sense of ownership over women’s bodies, combined with a feeling that they’re “losing power or control.” MGTOWs feel they’ve lost a gender war, and their revenge (?) is to remove themselves from the dating pool. Incels blame women for not giving them what they “deserve” (sex), and at least some of them believe violence is the right response. The Proud Boys, Diefendorf added, also feel an acute loss of power, but instead of bowing out or advocating “sex redistribution” like Incels and their sympathizers, their response is to focus on family and fatherhood.

“However,” she adds, “they believe in this gender essentialism and biological determinism that men and women have separate roles to fulfill, and that women have been taking over men’s roles. They believe that everyone — both men and women — are unhappy because of this, that women will be happier in the home. And that as men they should be in control over these women, provide for them, and be the ones in the workforce...

Why Is White Nationalism Dangerous?

Why Study White Supremacist Terror? A Research Note
Pete Simi publishing in the sociology journal of Deviant Behavior

This article discusses how the current neglect of white supremacist violence impedes the development of terrorism scholarship. The decentralized organization of contemporary white supremacists is often confused with disorganization that has led some observers to claim that white supremacist terror (WST) poses a relatively benign threat and is essentially irrelevant. In contrast, I argue that white supremacist violence is part of a broader social movement strategy. Lastly, I discuss how four hot-button issues may contribute to a new large-scale wave of WST.

Politico reported that on Sept. 4 2020,

White supremacists present the gravest terror threat to the United States, according to a draft report from the Department of Homeland Security....None of the drafts POLITICO reviewed referred to a threat from Antifa, the loose cohort of militant left-leaning agitators who senior Trump administration officials have described as domestic terrorists. Two of the drafts refer to extremists trying to exploit the “social grievances” driving lawful protests....All three documents note that 2019 was the most deadly year for domestic violent extremists since the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995.

2019 the Deadliest Year for Domestic Terrorism in the U.S. from Voice of America.  

And NPR coverage here.

More Than 175 Killed Worldwide in Last Eight Years in White-nationalist  Led Attacks, from the Guardian

In the past eight years, more than 175 people around the world have been killed in at least 16 high-profile attacks motivated, or apparently motivated, by white nationalist conspiracy theories, including the far-right racist belief that nonwhite immigrants and refugees are “invaders” who pose an existential threat to the white race.

Documents: White supremacists wanted rally to start civil war from the Associated Press

A hidden camera captured members of a white supremacist group expressing hope that violence at a gun rights rally in Virginia this week could start a civil war, federal prosecutors said in a court filing Tuesday.

White and far-right extremists kill more cops, but FBI tracks black extremists more closely, many worry

BY KATE IRBY

 JANUARY 24, 2018

"White supremacist and other far-right extremist groups have killed 51 police officers since 1990, according to a report published by the Anti-Defamation League last week. Left-wing extremist groups, including black nationalists, killed 11 during the same period.

In 2017 alone, black nationalists and other leftists killed no police, while white supremacists and anti-government extremists fatally attacked a police officer and two corrections officers, the report said."

In 2005, the Southern Poverty Law Center published “End of Watch: 15 Law Enforcement Officers Murdered by Domestic Extremists Since the Oklahoma City Bombing,” an article that detailed the tragic deaths of 15 law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty during violent confrontations with domestic extremists in the 10 years since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Since the publication of that article, an additional 40 law enforcement officers have been murdered by domestic extremists, a significant increase. The deadliest year was 2016, in which eight officers were murdered, followed by 2009, with seven deaths. Individuals who were either members of white supremacist groups or who subscribed to white nationalism were responsible for nine deaths, as were individuals who held antigovernment beliefs... neo-Nazi prison gangs (7), sovereign citizens (6)

From the NY Times, Law Enforcement failed to See the Threat of White Nationalism,

White supremacists and other far-right extremists have killed far more people since Sept. 11, 2001, than any other category of domestic extremist. The Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism has reported that 71 percent of the extremist-related fatalities in the United States between 2008 and 2017 were committed by members of the far right or white-supremacist movements.

