Observation is one of the research methods that are used by social scientists like sociologist to study a phenomenon. It gives researchers or observers the opportunity to collect in-depth information about the object under study. Therefore, I used observation to study two communities living in Georgia. The communities included African Americans and Native Americans living in the state. There are a lot of differences between African American and Native Americans living in Georgia, even though they have some slight similarities in terms of cultural practices as well as norms and values (Morgan, 2002).
My observation revealed to me that African American community in Georgia has a rich culture practices. In terms of language, I observed that the majority of African Americans in Georgia speak African American Vernacular English (AAVE). Even though White Americans and some African Americans consider AAVE as slang, I realized that it is considered as a legitimate dialect among African American communities living in Georgia (Morgan, 2002). I also observed the lifestyle events of African Americans in Georgia. Funeral is one of the life events that I found to be unique among African American communities in the state. They consider death to be transitory and not final journey of human beings. As a result, they invite religious leaders to be with the morning families throughout the process. At the same time, families and friends gather together to mourn the dead, which take relatively longer period compared to White Americans. In addition, I observed that African Americans practice different types of religions. Even though the majority of African Americans are Christians, the community also has a significant number of people following Islam, Hindu, Judaism, and Buddhism. Many African Americans have specific dress code when going to worship, as people are expected to show their best appearance in places of worship. For instance, women are expected to wear vibrant dresses or suits that do not reveal much of their body parts.
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African American community in Georgia still value extended family system, which is expected to provide both economic and emotional support to its members. There is a close link between nuclear family and extended family, as they are interdependent (Morgan, 2002). It is the responsibility of older people to socialize younger generation based on community norms and values. In addition, I observed that many African Americans men prefer to maintain their facial hair. Besides, their meals are mainly made up of a lot of fat, starch, and sodium. Nevertheless, due to obesity concerns, African American community in Georgia is now changing its dietary habits.
Despite having vibrant culture, African American community living in Georgia has lower socioeconomic status compared to other communities in the state. The majority of African Americans live in informal settlement (Newman et al ., 2002). At the same time, they have low levels of health and education due to poverty. Besides, because many of them live in ghettos, they are not able to access quality amenities such as housing and infrastructures. African Americans have experienced structural discrimination and marginalization for years, which explains their poor socio-economic status.
The second community I observed was Native Americans in Georgia. Unlike African Americans who are aggressive and outgoing, Native Americans in Georgia value quietness and they exercise a lot of patience. Many Native Americans remain silent when they are angry or uncomfortable. Even though this cultural trait is partly attributed to the discrimination the community has undergone over time, it is deeply embedded in their in their interpersonal etiquette. Native Americans traditionally used quietness as survival tactics against dominant communities like White Americans. At the same time, Native American people exercise a lot of patience, which was initially being used as survival virtue. Currently, they use silence show respect for other people and to build consensus. Therefore, patience and quietness virtues that are common among Native Americans living in Georgia can be traced back to their old days when they were under threat from dominant communities, and they used them as survival tactics (Riley, 2017).
However, like African Americans, I observed that Native Americans exercise a lot of mutualism. The community use mutualism to promote sense of belonging and to enhance solidarity among community members. They always come together whenever one of them faces a problem just like African Americans. Nevertheless, Native Americans allow some form of competition, as people are allowed to work for personal gain. For instance, their education system embraces stiff competition between learners. Native American education system emphasize on grade and personal honor (Sarche & Spicer, 2008).
Spirituality is highly embedded among Native American communities. Spirituality is taken to be the natural component of everything that they do, including their behaviors. Contrary to many African Americans who follow Christianity, many Native Americans have a mixed religion that comprise of their native beliefs and Christianity. At the same time, the majority are Buddhists. However, generally, Native Americans are more spiritual compared to African Americans (Sarche & Spicer, 2008).
There is no significant difference between Native Americans and African Americans in terms of socio-economic status. It is estimated that the poverty rate among Native Americans in Georgia is about 25.7% compared to the national average of 12.4% (Sarche & Spicer, 2008). At the same time, they are likely to earn lower incomes compared to other communities. Besides, Native Americans have lower life expectancy compared to White Americans. The poor socio-economic status of Native Americans is Georgia is associated with structural discrimination they have faced for a long time.
Discriminative economic and social policies and regulations, especially in education, health, and employment sectors have made many Native Americas to live in poverty. In addition, a significant number of Native Americans in Georgia lack proper amenities like housing and infrastructure. For instance, about 7.5% of Native Americans in the state lack safe drinking water and other basic sanitation (Riley, 2017). Generally, African Americans are better off economically and socially than Native Americans because they have continued to fight for their rights, freedom, and privileges. Native Americans have not been aggressive in fighting for their rights.
In conclusion, the two communities are different in terms of cultural values, norms, and practices. African American community is flexible in terms of embracing other cultures while Native Americans are conservative and they strive to preserve their traditional cultures. However, due to the discriminative racial policies and regulations, the two communities face almost similar socio-economic challenges. The majority of Native Americans and African Americans live in poverty and are not able to access basic social amenities such as good housing, quality health and education, and. safe drinking water. They live in poor settlement areas where they cannot easily access social amenities. Minority communities living in America have rich culture despite the fact that they face similar socio-challenges.
References
Morgan, M. (2002). Language, discourse, and power in African American culture (Vol. 20). Cambridge University Press.
Newman, L. A., Mason, J., Cote, D., Vin, Y., Carolin, K., Bouwman, D., & Colditz, G. A. (2002). African‐American ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and breast cancer survival. Cancer , 94 (11), 2844-2854.
Riley, N. (2016, July 13). One Way to Help Native Americans: Property Rights. The Atlantic . Retrieved https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/native-americans- property-rights/492941/
Sarche, M., & Spicer, P. (2008). Poverty and health disparities for American Indian and Alaska Native children. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences , 1136 (1), 126-136.
