Social Issue – Eminent Domain

Being a college student, I have written my fair share of papers, and I have discussed many different topics, varying from political arguments to economics. Over the course of writing these papers, I explored a topic, a social injustice, that is never seen. This issue is Eminent Domain, and part of the problem is that very few Americans are even aware of what it is. Eminent Domain is a law that allows the government to procure private land for public use, with compensation of course. Eminent Domain is how that brand new school was made or how that busy road was widened by two lanes. This law, on paper, then appears to be a very sensible and needed tool for the proper expansion of our nation’s infrastructure. The problem with this law is how its power has expanded over the years. At first, the definition of public use was rather tame, and only consisted of purely public endeavors such as road expansion, municipal buildings, and other community projects. More recently, this definition has expanded, allowing for the government to cite “blight” as a reason for the acquisition of private property. In this context, blight is described as a degradation of the property, such as “chipped paint or cracked sidewalks”, which leads to an incredibly vague definition of what is fine and what is blighted. [1] Most recently, another change to public use was made, allowing for private property to be taken and given to another private party, usually a larger company, citing the expected economic impact generated from the new business as the reason for taking the land.

Now that the definition of Eminent Domain is clearer, we can explore the sociological issues involved with it. The three issues that I will discuss sociologically are 1) the value of personal property in American culture, 2) the personal definition of “public use”, and 3) the groups targeted by Eminent Domain.

In American culture, we are raised to have a love and yearning for property. We live in a country where no one can make us buy something we don’t want to buy, and where we can buy almost anything. This is due to the nature of our country being a capitalist economy, which allows for almost any product to be sold or bought. As Americans, we place a significant amount of stress on our property. For instance, look at how we are raised as children. We are taught to have a certain pride in our property, especially our homes. This pride in our home and property is in contradiction to Eminent Domain. The reason for this is that the victims of Eminent Domain are forced to sell their homes which they had pride in. The disturbing fact here is that this happens often in the United States, the “land of the free”. In this country, we grow up taking history classes where we learn about our freedoms and how they were defended, and how we are supposed to be thankful for this level of freedom that no other country has. But in the background, this isn’t the case. We live in a country where we are told we are free to buy and sell our property as we please. In the case of Eminent Domain, this freedom is taken away, as we can become a victim.

The second aspect of this law that is concerning is the exact definition of “public use”. With the recent and ongoing expansion of this definition, the vague side of public use is seen. While the original intended use of Eminent Domain seemed sensible and necessary, the ever increasing power of the law tends to move into murky waters. While outsiders may see a blighted neighborhood that is a nuisance and eyesore, the inhabitants of this neighborhood see it as their home. The troubling predicament here is that the public good here can differ between the two groups, depending on where they are. Another trouble for this sort of situation is the costs and benefits of using Eminent Domain. Often times, the only aspect of this that is talked about is the benefits, such as the new factory that was constructed or other commercial or municipal buildings, but they leave out the discussion of the loss of affordable homes in the neighborhood. [2]

Where Eminent Domain truly crosses the line though is the specific targeting of certain groups when it is used. Often times, the areas that are targeted for Eminent Domain are not as random as they seem, as seen in both the Poletown and New London cases. Usually the targeted neighborhoods for large scale land acquisition are lower class neighborhoods that are inhabited by minorities. [3] In the case of Poletown, the Detroit neighborhood saw many African American and Polish immigrant families be forced from their property so that a new General Motors assembly plant could be put there, with the main reason being the new 6,500 jobs that the plant would bring while removing 3,400 people from their homes. [3] Likewise, in the New London case in Connecticut, a middle class neighborhood was affected by Eminent Domain when the land was given to Pfizer with the justification being new business as well. [3] In both these cases, the homes were not blighted, and but Eminent Domain still carried on. As seen, the majority of Eminent Domain cases involve groups of people that are easy to target. According to research done by Sandra Phillips and Marion Sillah, the groups that are often targeted are blacks, poor, and elderly people. [3] Using the data, it was determined that approximately 61% of the time poor people were the victims of eminent domain, compared to 54% for the elderly and 52% for the blacks. [3] While these numbers aren’t outright incriminating, it brings up an interesting point when considering that these percentages do not correspond proportionally to the percentages these groups make up in respect to the nation as a whole. For instance, blacks make up roughly 15% of the population of the United States, yet were affected 52% of the time by these Eminent Domain cases. [3] Likewise, the poor and elderly only make up a small percentage of the population of the United States, but they also accounted for significant amounts of cases of Eminent Domain. This research, along with previous cases of Eminent Domain, show just how the law is misused, often times targeting the most vulnerable groups in an area. This shown when looking at those who are affected, and it is interesting to note that very rarely are upper class neighborhoods targeted, but rather it is neighborhoods where the people don’t have the time, money, or capability to legally fight the condemnation of their property. The reason for this targeting is usually that these occupants cannot fight, allowing for an easy taking of the land by the government. Between the years of 1998 and 2002, roughly 40% of the cases between homeowners and the local government responsible for acquiring the land resulted in the homeowners winning. [3] This respectable win percentage shows that with proper legal backing, these cases are winnable, and can result in the land not being taken. Yet, more often than not, the homeowners do not have the means to fight the condemnation. The result is an easy target group which are evicted from their neighborhood in the name of public use.