June 8, 2014:  Assassination of Las Vegas Police

Jerad and Amanda Miller, a married couple who are white and American citizens, scouted a diner in Las Vegas.  When they observed two police officers eating there, they fatally assassinated one officer in the back of the head with a handgun, then shot the other in the throat. Both Millers then killed the second officer by shooting him multiple times after he attempted to fire back.^[10] Afterwards, they dragged the officers' bodies out of their booth and covered one with a yellow Gadsden flag and a swastika. They pinned a note on the other body, which read: "This is the beginning of the revolution." They also stole both officers' guns and ammunition. During the restaurant shooting, the Millers loudly declared to other patrons that it happened to be the start of "a revolution".

American Hate book by Arjun Singh Sethi.

In American Hate: Survivors Speak Out, Arjun Singh Sethi, a community activist and civil rights lawyer, chronicles the stories of individuals affected by hate. In a series of powerful, unfiltered testimonials, survivors tell their stories in their own words and describe how the bigoted rhetoric and policies of the Trump administration have intensified bullying, discrimination, and even violence toward them and their communities.

We hear from the family of Khalid Jabara, who was murdered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in August 2016 by a man who had previously harassed and threatened them because they were Arab American. Sethi brings us the story of Jeanette Vizguerra, an undocumented mother of four who took sanctuary in a Denver church in February 2017 because she feared deportation under Trump’s cruel immigration enforcement regime. Sethi interviews Taylor Dumpson, a young black woman who was elected student body president at American University only to find nooses hanging across campus on her first day in office. We hear from many more people impacted by the Trump administration, including Native, black, Arab, Latinx, South Asian, Southeast Asian, Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, undocumented, refugee, transgender, queer, and people with disabilities.

A necessary book for these times, American Hate explores this tragic moment in U.S. history by empowering survivors whose voices white supremacists and right-wing populist movements have tried to silence. It also provides ideas and practices for resistance that all of us can take to combat hate both now and in the future.

White Supremacist Links to Law Enforcement Are an Urgent Concern

From the Brennan Center Michael German, an FBI agent who infiltrated white supremacists. 

Too many local police don’t take the far right seriously — or they actively sympathize with them. For decades, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has routinely warned its agents that the white supremacist and far-right militant groups it investigates often have links to law enforcement. Yet the justice department has no national strategy designed to protect the communities policed by these dangerously compromised law enforcers.

Watch what happened when CNN went to Proud Boys rally
CNN's Elle Reeve spent time with the Proud Boys, a far-right group, during a rally in Portland, Oregon. Hear what they have to say about their beliefs and reputation of being violent.  On CNN.


Other associated worrisome groups

Boogaloos from the BBC

Boogaloo refers to armed conflict with authorities, something akin to a second US Civil War.

Relatively small on 4chan in its early days, the movement has since considerably grown in size, notably helped by dozens of Facebook groups and pages with tens of thousands of members and followers. In order to evade Facebook restrictions on the word "Boogaloo", alternate terms like "Big Igloo", "Boog" and "Big Luau" are also frequently used.

Like other online movements born out of 4chan, Boogaloo Bois are steeped in the vernacular of internet memes and in-jokes.

Who Are Antifa?  From the Anti-defamation League

From the Guardian, Anti-fascists linked to zero murders in the U.S. in 25 years

A new database of nearly 900 politically motivated attacks and plots in the United States since 1994 includes just one attack staged by an anti-fascist that led to fatalities. In that case, the single person killed was the perpetrator.

White supremacists or anti-police libertarians? What we know about the 'boogaloo'

 

Read more

Over the same time period, American white supremacists and other rightwing extremists have carried out attacks that left at least 329 victims dead, according to the database.

From The Center for Strategic and International Studies,

The threat from Antifa and other far-left networks is relatively small in the United States.

From Reuters, Explainer: Who are Antifa, the 'boogaloo' movement and others blamed in U.S. protest violence?

Culture as a Fishbowl: Lesson 2 Social Structure

We watched the documentary babies to illustrate that babies are born into a distinct culture.  That culture starts influencing them even before they are born:  in utero infants are impacted by the stress that the mother feels as well as her nutrition, and prenatal care.  All of these are related to culture.  And then the baby is born into a world where it is surrounded by culture - much like a fish is surrounded by water in a fishbowl.  This graphic organizer which compares culture to a fishbowl helps to illustrate the importance and many aspects of culture.

