Biography of a Friend

¶ … Sociological Imagination:

An analysis of the biography of a friend

According to the sociologist C. Wright Mills, the sociological imagination is a deep and visceral understanding of how our personal experiences relate to factors present in larger society. "The sociological imagination enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals" (Mills 3). The sociological imagination is meant to be a liberating concept, a way of connecting the dots between atomized anecdotes in one's personal life and the larger sweep of society and history. Sometimes it can be very frustrating and lonely to feel as though our personal experiences exist in isolation and have no greater meaning outside of our own sphere. The sociological imagination helps us make connections between 'the self' and experiences of others beyond those of our immediate family. I can see this reflected in the personal experiences of my friend Nina.

Nina fulfills many roles: she is a daughter, a sister, and a dancer as well was a friend of mine in high school. She is also an African-American. In many ways, her life reflects the changes that have occurred in modern American society since the civil rights movement. Both of her parents were able to become professionals and send their children to good schools and support their children's hobbies. Nina did not face racial barriers that directly inhibited her schooling or her ability to excel. This was very different from her parents, who had far fewer role models than did Nina in terms of their advancement in the workforce.

However, I know at times Nina still felt frustrated. For example, because of her race she often felt that she did not embody the 'typical ballerina' and was passed over for better roles at her dance school because she did not fit the image of what a dancer should look like. This gave her a great deal of insecurity about her body at a young age. Of course, she knew that she 'should' feel beautiful regardless of what other people said about her. But at times that only compounded her guilt. Nina also felt that when she was asked to dance leading roles, they tended to be roles that confirmed stereotypes of who she was supposed to be as a black female dancer rather than as just a dancer: more sexual and athletic than graceful.

Because the school she attended was mainly made up of whites, Nina also said she often felt pressure to live up to a particular ideal because of her minority status. Any slacking off would be seen not simply as reflective of herself but of all individuals of her group. Her parents, however unwittingly, also tended to reinforce this because they were highly driven for their daughter to succeed and had overcome many personal challenges to do so.

Although Nina was not directly aware of the concept of the 'sociological imagination' she did say at one point to me that an awareness of why she felt the way she felt at times was helpful and did reduce the anxiety and pressure she felt to be perfect to some degree. Mills observed in his essay "The Promise:" "men do not usually define the troubles they endure in terms of historical change and institutional contradiction" (Mills 1-2). In other words, when people suffer, they tend to blame themselves rather than see themselves as the products of historical forces. If someone is rejected from a job, he or she is more inclined to blame him or herself than the social factors that have made jobs scarce. That is one of the sources of anxiety in the modern world, a failure of sociological imagination.

Although some of the racism Nina faced was subliminal, there were also examples of overt racism, when people attributed any success she might have to affirmative action. Not only was this not true but this itself shows a lack of sociological sensitivity to the reasons that affirmative action has been used in the first place: as a way of creating a level playing field for past discrimination, rather than simply showing preference for one group in an arbitrary fashion. When affirmative action is used as an 'excuse' for why one person succeeds, this can exacerbate low self-esteem and the feelings of distress and rejection a person has as a result of being a member of a historically discriminated-against race. People may blame affirmative action when what they really feel is jealousy of another person's success that is due to a variety of factors.