Health and Race in America at the Macro, Meso, and Micro Levels

Introduction

Having good health is an important aspect of living a productive and fulfilling life. Therefore, seeking an understanding of the factors associated with various health outcomes is worthwhile. Applying a sociological perspective to this process can offer significant insights. According to Mills (1959/2000), thinking sociologically is needed so

In other words, those who use their “sociological imagination” can see that people live within contexts that they cannot always control but that shape their lives in meaningful ways (Mills, 1959; 2000, p. 14). The purpose of this chapter is to apply a sociological perspective to health outcomes, particularly as they relate to race.

Background

The “social construction of reality” is a sociological concept that is useful for understanding how contexts develop and impact people’s experiences. Here, human interactions, including those with a racial component, are of the utmost importance. Berger and Luckmann (1966) contend that the social construction of reality is a process by which members of society come to understand and create reality through their interactions with others. This process is evident in the real world.

An example of the social construction of reality occurred a few decades ago in a classroom of third graders in Riceville, Iowa. One Tuesday morning, the third graders’ teacher divided the class into two groups based on eye color: brown-eyed and blue-eyed. She had the brown-eyed students put cloth collars around their necks so people could determine eye color from a distance. Her hope was to help the students more fully comprehend the consequences of discrimination (Peters & Cobb, 1985). Early on in the exercise, she commented to her students, “[T]he blue-eyed people are the better people in this room” (Peters & Cobb, 1985, 0:04:30). The students challenged her, but she insisted that she was right. She gave the blue-eyed students five extra minutes at recess, allowed them to go back for seconds at lunch, and permitted them to use the drinking fountain. The brown-eyed students did not have such privileges. She also told the students they could not play with those who had a different eye color from them (Peters & Cobb, 1985).

Later, the teacher pointed out a girl’s poor performance and said, “She’s a brown-eyed” (Peters & Cobb, 1985, 0:06:26). She then stated, “You’ll begin to notice today that we spend a great deal of time waiting for brown-eyed people” (Peters & Cobb, 1985, 0:06:29). The results of her words and actions became clear very quickly (Peters & Cobb, 1985). A brown-eyed girl on the playground observed, “And it seemed like when we were down on the bottom [of the social hierarchy], everything bad was happening to us” (Peters & Cobb, 1985, 0:07:25). Similarly, two boys, one with blue eyes and the other with brown eyes, got into a fight at recess (Peters & Cobb, 1985). After being asked what happened, the brown-eyed boy answered, “[Classmate’s name] called me names, and I hit him, hit him in the gut” (Peters & Cobb, 1985, 0:07:56). Upon further inquiry, the teacher learned that the name the blue-eyed boy called his classmate was “brown eyes” (Peters & Cobb, 1985, 0:08:05).

Prior to the teacher splitting the class by eye color, no one would have called anyone “brown eyes.” Likewise, no one would have concluded that being called “brown eyes” meant something bad. As the Thomas theorem states, “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences” (Thomas & Thomas, 1928, pp. 571-572). Objectively speaking, eye color had nothing to do with the students’ characters or abilities, but the teacher’s words and actions created an environment in which everyone spoke and behaved as if eye color held great significance, which resulted in mental, emotional, and physical harm to individuals.