Culture as a fishbowl

Material Culture
A metaphor for culture is a fishbowl.  All of the stuff in the fishbowl is material culture.  Material culture is all of the things of a group of people that have a shared meaning between them.  Often the material culture represents more thsn what you can see.  What is an example of material culture that you saw in the movie?

Google Form For today.

1.  Stop and look at the rest of the class on zoom.  What is something you see in someone else's home that you can name?  Why is it there?  Does it represent anything we can't see?  If you can make meaning of this item using these questions then it holds cultural significance.

Nonmaterial Culture

But what you can't see (the water) is just as important (if not more so): the ph value of the water, the temperature, whether it is salty or not, etc... The aspects of culture that are not tangible are called nonmaterial culture.  These aspects include the shared meaning of gestures, language/words, behavior, expectations, values.  What is an example of nonmaterial culture that you saw in the movie?

2.  What is an example of nonmaterial culture right now? (i.e. a gesture, word/phrase, behavior, expectation, or value that has shared meaning)

The Importance of Culture

Besides illustrating material and nonmaterial culture, in the fishbowl metaphor, the fish has never known life out of water just like we have been surrounded by culture from the moment we are born.  Additionally, the fish must look through the water to see the world just as we always look through our culture to understand the world.  We are limited and shaped by our cultural experiences. If the water in the bowl is blue then the whole world looks blue to the fish.  

3.  What culture or cultures do you feel a part of?  Can you identify examples of material and nonmaterial culture from your culture? 




Growing up in a fishbowl

So, humans are born into a world surrounded by culture.  But they are also born helpless and, I would argue, without consciousness.  Babies cannot take care of themselves.  They have no awareness of the world around them.  However, humans are wired to connect with others - even babies.  It is in our nature.  This connection is what helps us survive and become aware of both culture and our self.  Our consciousness, our awareness, can only be achieved through the nurture and love of other humans.  To put it another way, our nature is to be nurtured.  

For more proof on how we are made to be social, checkout this link to see a story on 60 minutes about how we have an ability to interpret and remember human faces. So we are made to interact with other people and it is through other people that we become human and that we develop our potential. The process of this influence in sociology is called "socialization."

Continue to next lesson, click here.

The Individual and Society: Lesson 1 Nature and Nurture

The Individual and Society:  Nature and Nurture

As we have learned, sociologists study the influence of society on individuals.  This unit will explore the ways that sociologists have researched this influence and some of the conclusions that they have come to.  

In order to know how individuals are influenced by society, let's examine what an individual is before society is able to influence that person.  In other words, when humans are born into the world, what are we before society can influence us?  The influence of society on an individual is what sociologists call socialization.  One way to examine this is to study babies.  In our class, we are going to do a qualitative, cross-cultural examination of babies using the 2010 documentary called, Babies.

Socialization before birth

Before babies are even born, I would argue that they are being influenced.  Desmond Tutu once said that "A solitary individual is not possible.  We come into this world because a community of people came together."  Even before birth, a baby is dependent on its parents for its genes.  And then, it depends on its mother to make the baby's life viable; A prenatal infant can be impacted by the stress that the mother feels as well as the nutrition she gets, and the medical care she receives.  All of these are related to culture. 

Another example of prenatal socialization is in identical twins who have the same exact DNA and biology.  Because they are exactly the same, nurses will often paint the nails of twins differently so that they can quickly tell them apart.  But, often the parents of these twins can tell them apart from their earliest days because they have already started developing different personalities even before being born.

The effects of alcohol and drugs on unborn babies are one example of prenatal effects on unborn babies that are well documented.  Additionally, other examples are the effects of prenatal vitamins and stress on the mother.  But another example of socialization happening in utero is that babies are influenced by what mothers eat during their pregnancy.  One study shows that the amniotic fluid around the baby can take on the flavor and smell of certain foods or spices.  Babies show a correlation to those foods after being born.  See more about this study here.

There is even more recent research that has found that the experiences a grandmother has can affect the genes that she passes down to her grandchild!  In other words, the nurturing or socialization process that affects you, might start decades before you are even born!  This multigenerational effect on genes is known as epigenetics.   Here is a link to a PBS program called The Ghost in your Genes about epigenetics.  The researchers theorize that social experiences can affect the genes of a person and, more amazingly, these genes can be passed down to a generation or two. So the grandchildren may experience the effects of their grandparents' lives on their genes. How amazing is that? They call it the "ghost in your genes," explained on the BBC here.

