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Social identity
Diversity Of Culture
How self and identity are socially constructed
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Conclusion Response to Appiah’s “Racial Identities” Kwame Anthony Appiah, an outstanding writer, voices his opinion on the subject of our culture and racism in his essay, “Racial Identities.” Appiah’s conclusion has a lot of meaning to itself along with a sense of explanation. He says, “So here are my positive proposals: live with fractured identities; engage in identity play; find solidarity, yes, but recognize contingency, and above all, practice irony.” Moreover, these positive proposals are Appiah’s ideas to help guide our lives in a positive way. To live with fractured identities and learn to understand the unpredictable. To engage in identity play and test ourselves to new abilities while learning to testing our identity. Finding …show more content…
When Appiah says, “positive proposals,” to me, it’s his way of informing us that he has his own views on life. That these “proposals” are his own ideas of what, we as people should attend to. Living with fractured identities would be his first. Now what does that mean and why does it apply to the context? A fractured identity, for example, would be a man who studied politics in college, but hates to vote and only wears jeans. This man’s identity is fractured because it’s completely different than other people’s views of a politician. Yes, he studied politics, but what politic doesn’t like to vote? Also, shouldn’t he learn to wear dress pants other than jeans? Some would think of this man as a weirdo who doesn’t fit into our cultural norms, or someone who is unpredictable. When Appiah says, “live with fractured identities,” I assume he means to understand the unthinkable and realize the beauty of other possibilities. I remember having a friend in high school who had a fractured identity. He loved to dress up for school almost every single day except it was always different types of classy clothing. He never wore just a suit and tie, but other crazy outfits that always left people staring and wondering what he was going to wear next. Sometimes, it’d totally shock people when he would come to school wearing sweat pants because people just never knew what to expect from …show more content…
Defining solidarity by the context of Appiah’s essay, I would say the meaning of this is to find where you belong relating to your beliefs. To overcome your obstacles of life by realizing who you are on the inside and the out, while finding others with mutual feelings you can relate to. The reason something like this is important is because we all are in search for others who believe in the same things we do. This builds unity and stronger relations between individuals, thus creating in someways, a culture of its own. An example of its context would be, “Most of us remember 9/11 in solidarity.” What this technically means, is that majority of us americans, share the same beliefs and feelings over what happened on that day. We share solidarity because majority of us feel the same way. Finding solidarity brings us together as a group and as a culture and what Appiah means, or why I assume he believes it’s important, is because without solidarity, we are all individuals wandering this world without answers to our questions. Without questions to our answers could be misleading, while becoming more close-minded with nothing to relate our own thoughts nor beliefs to anything similar nor different. Solidarity builds structure along with hope. It shows cultures what is right and what is wrong in the context of a situation. Solidarity is what brings people together by uniting them through similarities and by answering
Claude M. Steele is the author of “ Whistling Vivaldi”, which mainly represents that the meaning of identity contingencies and stereotype threat, and how can these effect people’s ideas and behaviors. By writing this article, Steele tries to make people know exist of identity contingencies. Gina Crosley-Corcoran, who is a white woman suffered the poverty in her childhood. Through describing her miserable experiences in parallel construction to motivate readers sympathize her, moreover approving that she can as a powerful evidence for affirming the impact of identity contingencies. Crosley-Corcoran admits the white privilege really exist in some way in her article “ Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person”, and white privilege
In Claudia Rankine’s article ‘The Condition of Black Life Is One of Mourning”, she describes systemic racism as “Vulnerability, fear, recognition, and an absurd stuckness.” Living in America as a white person is completely different than if you were black. If you are black, you
It is essential to understand the differences and similarities that people have within other people, to just try to accept the fact that some people may be different. However conversation often leads to social change because people tend to want to fit in where most people are the same. Appiah explains “Depending on the circumstances, conversations across boundaries can be delightful, or just vexing” (Page 73). That is why Appiah believes people need to be more accepting, more globalized. He initially feels that conversation can lead people to create change and can hinder their reasons to fit in because they are different. However, conversation is not enough because people are still changing to fit in, people are constantly feeling left out, not valued for their customs or beliefs. He also asserts “We can’t hope to reach a final consensus on how to rank and order such values. That’s why the model i 'll be returning to is that of conversation” (Appiah 73). With this being said it is clearly stated how Appiah is a firm believer that conversation is the number one key for understanding of others. This can be very controversial because Munoz may disagree. He asserts “The English- only way of life partly explains the quiet erasure of cultural difference that assimilation has attempted to accomplish” (Munoz 308). Conversation is leading to a change that is creating to erase the differences among people. For instance, Munoz asserts how people are changing their names because they feel comfortable and different. People are erasing their names and putting American names and forgetting where their names came from and how much it means to their culture. This is a major issue when conversation is changing but not necessarily for the better. It does create and effect in many people whom they are talked into how they are different and due to because people just don’t accept and understand the different cultures. It is
Every individual in society and in a community is unique in their own ways, and their diversity shows up in many ways. Some of these ways include: religion, race, socioeconomic status, lifestyle, and so on. Everyone’s backgrounds are different, and this is what creates diversity in people. Even though everyone might not be the same, only by uniting everyone can we create the big picture. It’s like a puzzle—even though people are different, we can come together to create a big picture that couldn’t be created by puzzle pieces of the same shape. To me, diversity symbolizes the unique backgrounds that we come from. Every individual in their communities and in their society are influenced by their background—and this can come from various reasons. If someone comes from a different socioeconomic background, or lifestyle, their thought processes and their view of life might be much more different than mine. Their reaction to a certain situation can be much more different than mine, and it is important for me to see all these viewpoints in order to be a more informed member of my community. Everyone is diverse in their expression, style, and
he argues in support of racial identity and flexibility complementing one another. This proves that the further society evolves, the closer mankind gets to eradicating the idea of a dominant race. However, there are occasions where labels could hinder a person’s opportunity. In fact, culture is the newest label that society takes into account the most, and to a minority, the main goal is to embed the roots of the old generation into the next generation.
