'Goin Gangsta, Choosin' Cholit Claiming Identity

In Brent Staples article “Just Walk on By”, Staples shares his thoughts on the way marginalized groups interact. He uses his own experiences as a young African American man to shed light on how people can have implied biases that affect the way they treat other people. Staples does this to demonstrate how society develops preconceived notions in the minds of individuals about marginalized groups, primarily African American men, which are often a flawed representation of the people within these groups. The rhetoric he uses is key to developing an understanding persona and an emotional appeal that exposes the implied biases of people without alienating or offending the audience, to whom-- among others-- he attributes these biases.

Not being able to know one’s identity during adolescence can lead to do drugs, commit theft, fail school, and be blind on what to do with their life. This is what James McBride had to go through during his adolescence. Growing up in a black community with a white mother can be very confusing and stressful. He employs rhetorical devices throughout his text in order to develop his epiphany regarding his mother’s life and by, extension, his own. Through the use of appeals and tone James McBride reveals the importance of education and religion, but above all else McBride mostly focuses on finding his identity, trying to understand race as he was growing up, and shows how his mother played an important role in his life

Three months ago, when I first identified myself as a critical thinker, it was one of the first times I have consciously considered my privileges and oppressions as they pertained to my identity as an able bodied, straight, middle class, light skinned, cisgendered, Mexican American woman. I briefly mentioned that although I am often mistaken as all white, I am actually also Mexican, and it was not until college that I became more interested to learn about this disclosed side of my family and their culture. My dad was also my mom’s step¬¬¬brother, and although he passed away over three years ago, his side of the family is still very much connected with my mom’s side because my grandma, and his father, remain married to this day. Because of this,

Segmented assimilation is a sociological model that shapes the lives of many children with immigrant parents. Raised in a different environment from their parents, these children have a choice to either pick on new cultural values or leaving some of their parent’s culture behind. In many of the cases immigrant parents have a big role in their children 's life to maintain cultural values over new cultural values being adapted from the new society they now live in. This brings upon a mixture of confusion and loss of identification between the two cultures that surround the children 's life, affecting their way they perceive themselves. Struggling to keep the culture they are raised in and the new culture they now live in can create a

“I ain’t ever seen any jury decide in favor of a colored man over a white man.” (Lee 208 par. 11). This quote shows that all jury’s pick whites as innocence before blacks even when whites have no evidence to prove innocence which then makes the trial an unfair trial since colored people were considered lower class than whites no black person has ever won a trial against a white person. Society influences everyone including the way blacks are being treated. It depends on the time period of which you could be affected by.

Stereotyping is an issue that affects all ages, genders, and races. Not all stereotypes are bad, but when you maliciously stereotype it becomes a problem. In S.E. Hinton’s young adult novel The Outsiders, stereotyping is a significant issue. There are two gangs in this novel, the “greasers”, and the “Socs”. The greasers live on the east side and are known as “hoods”. The Socs live on the west side and are known as the west side rich kids who have all the breaks. People judge their personality just based on where they live, and what they look like. Stereotyping is an unfair way to judge people because you never know their whole story.

Starr Carter, the protagonist of Angie Thomas’s young adult novel, The Hate U Give, epitomizes the subversion of cultural racial oppression through the development of an identity that encompasses multiple consciousnesses. As an African American teenage girl raised in a middle-class family attending a high school with primarily White upper-class students, Starr finds the need to prove her belongingness to both communities in Garden Heights and at Williamson Prep. Unlike her White upper-class counterparts at Williamson and African American middle-to-low-class counterparts in Garden Heights, Starr’s identity is multifaceted. She must act and interact with her peers with respect to her location, in other words, utilize double consciousness. However,

Being black in America has become a curse and a blessing for those who identify within the black community. Most mainstream artists that are successful are black, there is biracial president who identifies himself black, and black culture has become the popular culture. Ironically, there in lies the problem with black culture becoming the dominating culture. Everyone wants to be black until police brutality, racism, and a historical prejudice are brought into the mix. In my group our topic was the title of my paper, “Shades of Grey”: Narratives of Black Experience. We covered the topics of the view of African-Americans in society, media coverage and stereotypes, and black cultural appropriation. My portion of the group assignment was to cover black cultural appropriation.

