African-American Male Experience essay

Submitted By abdulajaz92
Words: 402
Pages: 2

My Secret Life as a Black Man In “My Secret Life as a Black Man,” the author Anthony Walton describes the realities of living life in America through the perspective of an African American. He discusses the social realities that he faces in his everyday life. They range from his interactions with both black and white people, to how he is perceived by others and himself as a result of the social realities that he is bound by. The social worlds that Walton lives in are what he has to face in a constant daily struggle for realizing the identity of his self. He lives in multiple social worlds as he has to repeatedly switch from one to another based on whom he is interacting with. The characteristics of these social worlds he lives in influence his behavior and thoughts and the way he responds to different people depending on the social world. When he is in a position to interact with white people he understands the context of the situation is different from interacting with white people. He knows that from a white person’s perspective, he will be perceived in stereotypical fashion. They only view him as a “black man” and likely nothing else until more dialogue can be established. When it comes to people of his own race, he knows the same effect is taking place except he is expected to “conform to their ideological and cosmological positions.” This reality of his world is definitely socially constructed. This is because these social worlds are constructed as a result of