Fluid And Shifting Summary

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In "Fluid and Shifting: Racialized, Gendered, and Sexual Identity in African American Children" Denise Isom stated that the joining of racial identity and gender identity showed that maleness is derived from outside sources of performance-based status. While femininity is now strong, complex and varied it is still defined by being sexualized by men and ignoring this issue. For African American children the development of their personal identity is defined by their social structure including family, church and community. The issue in the African American community is what DuBois calls double-consciousness "the feeling that you are always looking at one's self through the eyes of other people." This idea causes African American children to …show more content…

These images often cause fragmented adolescent identities. These social constructs come from a variety of places such as history, white society, African American communities and schools. These children will develop their identity based on these constructs. The children become accustom to be many versions of themselves in the multiple worlds they find themselves trying to exist in (Stevens, 1997 pg. 146). *The young men studied describes males as "rough, tough, funny and athletic". The females in the study saw maleness as an act put on for the sake of others. Both boys and girls centered the notion of maleness in ideal relationships. The girls spoke of males in their life or lack thereof by loss and shortage of interaction with males in their community. While the boys saw their male family members as "heroes". Girls responded that femaleness was directed in behavior and relational including things as being "nice" or "having a boyfriend". The boy's responses mainly focused on appearances and the female body which reiterates the men sexualizing African American …show more content…

The young women showed more signs of shifting identity in their sexual identities as well. During the church study showed the women did not represent themselves as being homosexual but did show their support for those who are. Oddly enough when a male with higher social power was mocked using a homosexual term he did not become angered but embraced the term because his social status allowed for him to do so. Several of the boys and girls in the study express their difficulties with their religious beliefs and their thoughts regarding

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