In Sociology, stereotypes are described as "pictures in our heads" that we do not acquire through personal experience. I believe that stereotypes are a mental tool that enforces racial segregation and self-hate. As well justification for dehumanizing minorities. Such as Black women are "Mammy", "Welfare Mothers", "Uneducated", " Inferior", and "Poor". White women are "Pure", "Desirable", "Affluent" and "Superior". These stereotypes are labels that evoke images of oppression, segregation and exploitation of minorities in America. Meanwhile reinforcing the dominance in a social hierarchy.

There are many things that influence how one portrays or performs race. Race is something that cannot be easily, psychically changed, but it is such an important part of one’s identity and can be manipulated based on ever changing surrounding forces. People perform race even within their specified “race” because of the influences of other races around themselves.

This theory was constructed to explicate the identity change process linked to social movement dynamics as stated by Cross (William Cross.n.d., 2016). This model/ theory looks at the progression of identification of individuals as they move towards a healthy black identity according to (William Cross.n.d., 2016). What I enjoyed most and liked about this theory, is Cross and Fhagan-Smith conceptualized the life span model of black identity, into six sections from infancy to adult. In this section Cross basically describes some of the things I experienced growing up black in all white community. In my household to say you were black was unspoken, many things we different. I was prejudice against within my own race of people, the mannerism I had such as speaking was very articulate, while I lived in a very well developed suburban area. Both of my parents, were educated and had very well paying jobs. I really didn’t know what is was like to be black until I became an adult, experienced racism, prejudice among other things as an African

The observation took place in Panera Bread on October 7, 2015. It lasted one hour, and went from 5:15 PM to 6:15 PM. Five adolescents were observed, within the confines of 3 separate social bubbles. My focus was divided between on a group of 3 white females, aged around 18-19, one black male, aged 17-19, and one white white female, aged 12-13. Due to the nature of the business, the environment was mainly composed of two forms of interaction, one being within the distinct groups that came in, the other being between a group and the employee’s of the business. There was also a small amount of exchanges between groups, but this form of interaction was minimal. Despite the public nature of the environment, the clear cut boundaries

Because the lyrics of many rap songs tell stories of an artist’s personal experience of their everyday lives growing up, urban youth can relate and connect to the lyrics because they see and experience very similar things. Listening to the artist’s lyrics about their own experiences can teach the listeners to not make stupid mistakes and if they continue to follow the right paths, they can achieve more and be successful like the rappers. Hip-Hop literacies can be applied in and outside of the classroom. Students can identify themselves through Hip-Hop culture. In the article, “You Don’t Have to Claim Her”, the author and English teacher Lauren Leigh Kelly, explains that women of all ages can use Hip-Hop to identify themselves despite the genre

Throughout Jonathan Kozol’s essay “Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid” (347) and “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” (374) by Beverly Tatum, both Kozol and Tatum discuss racial issues in the educational system. Kozol and Tatum explain racial issues by presenting two different instances that racial issues have played a roles. These two instances being visiting different public schools by Kozol and noticing the cafeteria segregation by Tatum. Using their own personal experiences, their arguments essentially come to similar conclusions, so by comparing their essays, the most significant problems are brought to the table.

In the article People Like Us, the author, David Brooks, argues that while the United States is a diverse nation as a whole in terms of racial integration, but block by block, community by community, and institution by institution, the united states is a rather a homogenous nation. People separate themselves to be around the ones they feel most comfortable with, be it by race, religion, social status, gender, and even sexuality. Instead of everyone in our nation coming together to be unified and diverse, “people make strenuous efforts to group themselves with people who are basically like themselves” (62).