Lit 4188 the Lonely Londoners

Our name identifies us in many ways. It connects us to who we are and connects us to our family. White people have had the power to express what identifies them best and black people really never got the chance to experience what identity is, it has always been prearranged for them. This passage’s main point is about identity and breaking out of the silence that the whites have had over the black people, about taking control and breaking the norms.

Each and every person on this Earth today has an identity. Over the years, each individual creates their identity through past experiences, family, race, and many other factors. Race, which continues to cause problems in today’s world, places individuals into certain categories. Based on their race, people are designated to be part of a larger, or group identity instead of being viewed as a person with a unique identity. Throughout Richard Wright’s Black Boy, Richard is on a search for his true identity. Throughout Black Boy, one can see that Richard’s racial background assigns him with a certain identity or a certain way in which some

This ‘false identity’ to which Haugthon refers, is indicative of how most countries that were colonies operate. This has impacted the way we dress, speak and relate to each other. Stone (1992) posits that the because the social ideology of plantation society defined black people as being

So what is the black identity? Are you black enough? Do you talk black? Are you a hyper masculine heterosexual male with kinky hair and a criminal record? I can see how it must be difficult to maintain a sense of communal self. Angela Davis one of the speakers in the film, provides this answer: "You take some color, a dash

Almost everyone in the world feels a need to belong. When searching for one’s own identity, the questions of where power lies and who disperses it derive. The choices to separate, conform and individualize play the most significant role in identity because those choices refer individuals to the people they associate with. Deirdre N. McCloskey’s “Yes, Ma’am” and Alice Walker’s “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self” relate in finding an identity and self-accepting oneself.

On the very first day of the class, Introduction to the Black Experience, we learned that people are defined by their culture and geography. We are also defined by the gaze of others and our own gaze. This realization led me to contemplate what the “black experience” means to me. As a first generation Haitian-American woman at Wellesley College, it has become clearer to me how important the language and culture of parents has been in shaping my identity. I have also begun to think more critically about how my identity as a woman of color separates me from black brothers as well as my white peers at Wellesley.

A feeling of affiliation with community and strong interaction with all of its members serve as the basis of the peculiarity of Black community. Membership of community has been always more important to African Americans than the feeling of individualism and competition among its members. Jagers and Mock (1995) have talked about Afro-cultural communalism. This communalism is the tendency of African Americans toward collectivist orientation or the preference for interdependence among people. Students who are driven by this communalistic orientation cannot describe themselves in individualistic terms. In fact, much of their self-identity is grounded in their social concern for, and need to be with, others [3]. Being a member of community young African Americans always relate themselves to it, because as it has been mentioned above, individualism is not a characteristic feature of Black community.

     Through our readings of the Mexicans in the U.S. and the African-American experience modules, we begin to understand the formation of identity through the hardships minorities faced from discrimination. In this paper, I am going to compare and contrast the ideas of identity shown through the readings. These two modules exemplify the theme of identity. We see how Blacks and Latinos tried to find their identity both personally and as a culture through the forced lifestyles they had to live.

Cross’ book Shades of black: diversity in African-American identity (1991) depicts a perceived metamorphous of black identity through five stages of development—his ideologies are now termed as the Nigrescence theory. In simple terms, this philosophy refers to the process of becoming Black. It also demonstrates daily struggles that the black community may have in developing a healthy personal identity. Over the years, many authors attempt to define what the word black means. Eventually, many came to begin using the politically acceptable term widely applied today to regard black people; that word is known as Negroes. As different historical events occurred, one being the black power revolution on the 1970’s the experience called for a fresh definition of the term negro. Blacks or Africans in America began to be more conscious of their identity and more aware of the differences separating them. This is the experience that Cross (1971) illustrates and is primarily referenced in his five-stage progress including: pre-encounter, encounter, immersion/emersion, internalization, and internalization-commitment. This book highlights some very vital topics relating to mental health, which has been carefully disregarded by other researchers. Nonetheless, it has strong affiliations to the black experience and can positively explain a more normal psychological behavior through logical and very thought provoking

black man fights against, constantly trying to identify himself. At the same time, black men have found approaches to detach from this narrow minded image that society has created for them including; sports, education and family. The black male struggles to gain his own identity because there is already a firm image created for them that the white man visualizes the black male and the expectations of the black male. However, it isn’t just the society that plays a role in the development of the black males identity, there is also the consideration of how black males are brought up or raised in their current lifestyle situations. For example, athletes,

We talk a lot about our social location, or identifying who we are. Before I get further into this paper I wish to identify myself. I am a white male born to two white, heterosexual Anglican parents. I grew up having mostly white friends, until graduating high school. I also have been diagnosed with clinical depression, which is a significant attribute of my identity. As a result of these intersectional attributes they create an identity that is both privileged and oppressed and these elements change depending on the situation (Curry-Steven, 2007, p.37). It is important to understand who you are, as it will shape who I am in the work I do as a social worker.

Alan Gilbert’s modern history Black Patriots and Loyalists concentrates on Black soldiers as somewhat better than cogs in the radical fight. He depicts Blacks as an international nation and stresses the global longing for freedom as the functioning cohesion amid Blacks. The idea takes Quarles’ acknowledgement of the Black soldier as a contributor and emblem, and allocates precise worth to freedom troops. However, Gilbert’s work miscarries to clarify what Black soldiers intended within the boundaries of a newly conceived country. Likewise, though Quarles’ work presents the American Revolution as an essential instant of transformation for Blacks, he does not clarify the linking between American service and American individuality. Temporarily, MacLeod assess the Revolution ended the scope of bondage, presenting diminutive clarification on the figurative connotation overdue Black service when creating an American individuality. Although confessing all prior works of notable authors have

Race, gender, nationality, ethnicity, poverty, and sexual orientation, all play a role in developing one’s identity and more often than not, these multiple identities intersect with blackness. Being that American society has deemed colored people and populations as minoritarian subjects, African diaspora people can be seen making safe spaces for themselves to survive as individuals and as a part of communities.

In exploring the problem of identity in Black literature we find no simple or definite explanation. Nevertheless, it is generally accepted that it is rooted in the reality of the discriminatory social system in America with its historic origins in the institution of slavery. One can discern that this slavery system imposes a double burden on the Negro through severe social and economic inequalities and through the heavy psychological consequences suffered by the Negro who is forced to play an inferior role, 1 the latter relates to the low self-estimate, feeling of helplessness and basic identity conflict. Thus, in some form or the other, every Negro American is confronted with the

Critically examine the ways through which the Black British diaspora has been imagined and represented by the theorisations of Paul Gilroy and others. Why does Gilroy (and others) suggest his notion of ‘The Black Atlantic’ as useful for re-imagining black identities?