Elian Gonzalez essays

Elian Gonzalez essays It seems as if the last five months has been an update of the latest news and developments in the story of the most famous six year old, Elian Gonzalez. To date, I must admit that I have been somewhat biased and inconsiderate by not paying attention to the most recent developments because of the simple fact that I believed from the beginning that the boy should be returned to his biological father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez. With the timing of this assignment it has given me an opportunity to get caught up on all the facts of the Elian Gonzalez case and I'm glad I have taken this opportunity to do some reading of the last couple of reports by Newsweek. It also ties in well with a sociologist/theorist that we have been discussing in class by the name Baumgartner and the idea of "Social Control from Below". The idea of social control from below is one that we as humans come across day-in and day-out. Some of the factors that we come across in social control from below are the idea that this concept deals with the powerful and the powerless, the powerful can use physical discipline to control the powerless, the powerful can control social resources to control the powerless, and the powerless don't suspend their right to moral justice. These are just a few of the ideas that factor into social control from below, but if you look into them a little deeper you can understand why I would say that we as humans deal with this idea on a daily basis. In the case of Elian Gonzalez and his father's attempt to regain custody, this concept of powerful versus powerless runs a whole lot deeper than just these two. The idea of the powerful versus the powerless plays a major role in this idea of social control from below. The circumstances don't change either when looking at the Gonzalez case. It seems as if these "subordinates" and "elites" were the major players from the beginning and still continue to be the major players to this day. If you had to put a...