Human Nature

Despite being socialized before birth, babies are born with human nature.  They have genes that include both programming to tell babies how to instinctively react as well as programming about how babies can grow and develop.  This nature is what nearly all babies are born with.  It is biological and innate.  This biology includes the aptitude to talk, walk, read, process information and move physically.  However, it is interesting to note that with this biology and genes, babies have only an aptitude to develop all of those abilities.  It will take time and nurture to reach their potential.  In the meantime, babies are still not able to survive on their own in the world that they are born into.  They are intimately dependent on others to survive.  They must rely on another aptitude that they are born with:  the aptitude to connect with other humans.  It is our human nature is to be nurtured.  We need others to survive and thrive. We are innately social beings.  For more on socialization, aptitude and nature-nurture, see this post. 

There are many ways in which human biology was made to be social:

• • mirror neurons
• • vagus nerve
• • facial recognition - For more on how we have an ability to interpret and remember human faces checkout this link to see a story on 60 minutes.
• • oxytocin

  

All of these are a part of the human biology.  So, babies are born helpless in their ability to survive but they are born with a biological aptitude to be social.  And these are a part of adult biology as well.  Adults that see tiny helpless infants are drawn to connect with them reciprocally.  Babies will grasp adult fingers and clothes, and make eye contact.  They desire to be held.  They will imitate adults and smile back at them.  Adults have mirror neurons that make them sympathetic to the crying and distress of babies. These biological connections draw babies and adults together, providing for the survival and growth of the infant.  As the infant develops, it starts to learn from the adults who have helped it survive.  The understanding that the infant gets from the adults is a shared meaning between the two.  In this way, culture is taught to the baby even before the baby is conscious of it.  Babies will learn the significance of material things as well as the significance of gestures, words, behaviors, expectations and values.  Some examples of babies learning shared meaning include this post from the Society Pages, called the baby preacher.  It shows a young baby who is influenced to behave like a preacher even though he can't even talk yet!  This illustrates the socialization influence on kids that happens at a young age.  Here is a baby rapper video and  here are two babies learning to converse.

 

Besides having an aptitude to connect with other humans, babies also have an aptitude to develop consciousness.  Consciousness is an awareness of yourself as a sentient being.  We develop an identity of ourselves, sometimes called a "self," such as in the ideas of self-image, self-reliance, self-pity or Charles Horton Cooley's looking-glass self and Erving Goffman's Presentation of Self.  Our idea about who we are as individuals comes from the most prominent people/groups who interact with us as we grow.  In the U.S., sociologists generally agree that these groups are: Our culture, family/caregiver, school, peers and media.  These are known as agents of socialization.  These agents of socialization intimately shape us.  This unit will examine the ways that sociologists have studied these agents, but first, let's explore the evidence that supports the idea that we need to be nurtured to reach our potential as human beings.

What happens when human do not get the nurture that they inherently desire?  There is quite a bit of evidence about cases like that, some of it particularly sad.  See the evidence below from feral kids, isolated kids, to a study about institutionalized kids to medical research.  

Feral Kids
Some people have been found to be living with wild (feral) animals.  These feral people provide more evidence that humans are influenced by their surroundings.  Check out this website for examples of feral children.

Here is video of one of the kids found in the wild living with dogs.

Isolated kids:

Danielle, found in 2004.

She had very little socialization from her mother who was later arrested.  

Watch this video from the Oprah show which summarizes her initial finding and then updates how she is ten years later.     

Here is an update from the Tampa Bay Times.  

Genie, found in 1970, isolated in an upstairs bedroom until she was 12 years old!  

The video below is about a girl named Genie that was locked in a bedroom alone for 12 years of her life. Here is what Susan Curtiss wrote about her in her book, Genie; A Psycholinguistic Study of a Modern-Day Wild Child.

Here is a brief clip from a documentary about her story.