In order to combine these issues with Eminent Domain and how it is misused, it is helpful to look at the issue sociologically. When looking at the situations, it is fairly clear why the law is used: to further the good of the neighborhood. While the cases of misuse of Eminent Domain often cite the same “public good” as the reasoning behind the land acquisition, the data shows a different story. Often times neighborhoods are cleared out because of blight, because the neighborhood just doesn’t look as pretty as it should. Other times, the area is cleared for use by a different group who the local government believes could use the land better. What the whole issue comes down to though is why are these specific groups involved in Eminent Domain cases so often? A big chunk of the reasoning here is that they are easy targets. As stated above, they don’t usually have the legal capabilities to fight the local government in court, making the land acquisition easy. Also, every person has their own opinion of what a “good neighborhood” looks like, based significantly on what they see in the media, and what they experience growing up. So when a “bad neighborhood” (that is, blighted) is slated to be taken, there is no argument from others as they only see a bad neighborhood being taken down, not a neighborhood that provides affordable housing to low income families. [2] Lastly, there is the idea of solidarity among citizens. We, as citizens and workers, want to see a nation of contributors and little to no free loaders. We want to see our nation at its best, with everyone working together and contributing to the common good. This idea of solidarity is jeopardized in the case of Eminent Domain, as people can see a poor neighborhood as a noncontributing group of people, whereas the new factory there would create more jobs, resulting in a better and stronger community, albeit one that has disregarded the poor.

To sum up why Eminent Domain is important, you just have to look at how society has shaped us. In many cases, Eminent Domain creates a better neighborhood by utilizing land for the common good, but every now and then it is misused, leaving the homeowners feeling helpless.

1: http://www.mlive.com/opinion/muskegon/index.ssf/2011/04/george_will_sign_of_our_times.html?mobRedir=false

2: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d0728.pdf

3: http://www.housingeducators.org/Journals/H%20&%20S%20Vol_36_No_1_A_House_is_Not_a_Home_Effect_of_Eminent_Domain_Abuse_on_the_Poor_African_Americans_and_the_Elderly.pdf

Attend a Meeting

This past week, I attended a meeting in order to see an issue through a different social lens than Ii am accustomed to viewing. So, I attended a meeting about AIDS. I must admit that I was not at first intrigued to attend this meeting, but I was quite surprised by how informative it actually was.

Part of the reason I was hesitant to attend this meeting was due to the fact that this isn’t a group I’d normally associate with whatsoever. You see, when someone mentions “AIDS”, the first thing that most people think of is Africa. I guess this would be the reason for my lack of enthusiasm to attend this meeting, since I am not African, and do not really relate to anyone that is associated with AIDS. When I first entered the lecture hall, I felt quite out of place. The main reason for this was that I am white and I was part of the minority in the room. Although all the African students here were nice and polite, I couldn’t help but feel a little bit strange. I can honestly say this is probably the first time that I felt like the minority in my life, and it was a change of pace. As a white person, its the sort of feeling that you really don’t know until you’ve felt it yourself.

