Blog Feed

This paper was for me to express my views on how society and powerful people, create ridiculous standards for people to follow, which leads people to believe in false images of becoming wealthy and someone who they are not. Along with that, my goal was to open up and write about a scene that I haven’t exactly opened up about, publicly and I have successfully accomplished that. Overall, I am proud of my end product because I portrayed everything I wanted to in as many words as I could, and I expanded on my creative writing. I spent a significant amount of time on this as well, with extensive amount of peer editing and review, and I am happy with my essay.

Identity is something that you hold dear to you. Something that you become over time, where you discover and explore different things around you, and that eventually builds up who you are. Your identity affects what people think of you and your future. Identity is everything you do, your appearance, your behavior, your daily lifestyle, etc. Identity is impacted by the people who construct society, people who have power and create expectations that you must follow. This builds a false mindset around you, that being wealthy, prosperous, and changing yourself into someone who you are not, will make you happy. When in reality, that is not the case. People slowly start to follow this mentality and change themselves so they can fit in and grow into this facade society has built for them.

A method society uses to do this, is to push people to believe that you should establish and improve your self image, so you are noticed by the more powerful people of this world so you can become affluent. Though this “improvement” occurs slowly, and in daily aspects of your life such as at work, school, financially, and economically, the continuous effort and drive to become someone you are not, adds and adds to your shoulders and augments into a heavy pressure which becomes tremendously unbearable that eventually leads you to break. Society will always have these certain rules about beauty, careers, lifestyle, etc, that will never change, and if one person follows it, it becomes a chain reaction and more people will want to follow them to “fit in” and become wealthy. This makes it even harder for people to ignore it, which is why people get sucked into perfecting themselves.

Not only are normal people affected by this, but many celebrities as well. They come from all over the world and they believed in this fantasy as you are now, but it did not end well for most. Cara Delevingne, a model, stated the truth behind this in an interview, “We are told that if we are beautiful, if we are skinny, if we are successful, famous, if we fit in, if everyone loves us, that we’ll be happy. But that’s not entirely true.” Delevingne's statement exploits society and how it feeds lies to people in order for them to being wealthy, but when they get to that point, they are no longer happy or guaranteed what they were promised in the beginning. The voice Delevingne is portraying, is that none of the things society tells you to do is the right answer, you don’t have to change yourself, just work on yourself the way you choose and you will be happy. She expresses the message to not follow the footsteps society tells you to. Russell Brand, an actor, emphasizes in an interview, “I’ve been inside now. I’ve seen the other side of the looking glass... It don’t feel your soul. I still feel empty inside.” Brand demonstrates his discomfort of being a celebrity and how he woke up from the fantasy. Once he saw past the “looking glass,” which symbolizes how society portrays the rich, he realized that it wasn’t worth believing. Being wealthy and living that kind of life will not feel your soul, like society illustrates. In the end, you will be empty and unhappy.

I, along with many others, have experienced different aspects in their life where they have been discriminated or told to change something in their appearance, attitude, or personality to fit into society or to be accepted. Personally, I was treated negatively many times during my life, but one specific aspect was directly from my relatives. My story goes hand in hand with society’s beauty standards.

It often breaks down when my family has gatherings, such as dinner at my aunts or my place. I’m always around my female cousins and aunts and it always has to come to the conversation about who's gaining or losing weight. During these times, I shy away from the circle but one particular time, I wasn’t paying attention and I was happening to be eating chocolate cake. I mean come on, who doesn’t love cake? It’s irresistible so I kept munching away.

As I was savoring the taste of the silky, smooth, milk chocolate on my tongue until one of my cousins giggles and exclaims, “Look. She can’t stop.”

The moment that statement slipped from her mouth, my face dropped and I felt a sharp pain in my heart and I could feel blood rushing to my cheeks. I set the plate of cake aside and bit excruciatingly hard on my inner lip to fight back the tears. As everyone in the room realized my sudden change of mood, their snickers died down and they moved on to another conversation.

That wasn’t the only time that happened and I do not think that will be the last either but everytime it happens, a piece of me grows even stronger and stronger to love myself, and to not follow society’s standards in beauty. I promise myself to not believe in people’s criticism and society’s false ideas and views and to only follow my own raw beliefs and not the fake ones.

Society teaches us to follow erroneous images where we are all told to look a certain way or to be a certain way. It is about finding what is for you and not letting people tell you how things are. It is all about discovering the world for yourself and seeing the truth behind it all, and then deciding what you want to do and not what society wants you to do. It is about demolishing the these barbaric images for yourself so you can move on without the burden of society.

Bibliography:

Celebrities Speak Out On Fame & Materialism. Perf. Josh Radnor, Lady Gaga, Russell Brand, Tom Shadyac, Alexi Panos, Cara Delevingne, Essena O'Neill, Alanis Morissette, Tupac Shakur. Think For Yourself. YouTube, 4 Mar. 2016. Web. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYDKCx4hSQQ>.

Coming from an Asian household, but being raised in America, there are many advantages and disadvantages between Asians and Asian Americans. Asian people who immigrate to America want to be successful in this country, and have a positive and fulfilling life. Back in their home country, it was a struggle and due to multiple reasons such as poverty, low income, no jobs, etc. So for their children who are born in America, they are considered, “Asian American.”