Genie was pitiful. Hardly ever having worn clothing, she did not react to temperature, either heat or cold. Never having eaten solid food, Genie did not know how to chew and had great difficulty in swallowing.  Having been strapped down and left sitting on a potty chair she could not stand erect, could not straighten her arms or legs, could not run hop, jump or climb.  In fact, she could only walk with difficulty shuffling her feet and swaying from side to side. Hardly ever having seen more than a space of ten feet in front of her she had become nearsighted to exactly that distance... Surprisingly, however, Genie was alert and curious. She maintained good eye contact and... She was intensely eager for human contact. 

Skeels and Dye Study

From Henslin's Sociology; A Down To Earth Approach, Skeels and Dye's study of institutionalized children (1939) and Skeels follow-up study in 1966 found that children given love, affection, stimulation and intimacy are able to be more independent, socially-attached, more successful adults later in life.  Look at the difference between the children that stayed behind at the orphange receiving proper care, but little stimulation, love and affection versus the children who went to a home where adults with special needs could show them love, attention, nurture and stimulation:

Institutionalized Children 

Orphanage 12 kids                                  Home for Special Needs 13 kids           

More functional at first                           More severely dysfunctional

Proper care, but no stimulation               Stimulation, play, challenge and affection
-30 IQ pts                                             +28 IQ pts

- avg. less than 3rd grade ed                 - avg. of 12th grade 5 complete 1+ years of college    

- 4 live in institutions                           -  all 13 were self-supporting or homemakers

- low level jobs                                     - 1 grad school

 - 2 marry                                              - 11 marry

Medicine, Research and Nurture

From Our World in Data,

Dr. Vivek Murthy, former Surgeon General of the United States, recently wrote: “Loneliness and weak social connections are associated with a reduction in lifespan similar to that caused by smoking 15 cigarettes a day”.

From the National Institutes of Health,

Social relationships—both quantity and quality—affect mental health, health behavior, physical health, and mortality risk. Sociologists have played a central role in establishing the link between social relationships and health outcomes, identifying explanations for this link, and discovering social variation (e.g., by gender and race) at the population level. Studies show that social relationships have short- and long-term effects on health, for better and for worse, and that these effects emerge in childhood and cascade throughout life to foster cumulative advantage or disadvantage in health. This article describes key research themes in the study of social relationships and health, and it highlights policy implications suggested by this research.

From Harvard Medical School,

Social connections like these not only give us pleasure, they also influence our long-term health in ways every bit as powerful as adequate sleep, a good diet, and not smoking. Dozens of studies have shown that people who have social support from family, friends, and their community are happier, have fewer health problems, and live longer.

Dr. Dean Ornish, a cardiologist who found through research that patients with medical issues, including surgeries like bypass surgery or masectomies, healed quicker and more thoroughly if they had meaningful relationships in their lives.    

From Dr. Ornish's website;

https://www.ornish.com/proven-program/love-support/,  

At the Heart of Healing: Connection

Loneliness and Isolation

Medicine today tends to focus primarily on the physical and mechanistic: drugs and surgery, genes and germs, microbes and molecules. However, there isn’t any other factor in medicine – not diet, not smoking, not exercise, not stress, not genetics, not drugs, not surgery – that has a greater impact on our quality of life, incidence of illness and premature death from all causes than loneliness and isolation.

Love and intimacy — our ability to connect with ourselves and others, is at the root of what makes us sick and what makes us well, what causes sadness and what brings happiness, what makes us suffer and what leads to healing. If a new drug had the same impact, virtually every doctor in the country would be recommending it for his or her patients. It would be malpractice not to prescribe it — yet, with few exceptions, we doctors do not learn much about the healing power of love, intimacy, and transformation in our medical training.

There is a deep spiritual hunger in this country. The real epidemic in our culture is not only physical heart disease, but also what I call emotional and spiritual heart disease. The profound sense of loneliness, isolation, alienation, and depression that are so prevalent in our culture with the breakdown of the social structures that used to provide us with a sense of connection and community. It is, to me, a root of the illness, cynicism, and violence in our society.

We are creatures of community. Those individuals, societies, and cultures who learned to take care of each other, to love each other, and to nurture relationships with each other during the past several hundred thousand years were more likely to survive than those who did not. Those people who did not learn to take care of each other often did not make it. In our culture, the idea of spending time taking care of each other and creating communities has become increasingly rare. Ignoring these ideas imperils our survival.