In regards to the meeting, it is also an interesting sociological event. At first it seems pretty simple why they would have a meeting like this. Sure, its informative. But lets think about it a little deeper. Remember how I said that when most people think of “AIDS”, they think of Africa? Well, I think this meeting had another goal: to make this a “people” issue and not just an “African” issue. I think part of this meeting’s agenda was to get support for fighting AIDS, to get every race involved, not just blacks. If we all stopped just viewing this disease as a “black issue” and stopped thinking that its their problem and to let them solve it, we might actually fight the disease.

Lastly, I can say that it was a good decision to attend this meeting. I believe that most of being a good citizen is knowing all the information. At first I was hesitant to attend this meeting, but by the time it was over, I can say that my opinion on the topic of AIDS has changed. I no longer see it as just a “black issue”, but rather I see it as a global issue. I would highly recommend others to go and attend meetings like this. It doesn’t have to be about AIDS, it can be about almost anything. Even if it doesn’t change your mind, it will help you to be more understanding and see where other’s come from and why they think the way the do about a particular issue.

Violating A Gender Norm

After the conclusion of our studies on the topic of gender norms, we were asked to violate a gender norm. First, it is important to know what a gender norm is. A gender norm is an action or trait that is attached to a certain gender. For our specific case, we chose to explore the relationship between yoga pants (tight pants) and women. Seeing as how these yoga pants are strongly liked to girls, who seem to wear them all the time, we chose to have a guy, Eric, in our group wear tight long johns, which are basically the same thing as yoga pants. The setup of this experiment was to have Eric and myself enter the gym, with Eric wearing the pants, and I would separate myself from Eric so that I could better observe the people inside the gym. Upon entering, many people gave strange looks towards Eric, but didn’t say anything. He proceeded to go to the squat rack to do some squats. Almost immediately, another guy walked up immediately to start small talk with Eric, stating that he was sort of confused about why he was wearing the tight pants. Later, as Eric was looking for more reactions, he walked to the drinking fountain and received another reaction. A guy saw Eric and did a double take since at first glance he saw a guy in yoga pants, then looked back once he realized what he had seen.

To summarize the reactions, it was rather quiet judgement. It seemed to be that most people did a double take or just looked confused by seeing a guy in yoga pants. Only one person verbally displayed their thoughts about the gender norm that we broke, and he didn’t seem as judgmental about it as would be expected. Afterwards, when talking to Eric, he said how he didn’t feel that uncomfortable about breaking the gender norm, but he did say that he wouldn’t do it again.

Lastly, there are a few conclusions about this gender norm and how it relates to sociology that can be made. Seeing how people reacted, I would venture to say that wearing tight pants isn’t as gender specific as one would imagine. My expectations were that Eric would go in the gym and would have people talking behind his back about him, but nothing like that happened. That being said, it is clear that it is not completely a gender neutral clothing choice, since there were still some people who were quite surprised when they saw Eric wear that. My personal belief is that someday men could wear tight spandex pants in some instances, especially in sports or the gym, but I have a hard time seeing it becoming acceptable in public use. Even though I don’t necessarily see these pants as entirely feminine, since I’ve seen plenty of men wear spandex before for legitimate reasons, I just think that it’ll never catch on as masculine.

Everyday Sociology

For today, I chose to explore an article titled “Understanding Violence Sociologically” (http://www.everydaysociologyblog.com/2014/10/understanding-violence-sociologically.html). This article went on to discuss how violence is perceived as a basic concept which features a definitive “right” and “wrong”. While it may appear this way, it is actually far from that. The author of the post explained how sometimes violence is seen as good and sometimes it is seen as wrong. The reasons for all of this, as he describes, is the contradictions, context, and construction of violence. The contradictions of violence are mainly that in some instances a violent act may be construed as excessive, while in another scenario it may be considered perfectly acceptable. The context of violence describes how its not just the violent act that is important, but also the context (motivation for attack, who did what, etc.). The last point was the construction of the violence. As the author pointed out, humans are affected by a social construction explains our violence as “natural” and “genetic”, and that if we truly believe that we are naturally violent, we’re falsely explain our violence away as such instead of linking it to the real causes of our violence.