Asian American parents, much like many immigrant families, will go through difficulty like working low paying and tiring jobs. They must work hard to achieve their goals and to provide for their families. Asian parents will encourage their child, and help them to be hard working, do well in school, and have a nice job, in the future. Such as, working at an office, becoming a dentist, or engineering, and etc.

There are also many disadvantages for Asian people who have immigrated here. But for Asian Americans, they have more an advantage living in America. For example, speaking the english language. As I grew up, I noticed that my parents struggle with speaking English and they still do. At times my parents would ask me or my brother to translate for them, like talking to a bank teller, going to pay for a bill, calling someone, etc. If an Asian American were to live in Asia, they would have the disadvantage because they have not grown up in that country, for them to know the ways of lifestyle such as speaking the language, finding jobs, communicating with people, etc.     

My parents and I, are very different, but we always come back together as one family. My parents were immigrants, but now they’re United State citizens. But for me, I wouldn’t consider them as an “Asian American,” completely because they came to America for an easy and better life. Asians that are in America still struggle today with financial problems, jobs, and communications . An example would be working at restaurant, which could be a struggle for some Asians. “Working 12 hours on the weekday, and 13 hours on the weekend was tiring,” my Mom said with energy. My parents go further into how difficult working at a restaurant is, saying that there are “no vacations, if you injured yourself for example like getting a bad cut, the boss wouldn’t care as much because they’re not going to pay for your injuries.”

My parents told me since I’m “American,” they expect me to have a better working job than them. They don’t want me to be in their shoes, working hard every single day, barely getting any breaks, getting paid $8/hour which my parents think is considerably low, etc. They want me and my brother to go to college, since they didn’t, and do extremely well because as an Asian, they want their children to be successful in life. They want their children to be better than them since they experience it themselves.

To me, being Asian American or fully Asian, I’m happy and I’m not. I can communicate with people around me, but then I don’t usually speak Chinese with my parents. Although, I understand them I can’t really speak back and if I do try, I sound like a foreigner to them. This causes me to be confused about my identity. It is really different because I feel like if I choose one between Asian American or Asian, it could be right or wrong. I don’t know where I stand when people ask me about my “identity” to be quite honest. Am I fully Asian or Asian American? To this day I’m still trying to find out where I stand.   

Bibliography:

Tan, Jude. "7 Differences between Chinese and American Culture You Should Know About Before Living and Working in China." Teach English in China - Current TEFL / ESL Teaching Jobs. N.p., 31 Oct. 2016. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.

Intro: My central question in my essay is How does society and the way they teach race and culture affect the knowledge of a person's racial identity ?,In my essay I tried to incorporate  experiences of not just me but students and youth as a whole and how they are affected by my essential question because I believe youth are definitely affected by it. I also tried to incorporate a lot of the quotes I found as evidence to prove my thesis to be true. I think that I did pretty well explaining such a complex topic and getting  the reader to understand the importance of the issue.

Essay:

 In every grade from kindergarten to 12th we have history as one of our main subjects. School systems have the mindset that  the curriculum they teach for this subject is suitable for all of their students. They know  that they are instilling false knowledge about American History  and neglecting their duties to help each and every child  find their own racial identity.School systems are letting the stereotypes and  misconceptions the media portrays about race teach their children and in return students are amplifying their ignorance in schools,work,at home if they don’t have the proper support  in their household  to correct their wrong information, social situations, and even more. Students who  are not taught correctly about their racial identity and aware  and informed about  other racial identities are the ones who usually end up becoming the stereotype or using their incorrect information to be little other races. If school systems cut common misconceptions and stereotypes about racial identity at the roots they’ll be no room for ignorance to grow.

The way school systems teach students about their  racial identity has gotten so out of control that it is starting to  affect the way students perceive themselves and how much effort they put into their school work .In school now a days  how well you study or how much attention you pay in class is no longer the measure of how successful you’ll be in a subject but  the color of your skin.  In an article  recently written by Heidi W.Durrow  she explained how even though she was Dominican the results she had in math decided she didn’t fit in with being Dominican but another race. “I learned that because of the peculiar way that math and race work together in America, I was black.”. The quote is a perfect example how the school system is helping to categorize races in a stereotypical way which is taking away from the  actual learning experience of the students. It is also striping them away and confusing them about their  real racial identity and leading students to believe false information about a race.

Students should  be trying to learn about their racial identity and history  without the fear of being already categorized  before they even get to show off their skills in the classroom. Without the students even getting to the point of being aware of their own racial identity, the school system does a good job of indirectly applying definitions to the social,economical, and political meanings of race. Angela Willing states ““Unlike race and racial identity, the social, political and economic meanings of race, or rather belonging to particular racial groups, have not been fluid.”  Students especially in the  12th grade and under are trying  find out their self identity and how that ties in with their racial identity but how can they, when society is already crafting the definition for them. This makes it much more confusing for students trying to find the truth about their racial identity and even makes them more vulnerable to believing stereotypes and misconceptions the media feeds them.

 It is not practical to ask the school system to teach about every single race in the world, it just isn’t possible especially in one school year. It is way too  much information and history to investigate and research but it is practical to want the school system to teach about  a wide range of different races that don’t all come from the same region. It is essential that the school system dives deeper into racial identity and eliminates misconceptions about different races. This will lower the rates of ignorance that has already spread so vastly across our country. Also  helping students find their racial identities early in life might make finding their self identity a lot easier.Students shouldn’t have to be unfortable in their own skin. Students should not have to be afraid to be who they are. The  students race should not determine  how well they do in school.The student should not be limited in their education because of their complexion. Skin color does not define the student, the student defines her or himself.