Awareness is the first step in healing, both individually and socially. Part of the value of science is to increase the level of awareness of how much these choices matter that we make each day. Not just a little, but a lot, and not just to the quality of life but also the quantity of life – to our survival. When we understand how important these issues are, then we can do something about it. These include:

• • spending more time with our friends and family
• • communication skills
• • group support
• • confession, forgiveness, and redemption
• • compassion, altruism, and service
• • psychotherapy
• • touching
• • commitment
• • meditation

When we increase the love and intimacy in our lives, we also increase the health, joy, and meaning in our lives.

(Finish this post by Leading up to  culture  - winnow culture down to one day)

Follow with Social Network?

Follow with self?

Then Agents 

Guest Speaker Brandon Frankel

Today we had the privilege of having Brandon Frankel in our class.  Brandon is a 2003 grad who went into the music promotion business.

Brandon had so much to share that was sociological.

First, follow your passion and don't be afraid to veer off the beaten path or even fail.  Brandon explained that he did not grow up in an extremely wealthy and well-connected house, but he really wanted to be involved in the music business.  He sought out any way to do that.  He got a small magazine to sponsor him to take picture at concerts.  He was able to turn that into an internship at Atlantic records and then a job there.  It took work.  It took years.  But it was his passion and he followed it.  After Atlantic he tried being an agent but it wasn't for him.  He was not afraid to try and it was okay that it didn't work out.



Eventually, Brandon travelled around the world and using a sociological imagination he was able to connect with friends in Colombia and close business deals in Japan.  He talked about the importance of not being ethnocentric and how paying attention to the symbolic meaning in Colombia or the norms of business cards in Japan helped him close deals.  He talked about the culture of India and the importance of Cricket to the culture.  And he even talked about microsociology and how he always asked people their name first and treated them nicely even though that's not the norm in L.A.

Brandon also talked about how he has tried to stay sociologically mindful to make the world a better place.  

He helped a Swedish rapper get a modeling job that helped to promote a more realistic looking model.  

He also helped Rose McGowan find her voice and speak out against the assault that she experienced.

He also explained the importance of the media and how it finds ways to influence the culture - indeed he himself was even deemed an influencer.  Digital social media attempts to influence brands and culture through likes and retweets and proliferation of an idea.  And sometimes this can even be false/fake - like when the tabloid media reported that he was dating Rose McGowan but they called him John Latin!

Thanks Brandon!  Follow him at @brandontour on instagram and twitter.

Click here for Forbes article.

Unit 2 Evaluation

 Please take a few minutes to complete this evaluation about our class so far.

Post Unit 2 Test

Today, we did the following: 

1.  Create a Loyola account and enroll in sociology for dual credit.  Click enroll and carefully follow the directions.

2.  Please click on Self Assessment and answer the questions about unit 2.

If you are testing tomorrow, we are starting unit 3 with a documentary called Babies.

Lesson 11: Debriefing the Review Soc Research

Yesterday's review is re-posted below.  I added bold-faced answers to help you.  Please open up the article from yesterday and look it over using the tips that I gave you in class.
Tips:

• Read the abstract and conclusion first.
• Note the different sections.
• Don't be intimidated by the length of the article or the difficulty of the wording.

Here is the Google Form for yesterday's review.

Please work in small breakout groups to answer the review questions.  Please take turns trying to answer the questions.  If you are unsure of the answer, it is okay to say "I am not sure about this one."  Help each other.

For reference, here are the questions:

1. Is this a secondary source or primary source for sociological research? Why?
This is a primary source for sociology.  That means this article was written by the researcher(s) who actually did the research.  Similar to historical sources who actually see the history, primary sources in sociology are the sources written by those who actually do the sociology - they examine the data and crunch the numbers.  Additionally, because this is published in a research journal, that is a good clue that it is primary.  

Students had trouble with this because they noted that the researchers were using data that was gathered from the U of Texas.  However, they were using the existing data and examining it in their own unique way.  So, even though they were not gathering the data themselves, they were examining it and tabulating it themselves.  This makes it primary source.  Remember that one type of research method is called "existing sources."  This is when sociologists use sources of data that have already been collected (such as the census data or general social survey) and they examine that data to create their own analysis. See this post for more on types of research methods)

2. On page 287, find the beginning of the article which starts with "This article uses administrative data..."? What part of the article is that first section? What can you usually expect to find in that section?

