Outsiders, by S. E. Hinton is a story revolving around two social groups, the Socs and the Greasers. The Socs and Greasers are two social groups, made from two different materials. The main barrier between their relationships is their contrasting opinions, physical looks, and social background. As a result of this, the Socs and Greasers get in fights and battle without even knowing each other. The author writes this story not on two specific characters, but writes it on two social groups. As I was reading chapters 1-6, I noticed the two groups (Socs and Greasers) have so much in similar to other conflicting parties in history. Two groups in history, who had analogous conflicting relationships, are the Blacks and Whites in the United States. A group with uneven alliances, the Socs and Greasers, are like those in U.S. History of the Blacks and Whites. In this case, the two sides were African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans) and white Americans. At first, the early Africans and non-white immigrant were treated equally with the whites. The Africans served European settlers and as a result they were awarded with more freedom and some land. As time progressed and slavery started to become more common, the status of African Americans dropped. The wealthy landowners were the ones who owned African-Americans as slaves. The slave drivers were used to very cheap agriculture labor for producing cotton and tobacco. Soon in the 19th century a handful of organizations advocated for equal freedom to the blacks living in the United States to Whites. People like African American politicians, entertainer and activists, like Martin Luther King Jr. lead nonviolent protests in 1960 against slavery. Later on, the government passed the Civil Rights Act which abolished slavery.
Coming back to the book, the Blacks and Whites, compaired to the Socs and Greasers are analogous in a handful of ways. I view the Socs as White Americans, and Greasers as African Americans. Firstly, the Greasers are treated poorly like the African Americans, and Socs behaved as the White Americans did. The Americans had the power to do anything to the African Americans, and Socs have the same power on the Greasers. Socs (social or soashes) are spoiled children that come from a rich family tree. The Greasers are children that come from a hard background. Because of their different social status and deep standing loath, the Greasers and the Socs fight with one another. It is like an older ten year old (Socs) brother and a younger five year old brother (Greasers), who get the same necessities, but still fight over their shares. The older brother (Socs) get mad at the younger brother (Greasers) because it want more and therefore it builds the wall of hate between them. It seems like the Socs are somewhat mad at the Greasers for sharing their community. This is the same for the Blacks and Whites, the Whites wanted Blacks to work for them because of their physical skin color difference, and thought the Blacks were therefor less human. The Whites felt that they were a better race. Another similarity between the Socs and the Americans, and the Greasers and the African Americans are their social class. The Greasers come from hard family background, and their children get together to have outside support. The Socs come from wealthy families. The Socs take advantage of the Greasers and get in fights with them. This also feels like this hate has been continuing down from a few generations. The Socs and Greasers have many similarities with the Blacks and Whites in America.