Introduction:

My goals for this paper were to make a piece that explores the difficulties of making art in the modern day. I wanted to take a look at how the internet and online trends have combatted with honesty surrounding what people make whether it be music, visual art, or any other creative medium. My process was slow, this was the most difficult advanced essay by far. Reviewing my work was hard and I feel like this is the closest I could have come to a final product I would enjoy.

Essay:

Being both a self titled creative and shy person, I struggled for a long time to gain the confidence to share my work. The raw face to face exchange that takes place when showing someone something you have created is difficult to say the least, there is a reaction that you can gage almost instantaneously from this viewer simply through their overt emotional reaction.

I then became familiar with the internet, this vast expansive web of connection. It had loomed in my periphery, it was this mysterious complicated minefield of social standards and I made a distinct decision to avoid it. Although, for the past two years I have begun making music and I have found the internet to be a place to share it without the awkward societal exchanges that follow. This blanketing effect made it wonderfully simple for me to place my musical pursuits online, leaving my friends and strangers to peruse my work. Whereas I gained the positive side to this, there are also many people who receive hurtful and negative reactions to their work. This facade of the internet also allows people to say whatever they want without the actual threat of physical violence. An online presence involving creative pursuits have both negative and positive effects on the quality of the world.

My experiences have been solely positive on the internet. My music and art have registered fans who tend to be mostly my friends and family. But the growing use of social media in everyday life is both oversaturating these music platforms but also giving these creative people the fame and love they deserve, it divides the good artists from the bad solely based on honesty. This quote an article relating to American’s relationships with the internet from The Atlantic sums up this expansive quality of the internet perfectly: “Americans are followers: Nearly half of all Americans are now members of at least one social network, double the proportion of just two years ago.” This massive shift in human interaction has opened the world to an innumerable amount of creators who just keep coming, making the ability to stand out extremely difficult.

There are definitely negative experiences though, the internet has made this veneer of numbness that is slowly filling major sections of it. Art is extremely personal, and many times placing it on a social media platform feels vulnerable. People take this vulnerability and place nasty comments upon it for personal pleasure, the pursuit of a power complex. I have a personal example of this, a friend of a friend who attends this high school is a poet. They delivered a poem alongside a fellow student crafting a conversation between them and their future white son, going in depth about how this boy will be placed in a position where they are not allowed to feel bad for themselves. This poem was recorded and uploaded to Youtube. This being an uncomfortable subject a few people on the internet bashed it because they disagreed with the poem, then the negativity began to pick up steam and these children were being torn apart based on their physical appearances and the way they held themselves. This of course began to pull away from the few opinionated issues that followed this piece and became a conformist bully party, allowing people to attack these two peers of mine with intense superficial insults that led to these students needing support.

The internet provides the most raw gateway to human interaction, raw but isolated and removed. This honesty brings up questions about how art is dissected and viewed online, people are who they are and they place that for millions to see. Then other people who are also being genuine, will be brutally honest with no regards for feelings. I find this criticism is much worse than it would be in real life, the lack of human connection is robotic and alien. It stimulates this sense of destructive mystery, not knowing tone or context. I am a person terrified by people not liking what I make. I find real life interaction in this regard to be frightening, the idea of the internet seemed like this foreign sanctuary where I could express myself but I found it to be much worse. I need to know how people feel by sharing my music to the people I am closest to, the people I know on a deeper level who will tell me if my art or music is good or not. I find this person to person connection will forever trump the plasticity and falseness that follows the internet.

Source:

Jackson, Nicholas. "Infographic: The American Identity According to Social Media."The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, n.d. Web. 19 Jan. 2017.

Introduction:

For my essay my guiding question was In what ways does social media cultivate or challenge media? I tried to incorporate my own experience with black identity and how social media shaped that. The goal I set for myself is to establish the struggles of being a black women and feeling like you're in constant competition with people you should be united with. I tried to make my essay as relatable as possible which I why I chose to use one of my real experiences. I feel like I did a really good job expanding on this topic and really identifying a problem within social media.

Essay:

It was the summer of 2012, on a cool Tuesday morning in the middle of July. I was awakened by the smell of burnt bacon and the almost never ending sound of the smoke alarm. I ran down the stairs to find my brother almost burning down the house. My mom and I rushed to get a towel to calm down the alarm. The piercing sound finally became calm my mom then yelled and me and my brother

“Hurry up and get dress we’re going to be late”

I wasn’t exactly sure where we were going, but I wasn’t passing up any opportunity to leave the house. She made sure to tell us to pack bathing suits; I was hoping we were going to an indoor pool. Oh, how I loved indoor pools. It was never too hot or too cold; always just right. Best thing of all-there wasn’t that burning sun on my back. We drove in the car for almost three hours and to to my dismay, we pulled up to the beach. Don’t get me wrong, the beach was fun; the nice cool breeze in my hair, the clear water, the tangy smell of sea salt in the air, but there was just that one thing: the sun. I hated the sun for one good reason I hated the fact that it made my complexion darker. When my skin was a shade darker, I used to feel as if that changed who I was and how people perceived me. I used to scroll on instagram and see all the memes talking about light skin black girls compared to brown skin or dark skin black girls. On my timeline in particular, light skin girls were always seen as “the prettier girl” so in my eyes I had to be as light as possible. Even in songs you would hear “light skin is the right skin.” For me, I never considered myself light skin until I started using social media and seen the huge debate between the different complexions and even the stereotypes. If I was going to be anything I had to be light skin because according to my instagram feed that was the right skin.

