Becoming An Anthropologist : A Study Of Cultural Anthropology And Still Maintain Individual Core Beliefs

When I was young I didn’t really realize the impact of being African-American until high school. I went to a predominately white school for elementary and middle school. I was just like any other youth. I had my group of friends who were white; I was active in school activities and clubs. I was a student athlete and I got along well with my teachers. Everyone saw me as an upbeat person with a bubbly personality. Surprisingly, race was never brought up it wasn’t an issue for me during that period of my life. However, as I got older I realize there was a difference. As an adult I could really see the prejudice in others. I recall working a on a special project for the

In elementary school, students study the Civil War, and the Civil Rights movement. Teachers speak about slavery and racism as if it were a thing of the past; and juvenile minds are lead to believe that Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream has finally come true. But as these futile minds mature, they encounter different versions of this “dream”. Caucasian faces may live to believe the world is a blissful place, but scoff at the waitress who struggles to speak english. Brown faces may look at the homosexual couple in disgust, but grow accustom to the stares that come with wearing a hijab in public places. And black faces may ostracize the interracial couple in their circle, but learn the dangers of not removing their hoodies when they walk in a

Growing up, race was never an issue for me. I almost always knew what racism was, but I always thought it was a thing of the past, and completely ended when Jim Crow laws were abolished. I thought race did not affect my everyday life, but recently I have learned that even today, being White in America has greatly affected my life. Being White in America has affected how I identity racially, where I grew up, who I grew up with, where I went to College, where I went to high school, and provided me with advantages that many minorities are not lucky enough to have. I have realized this by looking at my life and reflecting through C. Wright Mills’ Sociological Imagination(Lambert Lecture). I connected this to my collage through

Growing up in Bakersfield in Seven Oats and Rosedale, as an African-American family, I learned what race was and how it effects my family. Going to schools that were majority white race was difficult because parents seemed to look at us different and prejudged my seven sibling and I because they were uncomfortable with their children playing sports and hanging out with “black kids”. Even at a very young age, I learn what race was because I would get verbal questionnaires by friends, classmates or teachers about my hair, clothing style and athletic capabilities. Questions about why was I different from the majority always was whispered or written on many people faces. My neighbors would see my family living in a five-bedroom house with two back

Age 11. Life up to this point, at least in my eyes, had appeared to be completely normal. Days were full of [blank], bagged school lunches, and not a care in the world. Despite being a part of a family full of Jamaican immigrants, we had all always seemed as “American” as can be. We stood for the pledge of allegiance, had annual 4th of July cookouts, and never failed to pay our taxes every year. My family’s primary motive to migrate here was evident in their [blank] work ethic, to ultimately achieve the “American Dream” and create a better life for those who were bound to follow after them. However, this “new world” that we had submerged ourselves into never failed to hint at the differences that we all held. This seemed normal to me at first,

I am applying to pursue a graduate degree in anthropology for multiple reasons. The main reason is that I very much want to pursue a career in anthropology, specifically archaeology. It is something I am very passionate about and wish to delve into. My passion has only grown as I continue to get more experience in the field. I am also very avid about learning in general.

As early as elementary school, I was subjected to patches of discrimination and racism. As a child this had a damaging effect on my social interactions as well as my confidence and self- image. Most often when considering discrimination, the Civil Rights Movement of the 60’s is what most of society compares to the present day. Surprisingly, there are wide differences between the two even though one had an effect on the other. Looking back briefly at the Civil Rights Movement, discrimination and racism was open face in society. What is meant by this, separate bathrooms drinking fountains, even chairs at events were observed as normal during this time. Afterwards, discrimination dawned its masked and hid itself from the eyes of society. It became sort of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” mentality in most of the United States. More

“When you grow up in a poor area you don’t get the same opportunities as other people” (Palos, "Precious knowledge"). My K-12 educational institutions all lacked something very similar, resources and supplies this was due to money. I remember going months in core classes like math and history without a teacher. Even though I did not have many opportunities I made it, I made it to a University. Now I am here in the same classes with students who came from wealthy schools that had nothing but unbelievable resources. We are now set on the same level, regardless of our past and given the same opportunities and resources. I made it to college where I am not cultured shocked by any race, where I am confident in my person; I had to go through a lot emotionally to be this open minded.

