Your Blues Aint Like Mine Essay - 1450 Words

In Bebe Moore Campbell’s, You’re Blues Ain’t Like Mine, I was able to view the novel from the three main sociological perspectives: the structural-functionalist approach, the social-conflict approach, and the symbolic-interaction approach. From the structural-functionalist point of view, I analyzed the Honorable Men of Hopewell as the power elite. I viewed Mamie Cox’s understanding of social class from the social-conflict perspective, and Doreen and Lily Cox differences were easily seen through the symbolic-interaction approach. By examining the characters and situations from these three important perspectives, I was able to have a better understanding of the novel and the life of the people in which the novel was based. First, the†¦show more content†¦They manipulated relief benefits so that poor whites were often denied payments and pushed out of the county so that they could keep in blacks who would work for starvation rates; they manipulat ed higher property taxes for blacks and lower taxes for themselves which resulted in the black community virtually paying for the entire school system; the decision to not sell life insurance to blacks was made by these men; and finally they held in their hands the decision of what was to be done to the men responsible for Armstrong Todd’s death (Campbell: 109). It is evident that the men belonging to the legacy of the Honorable Men of Hopewell were undoubtedly the most powerful body of all decisions made making them the power elite. Secondly, the character of Mamie Cox portrays a woman who had a clear understanding of the social class and segregation, in the south, under the Jim Crow laws. Using the social-conflict approach, a framework for building theory that sees society as an arena of inequality that generates conflict and change, I analyzed Mamie’s response to the changes she experienced throughout the novel (Macionis: 12). In Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine , I clearly noticed how the segregation laws were instilled in her since birth and how she was effected when those laws began to crumble. The term DeJure is a Latin word meaning segregation by law. For those living in the south, such as Mamie Cox, this meant separate bathrooms, water fountains, and schools.