North American and Indian cultural beliefs may not have many things in common, but they have similarities in how their societies are separated. The caste system in India and the social class or class system in North America is how these societies or cultures divide their population. These two structures are similar but also have their differences. According to Sociology: The Essentials, the caste system is defined as a stratification system (characterized by low social mobility) in which one's place in the stratification system is determined by birth. This is also recognized as ascribed status. “This system is found in the traditional Hindu population of India” (Haviland 256). Although it is present in other parts of the world, in North America it is not referred to as a caste system, but is classified as a social class or class system. In Sociology: The Essentials, social class or class is described as the social structural position that groups hold relative to the economic, social, political, and cultural resources of society. With this characterization in mind, a person's “class determines the access that different people have to these resources and places groups in different positions of privilege and disadvantage” (Sociology 172). Keeping this class perception in mind, this shows that people do not have the same amount of resources or privileges as others. Each of these different classes has people with the same opportunities or privileges that other classes may not have. For example, the upper class, who has almost everything, will have more opportunities than someone from the lower class who is homeless and does not have many personal items. Other examples of inequality that occur within the class system are that people with a different skin tone like another person who thinks they are superior to someone who has a different skin tone than someone else, also there it is an injustice between men and women. can be seen when the Jim Crow laws were put in place. In the PBS article, "Jim Crow Laws," it says that Jim Crow laws are segregation and disenfranchisement laws that represented a formal, codified system of racial apartheid that dominated the American South for three-quarters of century starting from 1890. . These laws affected the laws that were established affected most of the black community, school systems, sanitation, and many other things. “In legal theory, blacks received “separate but equal” treatment under the law.” This is what the government thought was “equality”, but sadly this was certainly not the case. “In reality, public facilities for blacks were almost always inferior to those for whites when they existed” (Jim Crow Laws). Unfortunately, racism is still present today, but not as often as it has been over the past four decades