Reflections on: The Promise of Sociology by C. Wright Mills

The Mills article was incredibly interesting and thought provoking. Mills gives pause for thought when he writes, "Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both." (11). 

And while we live in an increasingly me centered and individualistic society the article gives way to a new school of thought for some. It makes the point that life, and any attempt to understand it, is bigger than me, or any one person. Life then, when viewed through the lens of the sociological imagination, can be viewed as a tapestry made up of ones individual (personal) and corporate (public) experiences carefully intertwining and having a significant effect on one other. Mills makes a similar assertion when he writes, "No social study that does not come back to the problems of biography, or history, and of their intersection within a society has completed its intellectual journey." (13). 

When thinking about the difference between troubles and issues and how they connect to ideas from my life, the first example that comes to mind is the prison industrial complex. I live in a neighborhood with a high concentration of public housing developments which translates to a very high police presence. To that end, many residents from my neighborhood are routinely profiled and questioned by police using methods such as "Stop and Frisk" for probable cause. While I am a firm believer in justice, I feel that what is a trouble for those being profiled and arrested, it speaks to a much bigger issue. Our justice system is set up in such a way that only those who can afford powerful and high priced attorneys to have a fighting chance. There are systems and social structures in place that keep prisons and jails full with individuals that are from a similar socioeconomic background as myself, a minority born into poverty. The issue is that, in many respects, rich and wealthy individuals get away with things that someone from a poor neighborhood would not. In the past these judicial inconsistencies we easier to cover up or sweep under the rug but in an age of social media and digital media, the injustice is just that much more evident and appalling. That is one example of what comes to mind when thinking about troubles and issues and how they connect to ideas from my life.