This idea of colorism shaped my identity as a young black women. It put black females against each other as if it was a competition and the people who determined the winners were the black men. They made females compete for their attention by demeaning their complexion and making them feel as if they weren’t the same. Black men controlled the women’s identity and social media controlled theirs. Social media fueled the idea that light skin black women were supposed to look this way and act a certain way and then undermine the black women who weren’t that complexion and try to poison their worth.  A culture that’s supposed to be united was divided. Instead of uplifting all black women as the queens they are the men put them against each other because of these unobtainable ideals of black women cluttered their minds. They gained the satisfaction of seeing them fight for their attention and they fed off of it.

In Colin Daileda’s article Race related conversation remain divided on social media he talks about how many black people talk about or see conversations about race “Around 68 percent of black people who use social media say they see posts about race and relations on their social media feeds, and 28 percent of them say they tweet and post about race as well.” Black people unite on topics like #BlackLivesMatter or #BlackTwitter but never on uplifting our women. Colorism stems all the way back to slavery the only reason light skin black women were seen as “prettier” is because they were closest to white. This idea was instilled in black minds and pushed into social media. The modern way of putting black women down.

Social media has it’s own flaws. It amplifies the wrong things and sometimes the right things. But it has challenged black identity in particular. It gives the men the idea and they push that idea onto black women tarnishing their identity before they even realize what it is. They shape themselves accordingly until they see fit. With no real idea of their true self or actual worth just the perception that social media gives them.

Bibliography:

A socioeconomic status can be defined in two ways. The first is a socioeconomic status being defined by where they live, and what material possessions they have. That is a socially defined definition. The second way of defining socioeconomic status is one's income and where that person falls on the poverty scale. The two ways of understanding someone's socioeconomic status tend to be complicated, one way to understand the distinction between the two is by looking at an example.  If there is someone living in center city whose income is below the state poverty line and someone living in a poorer neighborhood but their income is above the state poverty line, the person living in the poorer neighborhood will be viewed by society as impoverished rather than the person living in Center City. These two definitions of socioeconomic status are important in understanding where people come from and what they value.

Community creates one's identity which in turn dictates how much money someone will make in the future. Someone from an upper class community might automatically believe that they will make a lot of money in the future due to the resources that are offered to them as well as, they have little to no interaction with poverty so it is incredibly foreign to them.  However someone from an impoverished community might believe that they cannot make more money in the future, they do not have the same resources offered as the wealthy kids do and because of where they come from they are not able to get out of the vicious cycle of society.  Between the two extremes lies the middle class, the identity of the middle class is incredibly fragile. To generalize, a lot of the middle class are insecure about their jobs, how much money they make etc. This leads a lot of the population of the middle class to at some point fall below the poverty line. There are many factors that leads to this self-perception and insecurity. A New York Times article about economic classes explains “Middle-class anxiety has been driven by several factors: increasing instability in incomes, a sense among many Americans that they are failing to keep up with the gains of previous generations, and an increasing gap between themselves and the very rich.” To sum up the causes “Middle-class anxiety” is the result of people viewing themselves as less than or failures. Failing to be as successful as previous generations and less than the middle class and the worry that they will never get there. This way of thinking does not lead to promotions and higher paychecks, rather it creates stress and anxiety that many people feed on and make money off of.

The self-perception of one’s self is only a piece of the financial puzzle. Another piece is one's identity. Sarah Grace King, an undergraduate student at Duke university, took a survey about entitlement at her university. King wrote, “Despite the apparent diversity among my respondents, a finding consistent throughout all interviews was the sentiment of entitlement— the idea that Duke students have essentially been gifted with a sort of salvation as a result of having the opportunity to attend such a prestigious institution. “ Most if not all of Duke students believed they would be successful later in life. Most of the students later in fact did become incredibly successful in their careers. Their success was a result of the prestigious school they went too, and the identity that goes along with the education. Identity is developed over time. Through one’s community growing up as well as when they are older. The upper class and upper-middle class share a similar identity. More resources are offered to the upper class as well as the upper-middle class, it is incredibly unfair and unjust and they use those resources to get a step up on everyone else. Financially the upper middle class is pulling away from everyone else. “But class is not just about money. Education is an important ingredient, too. A higher level of education tends to be associated with greater occupational prestige and autonomy, as well as job quality and security.” This only leads to greater divides amongst the classes and as a result lowers people’s perception of themselves making them believe they are less than everyone else.

Where someone comes from forms their identity and who they will be later in life. Their identity in turn will dictate their socioeconomic status. All successful people believe they are able to do what they put their mind to and this type of growth mindset comes from one’s identity and self-perception.

Introduction-

In my paper my central question was “Is it healthy to have a private self or public self?" One goal for my piece of writing was to just let my readers know that you should just be YOURSELF regardless of what people say about you because everyone gets talked about. Although I don’t think it’s bad to have a private and public self I just believe it shouldn’t matter how you think people view you.

¨”Hi , my name is Fatoumata what's your name ¨?