Note: Recall or review how to read journal articles and the different sections that are usually included within sociological research journal articles.  (See this post as a reminder of how to read research journals.)

For this question, notice how the text for this section is set off from the rest of the article.  It is at the beginning and above the research.  That is a clue that this is the abstract.  The abstract is a short summary of the research.  It is a really important summary for you to know what the article is about and whether the article is going to be useful for you.

3. On page 288 find the section that begins with "In The Adolescent in Society (1961)..." What is this section called? What can you usually expect to find in that section?

Usually, the first section of the article is the introduction which tells the reader why the researchers wanted to do this research.  So, on page 287 that is what the authors are doing.  They explain what research has been done already and what gaps in the research that they want to fill.  This introduction continues through the first column on page 288.  And notice that in the last paragraph of the column the authors even explain what the next sections of the article will be about.

Next comes the section that this question is asking about (pg 288).  Note that the section is called "background".  This is a slightly confusing title because it could refer to the background of why they wanted to do the research (which would be considered the introduction) or it could be the background of previous research that has already been done by other people (also called background literature review).  It is in fact the latter.  Notice how the section explains lots of other research - all of the names and dates in parentheses indicate that they are talking about other authors and the years that they have published their research.  Even if you do not read any of the text in between, this should be a clue that this section is reviewing all the literature that the authors found prior to doing their own research.

Let me point out - students sometimes confuse this with the actual research because in high school you are often taught to write a research paper that is basically a background literature review of other people's research.  Usually, the junior research paper is not original research that you conducted.

4. Is this research qualitative or quantitative? Why?

This research is quantitative.  The authors explain that they use empirical data and a formula to estimate the extent to which there is a correlation that high school peers increase college GPA. (page 288)  Even if you do not understand the stats, you can see quickly that the authors use mathematical formulas (data section page 292) and they tabulate data (pages 295-297).  

4b. What method of research do the authors use for this study?

This was another tricky question.   Students had trouble with this because they noted that the researchers were using data that was gathered from the U of Texas.  However, they were using the existing data and examining it in their own unique way.  So, even though they were not gathering the data themselves, they were examining it and tabulating it themselves.  This makes it primary source.  Remember that one type of research method is called "existing sources."  This is when sociologists use sources of data that have already been collected (such as the census data or general social survey) and they examine that data to create their own analysis. See this post for more on types of research methods)

5. Is this research longitudinal, cross-sectional or cross-cultural or neither? Why?

This is cross-sectional because it is examining a group of Texas students at a particular moment in time.  It does NOT examine how they change over the years (longitudinal) and it does NOT compare them to students from other cultures (cross-cultural)

6. What are some conclusions that the authors make from their research? 

(page 307, but also see the abstract)

7. Is this an example of macrosociological research or microsociological research and why?

This is studying large groups of students and where they attend college, so it is macrosociology.  If there was a follow-up study that analyzed how these students interacted with their high school peers at college, then, that would be microsociology.

8. What are important considerations for some of the statistics in the article?

The authors discuss numerous significant stats in their "results" sections on pages 302 and 307.

9. Apply the following concepts to this article: groups (statuses and roles), ingroups and outgroups, categories and stereotypes.

10. Why did we read the Gang Leader for a Day article? What are important examples within the article?

We read Gang Leader for a Day to show the different research methods that sociologists use and some of the advantages and disadvantages of each.  Additionally, we concluded that it is best to use multiple research methods to truly understand a research question.  The authors of this study explain that on page 310.  

11. If you happen to know a bunch of students from our high school who went to U of I, why can't you just rely on your own knowledge/common sense to make a conclusion about how they will be affected by attending U of I together?

This question is trying to get you to recall the first lesson of this unit - there are numerous psychological reasons why we can't just rely on our perception or common sense for understanding sociology.  We need data to help us see the truth.  For example, common sense might tell you that if you go to a college where lots of your high school peers go, you might be more likely to party and so your GPA will be lower.  That makes sense, but this research shows otherwise.