Does Your Race Form Your Identity? Essay

Submitted By Amna909717
Words: 1100
Pages: 5
Open Document
Question: Does your race form your identity? Race does form the identity of a person. It really does matter whether you are Negro, white or any other race. During the late 1900s the race that really matter were the Negros. If you were a Negro (not necessarily looking like one) you were automatically considered bad. Being a Negro did not just mean that you had colored skin, and a slang accent when you talk, on the contrary you could look completely white and have no slang accent in the way you talk. But as long as you were a Negro you were considered bad. No matter what race you are born into is how you are referred to. A person’s race becomes his/her identity and that is how people know that person. On the contrary many people might say that race does not form the identity of a persona. They can say that you knowledge and beauty is what forms your identity. But these things look perfect in a dream because we all know that in reality that is not how things work. In reality a person’s race does form their identity? A person’s race not only forms their identity but also plans out the life the person and put certain exceptions. An example would be when in the article called “Say Yes” by Tobias Wolff, the wife asked her husband “That I’m black, but still me and we fall in love. Will you marry?” The part of race comes in when the husband says “We don’t want to do something we would regret for the rest of our lives” but after the wife asks the same question the husband just says “No”. According to the husband people of different race have different culture and two people from the different race can never live a happy life together. They would have completely different culture, and expectations which will lead to problems in the couple’s life and cause the two people to get divorce and separate. According the husband “most of those marriages breakup” “(Wolff) which is why he believes that two people from different race should never get married to each and destroy their lives. Another example where the race of a person forms their identity would be in Imitations of Life which is about a girl named Sarah Jane whose parents are Negro. Sarah Jane from no perspective looks like a Negro but since her parents are Negros she still has to suffer. There are many examples in which Sarah Jane’s race caused many problems for her. One example would be when she had to face a big embarrassment in her class as a little girl when everybody in her class found out that she was the daughter of a Negro making her a negro. Was it her fault that she was born as a Negro. There are many things in nature that are just not in our hands then why are people blamed for them. We are not responsible for the race we are born into. Another example from the same movie would when Sarah Jane’s broke up with her after beating her really badly when he found out that she is not the race he expected her to be but instead she is a Negro. This proves that your looks have no importance when you are the race people expect you to be. If you look white but are Negro as in the case of Sarah Jane then you are still looked down upon. Race places a big role in the way people look at you. The movie The Human Stain would be another example where race plays a huge role in forming the life of a person. Coleman is the son of a Negro couple who both have very light skin and are both well educated. Coleman faced a lot of hardship just because he was a Negro. Coleman did not look like a Negro but still he was which created a lot of problems for him in his life. An example of the time where he faced hardship because of his race was when he wanted to apply
Show More

Related Documents: Does Your Race Form Your Identity? Essay

Love: Amiri Baraka and Close Reading Essay

structure of racial identity, race as a concept and racism. This essay builds off of the techniques practiced in our first close reading assignment. Your essay must make a clear and explicit argument, contained in a thesis, about what the text you choose says about the meaning of racial identity. Your argument does not have to be totalizing, by which I mean that it is fine to focus on one aspect or particular meaning of racial identity in the text. There is no need for your argument to seek to…

Words 1121 - Pages 5

discrimination worksheet Essay

stereotyping? Discrimination is basically treating someone different based on their color, race or sex. Discrimination is closely related to prejudice and stereotyping. Discrimination may happen based on what people have heard or seen on television about different races or groups. Discrimination would be someone walking into a place of business and being treated poorly because of their gender or race. If a woman walks into a job and the company is a labor type of job field they tend to discriminate…

Words 509 - Pages 3

Bobby Frank Trial Essay

the start just because of their pre-conceived notions do to their ethnicity, race and religion (Churchill, D., 2009 pg.288 & 289). In the end Leopold, and Loeb murdering Bobby Frank, and stripping him naked advanced the views of many American that those who were Jewish were indeed sexual deviants (Churchill, D., 2009 pg.288, 289 & 297). 3) How did people understand sexuality and sexual identity during the 1920s? How does it compare to historical periods before and after the 1920? How did the crime…

Words 577 - Pages 3

Color Of Water

equal”, or “The color of your skin does not matter” will liquidate all their children’s thoughts relating to discrimination. Adults are convinced that by doing this, they are creating color-blind environments for their children; yet what they do not know is children develop this bias at an early age. In the memoir, The Color of Water, by James McBride, Mommy's theory of dealing with questions of race and ethnicity have a negative influence on James's search for identity. By refraining from having…

Words 947 - Pages 4

Gender Oppression Essay

Gender Oppression The Destruction of Identity Contents Research Questions I am studying the perception of women and lack of agency in both literature and society because I want to find out how women can reclaim their voice and power through the challenges of a man dominated society in order to help my reader understand the relevance of gender oppression. A question that arose for me during the six weeks was, “What does the status of women in literature say about the status of women…

Words 1709 - Pages 7

Divercity and Equality Essay

Assessment You should use this file to complete your Assessment. • The first thing you need to do is save a copy of this document, either onto your computer or a disk • Then work through your Assessment, remembering to save your work regularly • When you’ve finished, print out a copy to keep for reference • Then, go to www.vision2learn.com and send your completed Assessment to your tutor via your My Study area – make sure it is clearly marked with your name, the course title and the Unit and Assessment…

Words 2824 - Pages 12

Essay on Philosophy: Transgender and Radical Freedom

part of it & it's genderless. 2. Who is Proteus? How does the “Protean Self” respond to discontinuities in life and the loss of unitive meaning? Does the idea of having many selves, frighten you? Proteus is a Greek god of the sea who is capable of changing his form at will. The god would only tell the future to someone who was able to capture and hold him, and his shape-shifting abilities could make this quite a challenge. It does scare me in a way to think that I could have many selves, but…

Words 1134 - Pages 5

Heterodox Paper 1

Jacqueline Weinreb Heterodox Identities March 23rd, 2014 Paper #1 Social scientists as well as philosophers have argued and pondered for years over the complex relationship between race and identity. Race has always been a hot topic, even when the United States was still being established. Since then, theorists have not only struggled with their own ways of interpreting the two, but opposing perspectives as well. In addition to the complex components of race and identity, social scientists also…

Words 5282 - Pages 22

Essay on hunger of memory

early 1970s Point(s)-of-View: First person (using “I”), Second person (using “you”), Third person (no forms of “I;” only forms of he/she/they) First person Crisis Action(s)/Turning Point(s): Describe the story’s crisis action, or the action in the story that embodies the protagonist’s major decision or change. (If you can’t find a clear crisis action, make your best guess and explain your difficulty here.) For every protagonist that you list, you must list a crisis action (here) and resolution…

Words 711 - Pages 3

Essay about Human and Integrated Assertions. Theories .

These perceptions are closed with no open end for discussion. it’s a closed system not open for scrutiny. For it is ridiculous. but completely normal. to have your own set-in-stone thought of life’s meaning. However. our society perceives this “idea” in such a matter that it affects everyone’s thought process and lives. The human race does not know the true meaning of life. yet we judge one another on the basis of what is thought to be proper. We strive on multiple attempts to explain reality.…

Words 885 - Pages 4