As soon as we are able to see the world and to make judgments, we experience hierarchy, status, and power. As we grow older, our observations are sharpened. We all experience stratification, hierarchy, status, and power. There are those who are able to get what they want and have a life of one opportunity after another, while others live in a daily struggle characterized by suffering and the lack of opportunities.
People of color are more apt to belong to the latter category.
By inequality, we refer to the distribution of rewards, goods, and services, benefits and privileges, honor and esteem, and power and influence available to incumbents of the different social roles and social positions and associated with different roles and positions. Whites usually will occupy the more desirable positions and people of color will end up with the leftovers. The top positions are manned primarily by white Protestants of various national origins, for whom ethnicity has little significance except as a means of distinguishing themselves from the remainder of the ethnic hierarchy. These are generally affluent, White Anglo-Protestant, and male. There were two Blacks and no Chicanos, Native Americans, or Asian American and very few recognizable Irish, Italian, or Jewish names.