In society, children can retain implicit information passively from the people around them all the way to adulthood. Information about the way humans interact with each other through culture, ethnicity, and race is staples for the psychological understanding and social construction of a child's mind. There are correlations between contemporary racial discrimination and the dominant “white” socialization process that influences kids from an early age. Much of the controversy today on race is whether we should give racial equality the acknowledgment it deserves after the end of a Jim Crow Era, and Civil Rights Movement from 1954 to 1968. It has been nearly 48 years since great achievements have been made for minorities; but yet, we still seem

A few years ago, I moved to the United States to study. Originally from Gambia, my culture, religion, and background were entirely different than the society I was confronting for the first time. Socially, I recognized how different I was among the crowd I was being immersed in. I looked different, I believed in a different religion, and my traditions would seem out of place in the country I had to call home for probably the rest of my life. The first thing that shocked me was the racial divide I witnessed on a first hand basis. Originally from a nation of an incredibly diverse group of people, I expected the United States to have the same kind and accepting environment. However, what I discovered was something quite the opposite. People treated me

I grew up in Camden, New Jersey, a city that is frequently described as one of America’s poorest cities, to fairly young parents that were not prepared for a child in the least. As a result, for 7 years I lived separate from my parents, in a derelict apartment with my grandmother who was a racist towards her own kind, for reasons I cannot pretend to identify. Every day,

Anthropology encompasses all of the major fields that America focuses on such as Biology, Medicine, Computer Science, and so much more. Anthropology studies the processes of these major fields, their development, and the involvement of humans in these fields. I have concluded that Anthropology is the five W’s of human existence, it is the, “Who, What, When, Where, and Why.” It explains every aspect of human life, yet the field is still on the backburner. As my mother and I continued our conversation, I realized that if society paid more attention to Anthropology we could use the research to explain many of the issues that plague society

Anthropology is all about searching for what it means to be human. There are several different anthropologists that focus on certain areas like cultural anthropologists study all present day societies, big and small, to make a conclusion as of what it truly means to be human. Anthropologists come to this conclusion by using their unique tool kit. One important tool is the concept of culture. Culture is basically a set of rules in someone’s head that makes them behave a certain way. Cultural anthropologists can go into the field and observe behaviors, among other things, of most of a society, and from this they can find the cultural rules the society has. Yes, cultural anthropologists can interview people in a society since it is present day; however, observing behaviors is a very strong resource because one truly sees behaviors that may not be noticed by the natives or behaviors that cannot quite be explained by the natives.

confusing than just not being accepted and rejected from white society. I was taught that you have to love unconditionally no matter what. I felt like my parent loved me but I was not completely accepted, because of my sexuality, so it made it a lot more difficult to build self-acceptance. There were plenty of actions that were directly shown as lukewarm acceptance because I was their child; it caused some confusion because I felt like society would completely judge me because I was different. Dr.King, Jr. also said, “I have a dream that one day my four children would not be judge by the color their skin but by the content of their character” (Dream). It sounded good but not being fully accepted and judged allow many self-insecurities to build within because I would keep in the back of my mind that someone was judging me because I was different and not accepting me based on the person I am.

I am a first generation college student, which in my family is my way of rebelling against them. It may seem hard to believe that, in 2017, I was discouraged to attend college because it is not my destiny because of my gender, and is against the religion that I was born into. Growing up, I was always different from my family. Being different in a Southern Baptist household means I was doing wrong. My family takes a lot of pride in their name and reputation in the community. Which is why my family was very upset to hear that I did not take much pride in the fact that I came from a corrupted family, who used slavery and white privilege to get where they are today. They had never