Chapter 8

Labeling Theory

    When the news of Representative Anthony Weiner first broke up on CNN sometime in June of this year of “sexually- charged electronic relationship” with multiple women, I said to myself hope this is not true because Weiner as one of the most brilliant, vocal, sharpshooter and charismatic democrat in the Congress whose contrary arguments to Republicans are always a delight to watch has been a target for so long. But when he confirmed the allegations through press conference I knew that his days are numbered.    

After pressures from Republicans and his own party members and affiliates he resigned.

He has committed an “Absolutist Deviant” what a shame? Tongues started wagging, media frenzy over the allegation was hype, and Republicans jumped on the bandwagon. Weiner was tagged as irresponsible, a disgrace, and many unthinkable names. To them he’s unfit to hold the public office any longer, and the consequences of violating one of the “codes of conduct” of his office is for him to resign.

Really!  Is that the truth or they found an opportunity to get rid of one of the problematic opposition member in the house? Are they sure they acted in the best interest of his office and the people he represents, or the society, or simply acted on their own selfish political gains and interests? That is left to desire.

Here’s another scenario:

Pastors and Clergies are known to be the custodian of faith. The roles of these religious leaders are important in the construction of society because through their teachings of the scriptures, they instill some values and norms that complies with morality to millions of their members including children, in fact parents considered Churches and other house of worships as a safe haven and the Clergies as role model to their ward. But unfortunately this confidence has been shattered with several allegations of sexual misconducts of some these clergies. According to Newman, between 1960 and 2002, 4127 priests faced allegations of sexual abuse with the majority of their victims  teenagers between the age of 11 and 14 and out of which 81% of them were male (page 234). The consequences of these dastardly acts have not only caused the churches to lose millions of members but also huge amount of money due to financial settlements to the victims. “Settlements could be as high as $3 billion” (Newman, page 235).

My major concern is that the societies at large are bias when it comes to “labeling deviance” What could be more grievous than a seeing your trust shattered, or having learnt that some of your pastor, or rabbi, or imam has been molesting your child and yet would still mount the podium to preach against immorality and at the same time portrays themselves to be “Holy”. (Hypocrites)

There’s no doubt that this shameful act dented the prestige of this institution. Consequently, most of these clergies were either quietly resigned, retired, or voluntary left out of shame. The troubling part of all this brouhaha is that the society seems to be forgiven, I didn’t hear any of these perpetrators go on trial, neither were they prosecuted nor condemned as they did with Weiner. And most importantly they were not labeled as “deviant”

Does that mean that Weiner’s offence is grievous than these men of God?

Chapter 7

What Constitute a Family?

I didn’t know how many children were my father’s biological children until when I was 12 years old. This was so because my father had adopted seven of his deceased brother’s children when I was only 3 years old. In African context my father is the head of the family and his primary responsibilities is to financially cater for the entire family. Raising the children is so important and it’s the primary responsibilities of my mother, though my father seldom intervenes in her duty only when necessary. That is the reason why in African culture, if a child lacks the basic values such as traditional beliefs and customs of his or her tribe, which include religion, obedient training, mannerism and other forms of norms of the society, the mother is often tagged a failure. In fact the early education of conformity and non-conformity of morals and values are learnt through early nurturing from your immediate family especially the mother.

Based on my short story what constitute a family is not just a nuclear setting of father, mother and their children. But it extended to compound family where every children of a household bonded and see each other as equals regardless of biological differences. The emotional attachments and support that we’ve grown over the years has bonded us that it was hard to recognize any parental differences among us.

Coming from a different family background and culture makes it hard for me to resonate with a contemporary family that is being practiced in some society. In my opinion, the nuclear family practice tends to isolate social and emotional intimacy among siblings and families. This to me is problematic considering the level of loneliness and boredom that has escalated to suicides, crimes and ill-health in recent times. I’ve  never heard of anti-depressant medication until I got to United States and neither did I experienced or imagined the existence of  “elderly assisted living” where  grandparents would live separately until my first job in Pennsylvania as a waitress in one of the facility for elderly people. And also, I still can’t imagine myself seeking an approval before visiting any of my siblings which  many contemporary family considered it to be “ an invasion of privacy”. That might explain why it’s the tradition for me to visit Africa every year since I’ve been living in Diasporas. The loneliness is too cumbersome for me to bear.

I will attribute this contemporary living as one of the characteristics of Individualist society. After all Newman, mentioned in the text that “United States for example has no strong tradition of large extended multigenerational families living together (page 197)”.

Impression Management

My relationship with Sandy a colleague and an Asian descendant from Vietnam for over three months at work has consistently grown from just being an ordinary colleague to a close friendship. We basically do almost everything together at work. One day while we were on lunch break she broke the silence between us.

Lara I need to apologized to you. She said.

With a surprised look I asked why I deserved an apology.

 You do because prior to my transfer to your department and working with you, I have made some judgments of you and  based on my judgments ,myself and some friends had formed opinion of your character negatively, in fact some of my friends don’t like you.

I was stunned but not surprised because that would not be the first time I will hear that.  

But I didn’t pre-empt her so she could tell me exactly what led to that.

The first questions she asked were why I don’t smile often and also why is it that I always argue with everybody including the supervisor. Sandy would further say that her earlier perception of me was that I’m too feisty and arrogant. But after working with me for this short time she realized how wrong she was.

I’d judged you based on your appearance and strong personalities. You have been everything but opposite my earlier judgments of you and that is the reason why I have to apologize to you. She said.

The confession of Sandy made me realize how easy and fast people could formed opinion of you and also wonder how many of my colleagues shared her sentiments.