Upon reading this article, I felt as if my perspective had changed quite significantly. I had never thought about violence in this way, and I feel that it is a good explanation of the complexity of violence in our society. Violence is a sort of confusing topic, as most people would say they know what is right or wrong in terms of violence, but if they were asked to explain it they really wouldn’t be able to. In his explanation, I think the author hit the nail on the head when using his “3 C’s of violence”. He effectively described how the complicated topic of violence is extremely dependent on what society deems is acceptable and what were the circumstances of the violent act.

I think this explanation of violence is very helpful, and it can be used to better society on a personal level. I think the most important facet was how societal constructs of violence can affect a person’s behavior, and as such I will focus on that.  In the world we live in, violence is portrayed often in media, from songs to movies, and is critiqued often. We often have people who claim that the violence is portrayed as the cool thing to do thanks to violent video games and bloody movies. One could quickly fall back on this social construct and use it to explain away all the violence in the world. I believe this is the fault of society, since I believe that blaming it all on the media is the easy way out. Like the author pointed out, looking at the social construct of violence can mislead people about the real causes of violence. I think this is important because we need to find the real reason for violence in our nation. If we think about the violence sociologically, we can start to find the real reasons and find actual solutions. For instance, someone may be quick to point out that a young kid is violent because he plays violent video games, yet they didn’t spend the time to delve deeper and find out that he is taking out his anger on others because of trouble at home. This is critical to sociologists because they need to look deeper than what appears to be the obvious answer. Both humans and violence are extremely complicated topics, and trying to link a cause and effect is often difficult when there are so many causes and so many effects which are often intertwined.

So in summary, it is up to sociologists, along with anyone else, to unearth the true causes of a phenomenon (not just violence) and not just look at the seemingly obvious answer, since it is often much more complicated than what we originally believe. This, if we can apply it to our daily lives, will help us to look for the true causes of events, which will help us to react in a better way.

Sociological Autobiography

Over our life, the things that we value are a perfect representation of who we are. We have a choice of what we hold as important, and we become known for what we choose to let represent us. For me, the three most important things that I value are my faith, my education, and my art.

The first value of my life that I will delve into is the most important to me personally: my religion. I am a devout Lutheran, and I let it show through my actions. Due to this, I don’t believe in the big bang, but rather in Creation. The reason I gave my life up to Jesus Christ was because my parents enrolled me into St Thomas Lutheran from preschool until 8th grade, and then Lutheran High North for all of high school. While this sounds more like a brainwashing since I was too young to make my own choice, my parents presented me with a chance to leave and go to a public school instead of going to a Lutheran high school. When I was given this choice, after some thought I decided that I’d like to continue my religious education and chose to go to Lutheran High North. Being an openly religious person has its perks and its downfalls though. Being an engineer who goes to a science college, my religious views are often shunned due to the fact that atheism and science often go hand in hand. This struggle has made my faith stronger, as I am a highly analytical person, so whenever I run into a hardship, I search until I find an answer to the question of my faith. This has resulted in me having a faith that I wholly believe in an any struggle only brings me closer to God.

The second value that has had a large impact on my life is my education. While most kids my age hated school and couldn’t wait to be done, I always loved school. My parents always pushed me to do good in school and made sure that I understood what I was taught. On top of this, I was raised in a household where we didn’t have cable television or internet for a long time because we lived in the country. This meant that instead of watching television, I would read books. With this craving for knowledge cemented in my personality, I started watching television channels like the History and Science channels instead of cartoons. This love of learning, I tended to be known as a nerd and geek, since society seems to have a negative view on people who love learning so much, like I did. This emphasis on education has had an extremely large impact on my life, as I am continually learning. For instance, while I was in grade school, I became interested in cars and wanted to fully understand how they worked. In order for me to understand this, I rented as many technical books about engines as I could, and spent my free time reading books and looking at cutaway drawing in order to see how all the parts come together to work. Along with books, I also worked on my go kart engine just to understand it. Even to this day, this love of learning continues, as whenever I run into something that I don’t understand, I decide to do research and learn more about the problem rather than shying away from it.

