Blog Nine

Erving Goffman examined status, roles, and what he called the self-label. Social status is a particular social position while a role is the behavior that is expected of someone that holds a particular status. Self-label is an identity that one presents to others in an attempt to try to attain their impression they give off to others.

Goffman is attributing power to the individual with creating their own identity. If you meet someone new, you as an individual have a lot of power to present yourself and how you interact and essentially, how you create your own identity to that other individual.

It’s interesting that Goffman examined the disconnect between status and roles. If we expect someone to fill a certain role due to their status, and they don’t, then we’re not only thrown off, but it becomes sort of an awkward situation. How we act should align with the self-label we give to ourselves, otherwise, it’s almost fake or hypocritical. If I have an identity or self-label that is against alcohol and I present a certain set of priorities, and I go out into the world and go against what I just said was my label, it becomes one uncomfortable situation.

Not only this, but Goffman also looked at stigmas. A stigma is a negative label. It becomes difficult to achieve roles and overall acceptance due to stigmas. In between self-label and roles lay the stigmas. Stigmas are very hard to get rid of and sometimes can last for decades, such as a stigmatization of African American people and high rates of crime. If you’re driving through a bad neighborhood where predominately African American people live, you might stigmatize everyone that they are trouble seekers.

There’s a set of videos on youtube called Kill Stigma for a ‘kill stigma campaign.’ They are videos trying to kill stigmas for things such as stigmas for drug abuse, autism, schizophrenia, etc. The one I liked the most was “Stigma Associated with Autism:KILL STIGMA” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hseZ32OcInQ) This video talks about stigmas that can be demoralizing and how the stigmas that society has placed on autism makes family members of autistic individuals almost ashamed of their relative. These stigmas related to mental disorders or abuses don’t seem to ever cease.