Being an introvert doesn’t make me a mean person, and despite being an introvert I’ve never been shy to ask salient questions concerning safety and well-being that concerns the operation workers where I’m categorized from any superior staff in any of our general meetings.

How does that make me a feisty person?  If my attitude or character is bad I wouldn’t have lasted these years that I’ve been working with the company. To me it’s simply a personality conflicts.

In my culture you have to see what amuses you before you smile otherwise you could be mistaken to be mentally sick. I remembered when I first arrived at the United States and people I don’t know smiles at me, I felt awkward  on each occasion it happens and I always asked myself why they are smiling at someone they don’t know from Adam? But as I grew to understand and accustomed myself with some of the norms and culture of United States, I found it complimenting to either smile at someone or someone smiles back at me.

Ever since the confession of Sandy, I’ve been more conscious of my appearance and non-verbal attitude I put up in public.

I guess that is what Impression management is all about.

Cultural Change

During the Pre-colonial days, naming ceremony in Africa was usually performed in an elaborate traditional ceremony. For example in Nigeria, Yoruba is one of the popular cultures that took the cognizance of this ceremony seriously. Before the naming ceremony events, it was important for the grandparents to carefully pick a name based on the circumstances of the birth of the newborn. For example a child born with umbilical chord around the neck would be named “Aina” if she’s a girl and “Ojo” if it’s a boy.

 The elders or the head of the clan would then perform the ceremony. There are seven symbolic items that had to be used because of there significant meaning and representation. Those items include; Water, Honey and Sugar, Bitter Kola, Palm oil, Salt, Dried fish, and Pepper.

The video below demonstrates the traditional naming ceremony preceding

But as the country gradually transitioned into “modern civilization” as a result of the influence and migrations of British and other Westerners who found refuge in Nigeria and as a result infused their culture into the society. Among such cultures brought into the society were Religion, pattern of dressing, and western education. These impacted the societal norms and beliefs to the extent that old traditional beliefs were mostly modified.  Today naming ceremony is religiously performed. And instead of the head of the clan or elderly person presiding, it is now performed by officiating church ministers or Alfas (Islamic clerics) and rarely will you see all the symbolic items displayed or being used during the ceremony instead they have been replaced by holy books such as Bible and Quran.

This is a generalization of social science which states the relationship between changes in one institution and another (introducing sociology pg.34)

Wow! I danced and Sing Out Loud...

I found it challenging to do this assignment because it makes me feel uncomfortable and somehow embarrassing. Luckily an opportunity presented itself at a friend’s barbeque gathering this past weekend.

 I had debrief my friend of my earlier intention of singing and dancing to myself in order to get psychological reactions and responses of her guests which were a mixture of friends from different ethnicities and races.

After settling down among the guests, I suddenly stood up and started singing a song in my native language and also dancing at the same time.

Personally I noticed that the first time I did it people didn’t pay much attention to me, the impression I got was that of a person in a party mood. Most of them just stared and smiled. There was a sense of normalcy.

But after the third time, my friend who had been watching told me that many of our other friends from Africa have been coming to her asking if I’m okay. It was worrisome to those who knew me to be a private and quiet person to see me acting that way in public.

One of my African friends wasn’t convinced with the celebrant’s response that she came up to me.

 Lara, are you okay? She asked.

Yes of course I responded.

I knew my response didn’t convince her, the expression on her face said it all.

While the Africans were worried about my offensive and disturbing behavior, the few friends from other racial background and ethnicity seem not to mind. They either laugh or ignore me completely.

I wasn’t surprised that the Africans reacted the way they did. Typically in African society it’s against the norms of the society to see people dancing and singing loud continuously by themselves without a played music. The perception and impression is that you are acting lunatic, which could raise the question of your mental wellness.

Despite leaving in United States for so long this experiment made me realize that the traits of nonmaterial culture is an invisible force, a silent voice that echoes in people’s mind and a constant guidance of your activities and moral behaviors. It’s also a warning when going against such values, norms, beliefs, and customs that nurtured you to be who you are.

It’s not that my Americans friends at the party didn’t care.  They just didn’t find what I was doing to be strange, because the society’s values and norms primarily are meant to be concerned for yourself and your immediate family. Also America values civil liberties such as freedom of speech, and personal accountability of one’s actions and such nonmaterial culture of my American friends might have prevented them from asking me what was wrong with me otherwise they would violate their own norms by intruding into my privacy. I knew if my erratic behavior had gone uncontrollably, they would simply call the authority.

In other hand, my Africa friends will be thinking of how to get my parents or my close relations, while some will even cry with the thought that I’m mentally sick. We tend to prioritize the well-being of the member of our collective group over ours.

It’s just the way of life…

Material Culture

Today October 1^st, Nigeria celebrates its 51^st independence from its British colonial masters.

I posted these artifacts not only for your viewing pleasure but also to commensurate with the on-going celebration of Nigeria Independence Day.

These artifacts are some of several artifacts that reflect the lives and societies of people of Nigeria. And also example of “Material Culture” Newman was talking about in chapter 4 of the Sociology textbook.

Happy viewing…

Norms And Sanctions

The news events that have caught my attention recently happened in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The King of Saudi Arabia overturned the lashing sentence of Sheima, an Arab woman who was found driving. If the King had not intervened, she would have received 10 lashes for disobeying one of the norms of the society.

This is an example of what Newman defined as “Mores,” a type of norms sometimes codified into laws that are taken very seriously by society. (Newman, page 106). 

You can click the link below for the rest of the story

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/saudi-king-reportedly-revokes-lashing-sentence-for-woman-driver/story-e6frfku0-1226150931520

 Wow!!!