Race, Ethnicity And Identity In Today's Society

What is race? What is ethnicity? What is identity? As society continues to evolve into being more liberal and open, people are learning to open to new behaviors and to discard past traditions. Subsequently, the terms of race, ethnicity, and identity are placed into a cloud of confusion where there is difficulty to tell one apart from one another. The thought in society is that we can fully choose who we want to be. However, although we have the ability to choose, we cannot choose our race because of our birth; thus a part of our identity has already been molded, giving us the opportunity through experience and exploration to complete this mold and fill it with our ethnic identity.

Our identity is plainly defined as who we are and what we are

In a sense, many take someone’s racial identity and use it as the only part of their identity to classify them. For example, in the article, “Passing for White and Straight,” the author had the appearance of a white female, even though being a mixed African-American, and as a result of societies pre-set judgments, police officers did not suspect her of crime, whites never felt threatened around her, and racists felt comfortable spending time with her. Through this we see the misused definition of race in today’s society, judging someone simply off of their seeming race and physical appearance. Being part of a certain race does not entail being part of a certain ethnicity. Yes, many ethnic groups are made up of people of the race race but we must understand that race is genetic while our ethnicity is not. Thus, we should not be judged based on the genes of our parents and our ancestors. Instead, our race should be something we embrace as a component of our identity and ancestral past and not something we are ashamed about because of other’s misconceptions. As the first part of our identity, our race acts as the foundation of our identity. We are given the opportunity through our life time to build upon this foundation and mold by choices in order to define our full and embraced

In Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers,” (UN General Assembly). Even though we are constrained in the choice of our biological birth, we have the “freedom of opinion and expression.” With this freedom, we can choose to continue ancestral traditions or completely reject them. This choice is the modification of our ethnic identity. Our ethnicity is the social, cultural, personal, and character aspect of our identity and this is the part that can be voluntary in the defining of our identity. In UNESCO’s statement, scientists also state that, “As for personality and character, these may be considered raceless,” meaning that we do not inherit our culture or full personality when we are born (UNESCO Statement). Our ethnicity, unlike society’s concept, does not have to be linked to our race. Instead, we gain our cultural and personal identity through our contact with our perspective environments. This is through our personal choosing. These include the way we speak, what language we speak, our clothing, religious and moral beliefs, and other cultural practices (University of