Rankism Essay

Questions:

1. Explain the concept of “rankism” in your own words and give examples that support, explain and illustrate your definition.

Rankism is the mistreatment, denigration and abuse of power from one person to one or more people based on a perceived higher rank. In the text the author makes his definition clear but the one component I felt he did not focus enough on was the perception that one group thinks they hold a higher rank than the other party. Using the perceived social dominance factor as the author suggests would catapult rankism as the top ism over all the others. He focused a lot on the pyramid of rank coming from the most powerful down to the least, because a person with a higher social rank can bully those with lower ranks underneath them but it can also be reversed. This is why a poorer racist can still seemingly bully a successful member from another race, because they feel they have a form of social dominance by color alone, and the same can apply to gender and sexual orientation. It is the perceived dominance that allows those with what would be considered less rank to bully those with rank.

An example of this instance could be a local politician being berated by their constituents. They are supposed to be a representative and that gives them somewhat of a higher rank, but personally attending several town hall there is no justification for language, tone and rude words that are directed their way. The rude constituents feel that they hold some form of social dominance over their elected official because he works for them. It works the same way with company leaders and their shareholders at their meetings. Rank is necessary, because it provides checks and balances but when it is abused whether by coercio...

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...on Collin who is a very serviceable player sit in free agency because sources said they did not want to let the media circus become a distraction. Being a basketball fan I can safely say that Collins is solid role player and could have filled a bench role on any roster. Actions such as this just contribute to the solid wall that had been built up over time and reinforced with these recent athletes coming out. Like Dale Hansen, I do not understand a gay person’s world but I am glad to say that over the weekend some of the mortar was chiseled away because Jason Collins was signed by an owner who decided to break away from what everyone else was doing and the players whether they were uncomfortable or not did not show one sign of it. The owner who had the rank decided to chisel away at the mystique and hopefully this is a step to permanently knocking down that wall.