1. Anthony Appiah argues that race is less central to our (Western) ethical identities than
The article being analyzed is called “The Intersections of Race, Class and Gender in the Anti-Racist Discourse" by George Dei. The purpose of the article is to outline the idea that race cannot be analysed by itself, rather it has to be separated and looked at in connection to other types of identities. The author argues that the current theory about race does not provide a concise understanding of “human and social development”. The ideas surrounding race that already exist do not consider the “totality of human experiences”. This is where the author argues that the study of anti-racism is "integrative". These type of studies aim to provide information on how different identities such as race, class, gender, sexual orientation are connected
“We are all in one. There are no men but only the great WE, One, Indivisible and forever” (Anthem 19). Extremism brings attention. Ayn found that the beauty of portraying collectivism in such an extreme way is that we are now able to see, feel and understand more of Ms. Rand's views, like why selflessness is actually bad. Ayn teaches many lessons about how selfishness is necessary for human development, and relationships. As Equality 7-2521 finds a sense of self he is able to build better relationships with others, as well as with life.
Racism and stereotypes make it difficult for individuals to express their individuality identity. Certain stereotypes can affect people social lives, emotions, and how people interact with their environment” (Rodrigo). Racism can be considered an obstacle to individual identity. The results of stereotypes have a huge impact on how humans sometime feel, such as; not having motivation, courage, dedication or heart to go on. In the “Invisible Man” topics are focus on such as culture stigma, black society, and stereotyping. “I did not understand in those pre- invisible days that their hate and mine too, was charged with fear. How all of us at the college hated the black – belt people, the “peasants,” during those day! We were trying to lift them
“When Race Becomes Even More Complex: Toward Understanding the Landscape of Multiracial Identity and Experiences”
Introduction We live in a society where race is seen as a vital part of our personalities, the lack of racial identity is very often an important factor which prevents people from not having their own identity (Omi & Winant, 1993). Racism is extremely ingrained in our society and it seems ordinary (Delgado & Stefanic, 2000). However, many people denounce the expression of any racist belief as immoral (Miles & Brown, 2003) highlighting the complicated nature of racism. Critical Race Theory tries to shed light on the issue of racism, claiming that racism is ingrained in our society both in legal, cultural, and psychological aspects of social life (Tate, 1997). This essay provides us with the opportunity to explore this theory and its influence in the field of education.
I’m discussing a video that has taken social media by storm called “I’m Not Racist” by rapper Joyner Lucas. His video shows an African American male and a Caucasian male discussing all the rawest concepts that deal with race from their own perspectives. I decided to discuss this topic because it relates to Erik Erikson identity vs role confusion. This concept is the “need to come to a resolution of who they are & what they believe”. This is exactly what this music video is doing. The Caucasian male is stating his case on how racism wasn’t that bad, and majority of the people today didn’t experience racism directly. While the African American male is trying to explain to the Caucasian male that he wouldn’t never understand our struggles because
Everyday the future in America looks brighter for the issues dealing with race and identity. Brave souls are not letting racism, class discrimination, or sexism holds them back anymore. The fight for a balanced society that pushes for equality is on the horizon. My identity has grown since researching other peoples’ opinion of identity. I have been in America for fourteen years now, and I am still searching for where I actually belong. I was born on September 17, 1995 in Savanna-La-Mar, Jamaica. At the mere age of five, my family left Jamaica and moved to Atlanta, Georgia. This is truly where my life story and identity began.
Times are changing and I feel like I am forced to conform to the everyday social norms of America, which makes me feel impuissance. Racial identity, which refers to identifying with a social group with similar phenotypes and racial category, is the only experience that I have with life (Organista, 2010). Racial ethnicity was used to build my self-esteem and to keep me in the dark when it came to how society treats individuals of darker complexion. However, once I left the confines of my family and neighborhood, I was forced to befriend and interact with individuals that had different cultural values and beliefs than me. This experience caused me to learn how to appreciate other racial and ethnic groups and their cultural values and belief. This is an accurate definition, of acculturation because I was able to understand and fit in with individuals different from me, while maintaining my own culture and ethnic identity. Therefore, knowing the importance of my ancestry, while acculturating and developing my own identity was all used
This “relationship” previously stated is the basis for the second key theme of Catholic Social Teaching. “The Catholic social encyclicals teach that to be human is to experience not only rights but also obligations to others” (Massaro, p.84). A strong advocate for solidarity, Pope John Paul II stated “To be human is to be a social being, one whose very life is and should be bound up with those in close proximity and even distant strangers (Massaro, p.84). Solidarity exists when individuals are contributing towards a common good, which is simply a goal in life that is held above the private benefits of those individuals. Catholic Social Teaching states that when the individuals of today make sacrifices for the common good of a ...