She glared for a bit and said ¨ Makayla¨

¨ Well nice to meet you Makayla where are you from ?¨

¨ I'm from jersey where all of the nice homes and fancy schools are at. My mom couldn't afford my private school bill if you know what that is ?¨

I stared at her for a while do she think she is better than me because she is white ?

¨ No I don't know what you mean tell me what you mean Makayla.¨

She started to notice that I was getting upset and decided to continued with her story anyway.

¨ I just want to go back I don't belong here at all me or my mom.¨

Was rich people really this selfish , I couldn't believe it.

¨ Are you this selfish Makayla you can't even compare your story to mines its 10x worse¨.

¨ Well of course it's 10x worse you're black it's harder for you¨.

Before I could say a word my teacher came and said ¨ Girls it's time for lunch hurry I need to lock the door¨

I packed up my bags and ran out the classroom so fast. Before I could run down the stairs Makayla stopped me and said ¨ That's not what I meant Fatou¨.

¨ Don't shorten my name rich girl we're not friends and we will never be¨.

¨ Can you just listen to what I have to say please?¨

¨ What do you have to say to say how hard your life is because your mom lost a little bit of money. You have people who don't have any money and you complained about how life is so hard. You haven't seen anything yet.

I thought about what Makayla said. Black people are always categorized as the poor people. Anybody can be poor it does not depend on skin color at all. I had to tell my friends about what Makayla had said because it's been on my mind all day. After weeks went by Makayla still couldn't fit in a ¨dirty school¨ that's what she called it so I helped her fit in into her new school. I taught her that not everything is handed and it's was hard for her to adjust to her new life but she got the hang of it. She always said she wanted success one of her favorite quotes that she always said was  ¨ When I taste success that's when i'll be happy¨. She did taste success and she was happy.

What I think it's really interesting is that it kind of show all of the strength to the lower class identity. There are also costs to being lower class. What wealth, education and higher station in life gives you the freedom to focus on yourself. The author in ¨Our Kids¨ elaborates more about how the rich people live with money and how they act and how poor people have high school degree or less. ¨ Rich parents go to college , poor parents have high school degree or less.  We have brilliant black people who has masters degree and still are in school.  You don't have to be rich to attend college just have to have the mindset and potential. College is an big investment but your brain is even more.

Education plays a big role in the division of society  because now in society it all depends  on your social class if your education meets the standard that your class does. I don't see why this is very important because education is education and it should be available to everybody no matter how much you have . Education is a big part of the division because not all people are educated as much other people are.. Some schools might be dirty because they don't have a lot of resources that they can pay. In rich schools they better have resources that make the school cleaner or have better resources. People who are upper class individual are likely to attend school of higher quantity because of the money that they have. The lower class attend to schools that are not very rich. College is a choice it's not mandatory for you to go. It's hard to have success because it always depends on your culture, money,social etc.

America will always be divided because of cultural background. America always depends on the culture but with the division it's causing people to be separated.Many people heritage affects their opportunities in so many ways because the way america is setup. People are divided because they don't feel welcomed , or they just don't want to be apart of this racist divided world were in. Racism is still a problem that still goes on but we have to live with it because everyone has their own opinion. Cultural background describes the beliefs , background of the individual because it identifies a person background.  

People who grow up in lower class neighborhoods as I did will say ¨There's always someone there who will take you somewhere or watch your kid. You just always have to lean to people. Wealthier people don't have to rely on each other as much. People from lower class background are better at reading other people's emotions . They give more and help more and if someone is in need they will always be there.

Citations-

"Fairfield College Preparatory School." Fairfield College Preparatory School. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.

“You gotta remember who and whose you are,” my mother told me one fine spring morning. I was eleven and  in the sixth grade. It was the day that I had to present my English paper in front of the class. Boy, was I nervous. There was not a trace of confidence in my body. I had expressed this to my mom, and she immediately gave me a hug and told me that it would be alright, and that in order to first have confidence you must first have to think highly about yourself and even remember how highly God thinks of you. Little did I know how much that one little saying - that one piece of motherly advice, and with a little help of prayer and an extra boost of self-esteem, my life would be changed forever.

Ever since that moment  I never went back. I became confident, spunky, and outgoing. I had established the definition of my identity, and it stuck with me wherever I went.  Through that phrase, and through my own belief that I was God’s child, royalty and that I was Kimberly Danielle Barnes. Although this was the main place in which my defining of my identity was established ,there were other things over the years that I learned defined my identity.  The comfortability and happiness that I would later  get from friends and certain  people around me, my hobbies and other things I enjoyed, and things I participated in, would all help to not only define but to find myself.

The way by which we define ourselves, are often times not our own. The definition of identity, is often times influenced by how others around us feel  and the power by which we allow them to have. It may come from the what and desire from someone else, or what we visualize ourselves being. Our first thoughts of ourselves, however is the first establishment of it. After first defining ourselves, we then allow for it to be adjusted and refined based on what we surround ourselves with. Although the definition by which I defined my  identity was found at the time at age eleven, there were still many things, I later encountered that I allowed to have a larger impact on my overall definition. This is why identity is as fragile package, one thought, view, or opinion can either make it or break it. It is constantly changing, and sensitive to change. This is why there are so many identity adjustments we encounter. Our definitions are not constant.

