Are You a Saint or Roughneck?...

The reading this week was really interesting and fun to read. In the beginning I had a feeling that the Roughnecks were the 'good guys' compared to the Saints. The article helped me understand the differences of how people perceive others, by ways of being deviant. I found it interesting how social class can make you or break you. It wouldn't matter if you had good grades or you were very polite, just on how much money you have it a deal breaker for making that person a 'delinquent' or 'criminal'. Having a cop stopping a Saint on a Friday night when the Saints just vandalized somewhere or where recklessly driving either drunk or not, it didn't matter. As long as you were dressed nice, had an expensive car, and were polite, you could talk your way out of the night in jail. But the Saints wouldn't know of any of that because the cops thought what they did was just a 'mistake', not a crime, just because of the way they look and what they have. While if a cop were to pull over a Roughneck who were on the streets, because they weren't able to afford a car, were dressed less classy, had a bad mouth and seemed lower class than the Saints, the cop was more likely to question the kid and most likely send him to jail for the night.

A lot of people say they don't judge a person, yet in reality everyone does at some point in his or her life. Assuming that the teenager doesn't have money must mean that he does drugs, drinks and gets into trouble all the time, compared to a better looking teenager who has the car, money, and good grades and is respected in the town, one can see that making assumptions gets us nowhere. I think that it's sad that we judge people on appearances, class level and money, when in reality we should get to know the person before making judgments.

I think that at our school we do have the Saints and Roughnecks. Not all are Saints that's for sure. Money sure does help cover up the deviance and it is a key factor. You have the teens that use their money to get out of situations. Say someone gets into trouble with the law, which would never happen to the Saints in the article but here they do, they would have lawyers who could get them out of that situation in a flash. When on the other side of the tracks you have the Roughnecks, don't have as much money, not as many fancy cars or clothes, but are careful about the law. They are more likely to commit a crime like stealing because they don't have as much. You can expect that from Roughnecks, but perceiving them as downright criminals is plain wrong.