And lastly, theres my love of art. I feel that art is an important part of life, and it is often forgotten because people tend to focus on other things instead, such as sports and homework. On top of this, the general consensus of being an artist is that its a waste of time and that its a moneyless interest. While my parents did what all other parents did and let me play with crayons and colored pencils as a kid, it was my own doing that led to my love of art. I am a firm believer that being artistic is something that is learned, not something that you’re born with or without. That being said, my bored childhood of living in the country and having no friends nearby led to me spending my time doodling on paper and drawing. As I went through school, all of my free time or instances where I was bored in class saw me pulling out  apiece of paper and drawing. Once I hit that stage in my life where I became interested in cars, I also decided to see how well I could draw cars, and this eventually led to me designing my own cars in order to satisfy my creativity. By the time I got to high school, I was taking every art class I could, and I gained a reputation as being the best artist in the school. Up until my senior year, my intention was to go to the College for Creative Studies in Detroit and major in Automotive Design. At this point, I finally caved to what society said about artists, and I decided to take a completely different route and to become an engineer since it meant I’d earn a substantial amount of money more than I would as a car designer. At first I had some second thoughts, but I found out that I could be both an engineer and and artist, since my artistic nature led to me excelling at any engineering work that requires hand drawings or technical drawings.

Data As Evidence

In today’s modern society, there is countless debates and studies that talk about children living in single parent homes and how they compare to homes where both parents are present. While data about this topic is easy to find, I believe it can be quite deceiving.

Using this data from datacount.kidscount.org, it would be easy to see that the majority of children live in a household with two parents instead of just a single parent. Of those that live with single parents, its much more common for children to live with their mother than their father. To show this, I will compare these statistics in the United States, Michigan, and Detroit.

As seen in this comparison, Michigan follows the nationwide trend where most children live in a dual parent household. Interestingly though, Detroit, the largest city in Michigan, does not follow this trend. In fact, most children in Detroit are in a household where there is only a mother figure. As a person who has lived and spent their entire life in Metro Detroit, these results are not entirely surprising. Most people in the area would say that this is a result of gangs and poorer people who live in the downtown area. While some people would jokingly say that this is a result of men who have children then ditch the mother and child to continue living their own life, it is hard to deny that there is some element of truth to this claim. All you have to do is look at the data and see that there is almost twice as many fatherless children in Detroit as there are motherless and dual-parented children combined. Seeing this data would leave me only one choice, and that is to believe that there is an astounding number of fathers in Detroit who are simply abandoning their family.

So why does this matter? The problem with this whole situation is that there is an abundance of children in the city who now only have a single mother to care for them. With the increasing cost of raising children and the lack of good jobs in the Detroit area, these children will be underprivileged and could have a lower quality of life.

The Sociological Imagination

The first social phenomena that I observed was people using Snapchat to send messages to each other. With this app on your phone, you are able to be connected with people who are right next to you along with people who are hundreds of miles away. This is definitely a social interaction because it allows you to send messages with pictures of yourself or your surroundings, which helps the recipient to feel as if they are there right next to you. By allowing there to be a visual element to these messages, it seems to bring you and your friends together again, and it helps to convey minute emotions and the small gestures that can only be picked up by seeing a person.

The second social interaction that I witnessed was a person who simply held the door open for their classmates as they exited the building after class. While at first this may seem like a casual event, it is actually a social occurrence. At first, this may appear to be something that is just done because it is polite and its what we were taught to do as children, but if you think about it a little deeper, it is more than that. It is indeed a social interaction because the reasoning behind this action is to think of others first and to serve others.

The last interaction that I observed was myself and a friend as we were lifting weights at the gym. While this is a social interaction since we were both working out together and talking during it, the social aspect of this is deeper than what is originally thought of. Most people would only see the talking between friends as the social interaction here, but they are missing overlying cause here that is the basis for a much larger social phenomena. The motivation for people going to the gym is the larger event here, and it is what I will focus on. In today’s modern age, people go to the gym in order to get more fit, lose some weight, or to bulk up. The reason for this being a social interaction though is because it is considered more attractive when a person is in great physical condition, and people who aren’t in the best shape are usually looked down upon. This is all because the expectations for people and their appearance now has a social aspect. This exact scenario wasnt always the case though, as in the past, a person who was heavier set was a sign of royalty as they could afford to eat more. At that time, being a skinnier person would be a sign of poverty since you would be too poor to afford food and you would be more in shape from physical labor.