In Flowers for Algernon, a man defines his identity through his ability to obtain intelligent, The smarter he becomes, the more confidence he finds within himself. However, his definition of his identity came more from based off of what others felt about and towards him. He found his intelligence and was able to determine it through the many tests he took, that would allow for him to see how smart he was. His results were given back to him, by the people who were working with him to make him smart. He could not properly spell his words, making him impaired and because of the knowledge he saw easily grasped by others around him he desired to be smart as they were. He emphasizes his desire for intelligence so that he will fit more in touch with his identity. “Miss Kinnian says  maybe they can make me smart. I want to be smart.” Charlie’s definition of his identity was not complete, because of the lack of knowledge he realized he lacked. His want to be smart, would help him to complete that. His trust in Ms. Kinnian “making him smart” came from the understanding that she herself was on the level of intelligence that he wanted for himself. After months of testing and observations, he at one point reached the level of intelligence he wanted. He illustrates the change he felt not only internally but externally. “I'd hidden the picture of the old Charlie Gordon from myself because now that I was intelligent it was something that had to be pushed out of my  mind. But today in looking at that boy, for the first time I saw what I had been. “ The transition from “mentally impaired” to intelligent changed Charlie in ways he had never imagined. He finally felt confident in himself and the way he viewed himself, because of this. He now saw a man confident enough to be seen by others and now felt renewed a change in his identity. The “old Charlie Gordon” was the man he hid away, not confident and comfortable enough to show. This in turn made him uncomfortable in the definition of himself, and he quickly forgot who he used to be with the new man he had become. This is often what happens, when the definition of ourselves, stems from negativity and not things by which we find happiness and are comfortable in. However, when the way by which we define our identity stems from things that make us feel good, positive things they are easier to remember. This is why we need be careful, the things by which we let influence us and define us.

In What it Means to be a Women in Society, a woman's definition of identity came from the outside sources from around her. The beliefs that society had about women and what it meant to be one. So much so, that she herself could not really determine what it meant to be a women, without it being the actual definition of a women, influenced and established by society. She states the feelings she had upon coming to terms with herself and what it meant to be a women. “Nothing came out. How could I articulate what made me a woman without making it sound like my definition was THE definition of woman?” The author, was so used to this definition that she at first didn’t even know how to define what made a woman a woman. This happens so often, where we are so trained to think about what society has to say or societal views, that we don’t allow our own selves to do the thinking. We feed off of societal definitions, therefore not having an idea of what certain things mean ourselves. She allowed for her definition of identity to be defined by society’s overall definition. If i was defining what it meant to be a GIRL or what a GIRL was I would say myself, being me. Then I would go into my own opinions, based off of myself and how I feel. I would say a feminine female, but that is just my definition, some girls are tom-boyish or prefer sports over shopping. So, I believe that allowing our own definition of what it means to be something or a certain someone should come straight from both our opinions and also our experience and even our own lifestyles. Her definition was fully reliant on society’s opinion, this is why she had no other official definition of her own self.

We must be careful the ways in which we allow things to define us. Each one having its own impact, either positive or negative on our lives. The more positive the better, and stronger our identities become, the more negative the more unstable and fragile we allow for the impact to have on ourselves.

Introduction

Going into this essay I wanted to get across one point and that point was we as people do not have to live according to other people's standards and that there is always a way to make a new lane. I think I was able to get that point across along with other points which exposed identity and more. I think I did a good job brainstorming this idea and creating my larger idea and also finding examples to further express and prove my point.

Essay

“It’s brought.” she stated. I was mid sentence when my grandmother corrected my speech. Confused and a little annoyed, I faced her and asked her “Why is it so important that I say that if I’m having an informal conversation?” I mean, I understood she was a former English teacher but everyone has a different type of speech when they’re around different people. “It’s just proper English.” Proper English? What exactly does this mean? I started to wonder if proper English was a standard that everyone she encountered had to meet. I’m sure my assumption as to what proper English is may be differ from what proper English may be to her. Although I challenged her thoughts, I followed suit. But why?

Society is an aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community and the status quo is often influenced by societal norms and standards. But, who sets social standard and what is considered a social standard? Standards are often set by the mindsets of those who are dominate and have the ability to convince people to follow this one path in life. This path not only marginalizes people but it narrows the ability for people to act or portray themselves a certain way. But on the other hand, we have this thing called free will and self identity and this gives us the power to do what we want and be who we want to be. We are all unique for certain reasons, whether it’s our race/ethnicity, religion, sexuality, physical appearance or our personalities. Unfortunately, self identity will always be challenged and picked on by this bully portrayed as society.

Depending on what role you play within the public, your identity has to match it. A good example of this would be President Obama. As a prior president and leader to our nation he has had  to carry himself in a very prestigious, sophisticated manner but according to others, very assertive and “angry” as well. Keli Goff , an American journalist known for being a political commentator during the 2008 election expresses her feelings on Obama’s lack of an angry appearance. “President Obama received so much criticism for failing to appear angry enough about the Gulf spill. Well when you’re a president it’s often a case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t. “ she then went on to talk about the many angry black male stereotypes that could follow suit. This is a perfect example of how a set identity in society clashes with personal self identity.

LGBTQ community members face this bully like society every single day. An article published by The Atlantic reviews transgenders facing a crisis with using public restrooms and quoting the author Emma Green, “They’re objections to what people are, which isn’t tied to any particular act.” Transgender people experience enough identity clashes throughout their time of life. From the moment they realize they aren’t fit for the gender they were given at birth and up to the actual change. When approached with situations like this, situations where society feels as if you are still associated with the gender you were given at birth , you start to no longer feel accepted into what you thought you’ve finally became a part of. And it’s not because of who you are, it’s because of what society is and how society wants you to be.

