The article "When Whites Just Don't Get It, Part 4 " by Nicholas Kristof is mainly about racial inequality in America. He first begins to talk about slavery and why white people are still being blamed for something that happened so long ago. He then adds how many white people are frustrated with being blamed and have acknowledged what has happened in the past but want to move forward, not behind. Kristof transitions to talking more about personal responsibility and begins to tell us how the black community is agreeing that young black men are not performing well enough in school. He then states how racial inequality is a major problem today and the possible reasons for them, one of which was having a slave labor years back. Elite plantation owners controlled these slave labors. Job and housing discrimination also prevented blacks from accumulating wealth. On average, black families only have about six percent as much wealth as white households. Kristof then begins to tell a personal story about one of his colleagues who is black and grew up and became a writer for the NY Times, so he says its definitely possible to move up as a black but admits that his black coworker had to clime way higher mountains than he did. Finally, he ends the article by stating how we whites shouldn't be mad at ourselves for leading in the "relay race of life " because we accomplished this through generations of oppression. .
The four sociologic concepts; Ethnic Pluralism, Conflict Perspective, Occupational Segregation, and Dominant group all relate to Nicholas Kristof's article "When Whites Just Don't Get It ".
Ethnic Pluralism is the coexistence of a variety of distinct racial and ethnic groups within one society. This concept directly relates to the article because the article talks about the coexistence of whites and blacks in the past and present. Kristof states "I've looked at black/white economic inequality that is greater in America today than it was in apartheid South Africa " which shows that blacks and whites have been coexisting in the same society for awhile now, it just hasn't always been equal.