The fortunate part about this is that you can pioneer a new train of thought. Not everyone has to be subjected to living in the margins of others social standards. There are people who completely dismiss the set lane and make their own. For example, Lady Gaga, Madonna and Stevie Nicks all created their own style. Lady Gaga’s 2010 MTV ceremony Meat Dress is still one of the most famous, out of the box looks down by any celebrity who walked the red carpet. Her dress was so remarkable that it was taken and preserved in the “Women Who Rock” exhibition in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  

Now, we can’t all be Lady Gaga or Madonna or Stevie Nicks but we can be ourselves. After that car ride with my grandma I realized we were put here to challenge social norms and to set higher standards. Brought may be proper English, but in my community so is the word “jawn”. To some people, transgenders surely should go to the bathroom that was designated for their birth gender but in their community a bathroom is just a bathroom and maybe Obama isn’t to angry for your liking  but he says “Change requires more than righteous anger.” Social barriers were meant to be broken, let’s be the ones to tear them down.

Bibliography

Politi, Daniel. "Obama To Howard Graduates: “Change Requires More Than Righteous Anger”." Slate Magazine. N.p., 07 May 2016. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.

"Obama – Not Angry Enough?" NBCNews.com. NBCUniversal News Group, n.d. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.

Green, Emma. "America's Profound Gender Anxiety." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 31 May 2016. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.

Precursor/Introduction

Over this last quarter, my writing process has improved significantly. I do think, though, that the main field in which it has improved is the way I phrase the ideas. For example, I have had problems with repetition, but those have significantly lessened. I think this is certainly a sign of growth in my writing - and although it is one that I have always been doing - I have happened to notice it during this quarter.

Assimilation is not Colonialist

Over the past few decades there has developed an emphasis, primarily on the part of left-leaning thinkers, on “setting the dominant culture back” for those who immigrate to a new country. While we should not force immigrants and their children in our schools to give up their culture entirely (which was once done with Native American children in U.S. government-run boarding schools), no host country should suppress its own culture either. Proponents of this left-leaning thinking seem to want to discourage immigrants from learning, engaging with, and practicing the language and culture of the host country as a gesture of respect for and sensitivity to their origins.

Personally, I believe this view is incredibly weak, and when I say weak, I mean a source of weakness for the host nation--and for the immigrant, too. As far as the immigrant is concerned, non-assimilation could lead to isolation and even poverty. Even if the immigrant has a community of other immigrants to help him or her, non-engagement with the larger surrounding culture shuts down opportunities for work, education, and travel. I do want to make it clear that assimilation to the larger culture does not have to mean the immigrant groups totally give up their original culture. It simply means they are fluent in both--and it means the dominant culture of the new country continues to thrive. It is not turned into something else.

This is what happens when too many immigrants go too far to retain the traditions of their culture of origin. The dominant culture in their new country is profoundly affected and ultimately may not survive in its own homeland. An example of this is what is happening now in Germany. There, women generally don’t cover up when running simple errands like, say, going to the market. For some male immigrants from some Islamic countries, this is a problem. Based on the customs of their countries of origin, they see these uncovered women as sex workers, and they make unwanted sexual advances. This creates a climate of fear and discomfort where there had been none. Also in question is the German tradition of Oktoberfest, where people drink beer in outdoor settings. For some immigrants, drinking alcohol is considered haram (unlawful), and some judge the beer drinkers as bad people. If too many people with these views move into Germany without respect for its culture and without a willingness to assimilate somewhat, the traditions of German culture may be lost and the people who practice them threatened.  

Why would we want to lose a single rich national culture? In everybody’s native homeland, a culture is just going to be dominant--that is an unavoidable fact. In Somalia, Somali culture is going to be dominant. In Germany, German culture is going to be dominant. This is simply and powerfully the way it is, not an expression of any sort of “bigotry,” and traditionally many immigrants have understood this. No, I would argue that “setting back our cultures” is cultural suicide, and that is not the same as showing tolerance for immigrants. The latter does not require the former.

    Some people argue that former colonists have an obligation to host immigrants from former colonial holdings. Because colonial nations controlled and oppressed the native cultures of their colonized peoples, these nations must make amends by offering immigrants the chance to live and express their cultures within the comfort and stability of the former colonists’ borders. For example, they feel strongly that Great Britain should take in migrants from former empire countries because they owe them that.

This does not make sense, though. Does it really help former colonists to stand on their own two feet if they are welcomed into the colonizers’ homelands to live however they want? Britain was wrong to harm the culture of Pakistan, for example, but is rejecting British culture while living in Britain really helpful to former colonists such as those from Pakistan? If the Spaniards and the Portuguese built themselves up after Moorish colonialism, shouldn’t we encourage former colonists in Africa, for example, do the same? Also, this question of owing former colonists the right to enter a colonizer’s country is not consistently applied. Only Europeans and some other Western countries seem to have this asked of them. For example, why isn’t Turkey flooding itself with Southern Slavs, Romanians, Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians, and Arabs--all formerly colonized by the Ottoman Empire? Unfortunately, colonial guilt has been pushed too strongly in the West, to the detriment of Western cultures and immigrant alike.

Some final thoughts: in one of the sources that I read, it says that “Assimilation efforts have changed over the years, yet they remain colonial, oppressive, and in 2015 these ideas go against the freedoms that are supposed to be at the core of what it means to be ‘American’.” While you can certainly make that argument about America and, say, Canada or Australia, which are countries of immigrants that have been home to people from almost every nation on Earth, you cannot do that with, say, Europe. Europe has no obligation to adjust its cultures to immigrant populations. This is because Europe is and has been indigenously European forever, belonging to the Proto-Indo European people.

    I also want to mention the other quote above: “In the United States, approaches to integrating immigrant and refugee children in the educational system focus on getting the children proficient in English as quickly as possible, often at the expense of their native language, which can result in interrupted intellectual development and a break in valuable links to family and community.” This does not ring true. Frequently children of immigrants are bilingual or multilingual  and remain so throughout their lives. I believe they would experience greater trouble with intellectual development if they could not access the language or educational system of the dominant culture.

In short, I would argue that immigrants can still practice their native cultures in many settings in their communities, and they should. They don’t need to force themselves to stop speaking their languages or stop being who they are. What they cannot do is ask the larger culture of their adopted country to change its ways to allow them to remain who they were. It is not “colonialist” to protect the culture of an immigrant’s new home; rather it is very much in opposition to that. What we want to avoid is the destruction of the cultures in the host nations--and the actual creation of colonies of ethnic groups in those countries. Think about it: when the Pilgrims came to “The New World,” they were originally settlers. Later, they formed colonies. Those colonies harmed and even destroyed the cultures of the Native peoples. My plea is for respect for the dominant cultures of host nations and a willingness on the part of immigrants to engage with those cultures and to some extent to identify with them.

Sources:

“Losing Identity During the Refugee Crisis” by Tracy Brown Hamilton, Тhe Atlantic, 2016

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/05/balancing-integration-and-assimilation-during-the-refugee-crisis/482757/

“Will Immigrants Today Assimilate Like Those of 100 Years Ago?” by Alexia Fernández Campbell, The Atlantic, 2016

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/will-immigrants-today-assimilate-like-those-of-100-years-ago/495746/

“Germany’s Migrant Rape Crisis Spirals Out of Control” by Soeren Kern,  Gatestone Institute, 2016

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8663/germany-migrants-rape

However, racial identity consist of every citizen, especially people who are known to be popular. “Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you”. -George R.R. Martin. Celebrities are people whom everyone knows. People see celebrities as role models and icons. And they set that example to the people who are in need of help and are lost in life. However, celebrities need to enact and explain on there social lives for the people who wants to know more about them or if there curious to know about there life whether they need to a project or an assignment for school etc. Therefore, civilians won’t question or assume that they are a race that not right or any other opinion that’s not true. They have to reflect on there ancestry because there racial progress is there racial mixing to there children and family. The only problem is there appearance. Illuminating the thought on other people is the problem we are having today. And it’s something that need be fixed.

Not only that racial identity needs to be change, but intersectionality cannot wait either. Since our identities are so important, we also need to interpret it through everyone’s point of view in a way where we can accept each other for who we are. Looking back into the past, many people assume that racial identity isn’t that important. But it is if you think about it. But now that we are in the present, it’s more critical and more of a conflict. People today are moving into different countries coming in as an illegal immigrant, then sooner or later you're no longer illegal because of your identity. But coming into a new country trying to adapt having to deal with other citizens who look at you and identifies you incorrectly is not easy. Even though it’s misinterpretation, it shouldn’t necessarily be a huge problem, especially if you're trying to apply for a job or applying for something to support your family is a big deal. That’s when you would matter. Many people would wish that they can be supportive to whoever is in there life. Because in order to make that change, we need to be able to define ourselves. We need to able to say “I matter, because I am just like the rest of you”. It needs to mean something, not only to your peers, and not only to your family, but to yourself.                        

Furthermore, racial identity is so important nowadays because you’re not defending your rights and your race, but for the people who are in your shoes that’s living the conflict and wants to change that to a resolution. People who wants the same thing as you can make a huge difference in their lives, because not only your fighting for there equal right but conversing for who they want to be. It’s people like them that can make the world for the better.. However, racial identity fits with multiple conflicts essentially to discrimination, racism, etc. The situation can either sit on the positive and/or negative side depending on what you are seeking and how. If there is a concept where a woman who comes to the United States met someone who would soon become her friend and they asked “are you indian?” But you're actually Native American, that type of racial identity is not bad because it was misinterpreted in a confusing way. But if there’s another situation where you're applying for a job and get interviewed for the job, they automatically assume that you are indian instead of asking what race you are. That’s where racial identity comes in a negative way. That type of concept needs to be prevented.

To my conclusion, it is said that racial identity is a source of belongings, a source of pride, and a base of discrimination. It has been for awhile now, since it’s taking apart of our race and culture in society today. We know that a person who would value their own potential would want to conserve it. No matter if the person is famous, average, poor, etc. Because we are all equal and created equal. Just think, if animals of the world can exist for there own reason, what makes us think that they were made just for us? They could be there for the same purpose we are here. Our identity can relate to the weak, or to the power. To society, it depends on where you're living, and how you’re living. It’s a way for intersectionality to take apart of since it shares its form of debate and controversy. To the people in the world.