Racial Identity : The Effects Of Collective Identity

A majority of people here in the United States have felt a touch of the issues, that come with classification of race. Due to this, many men and women of the minority racial groups are put in to sub-groups as a way to “help” give them an identity that can relate to. This idea to separate people by giving them identities is called the Racial Formation Theory. First introduced by Michael Omi and Howard Winant, the theory is a tool that helps build the idea that race is a social contracted tool where your racial status is weighed upon by many factors such as by those social, economic and political origin. By using race a way to build lines and boundaries, this has resulted in causing a rift to grow between the majority and minority

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

Society has a way of making assumptions based on one’s physical characteristics. Often at times we categorize individuals to a particular social group. In regard to society’ perception of an individual this however, contributes to the development of social construction of racism. Most people want to be identified as individuals rather than a member of specific social group. As a result, our social identity contains different categories or components that were influenced or imposed. For example, I identify as a, Jamaican, Puerto Rican and a person of color. I identify racially as a person of color and ethically as Jamaican and Puerto Rican. According to Miller and Garren it’s a natural human response for people to make assumptions solely

Racial Formation in the United States by Michael Omi and Howard Winant made me readjust my understanding of race by definition and consider it as a new phenomenon. Through, Omi and Winant fulfilled their purpose of providing an account of how concepts of race are created and transformed, how they become the focus of political conflict, and how they shape and permeate both identities and institutions. I always considered race to be physical characteristic by the complexion of ones’ skin tone and the physical attributes, such as bone structure, hair texture, and facial form. I knew race to be a segregating factor, however I never considered the meaning of race as concept or signification of identity that refers to different types of human bodies, to the perceived corporal and phenotypic makers of difference and the meanings and social practices that are ascribed to these differences, in which in turn create the oppressing dominations of racialization, racial profiling, and racism. (p.111). Again connecting themes from the previous readings, my westernized influences are in a direct correlation to how to the idea of how I see race and the template it has set for the rather automatic patterns of inequalities, marginalization, and difference. I never realized how ubiquitous and evolving race is within the United States.

In his essay, “Racial Identities”, Kwame Anthony Appiah addresses the topic of racial identification. He describes how and why it’s hard not to identify someone based on their race. Today in the United States, racial identification is quite relevant. People judge and stereotype others based on race. Classifying people based on their looks isn’t bad, it’s the negative attitudes and labels that come with it. Racial identification is hard for most people to avoid, is detrimental due to the bad attitudes people have, negatively affects people’s lifestyles, and divide people.

Throughout the essay, Race, Culture, Identity: Misunderstood Connections, I found Kwame Anthony Appiah’s claims about social scripts to support my idea that we present ourselves differently depending on the circumstance. There are times when we try to play into the majority, as well as times where we try and fall into the minority; we choose which group we want to highlight depending on which will get us where we want to go.

One of the most prevalent themes throughout the world’s history is the dispute over race and racial differences. But, there is a problem: the majority of the population doesn’t have a clear understanding of what race is. Race is a socially constructed grouping of people that was created in order for people to differentiate themselves from one another and has many sources of influence. While most people believe race is determined by biological characteristics (hair type, skin color, eye shape, etc.), this is not true. To make things more complicated, there is no cut and dry definition to race. Authors of Race and Ethnicity in Society, Elizabeth Higginbotham and Margret Anderson, claim that there are seven different distinct ways to define race. They begin with the popular belief of biological characteristics, and, as mentioned before, through social construction. They go on to note that race can be formed from an ethnic group, from social class rank, from racial formation by institutions, and also can form from one’s self-definition (Higginbotham & Anderson, 2012, p. 13). All of these ways to define race have been seen throughout our history, and many of them have caused problems for minorities, especially in the United States.

“The Danger of a Dominant Identity,” discusses what one columnist believes to be one of the largest problems facing America today. David Brooks, a columnist for the New York Times, argues that reducing people to nothing more than a label with a singular identity is one of the largest problems America faces. Through the appropriate use of rhetorical appeals, David Brooks writes an effective article by informing and firmly convincing the reader of the danger in viewing others as one-sided.

One may ask what is a socially constructed label? Is it the way society labels individuals by the color or one’s skin or the culture from which individuals affiliate them self’s with? Race is a socially constructed label means that individuals from different cultures or ethnics tend to label the different types of race’s that are known in different community’s and see them different from their own and tend to judge one another’s culture. During the readings that were assigned it came down to whether law enforcement officials tend to label social action by the different cultures and minority’s in different areas and the way they approached and dealt with the minority groups.

I totally agree with the assertion of A. Blemenfeld that those identification aspects that capture my attention are the targets of others people’s attention that is reflected back to me (Blumenfeld, 2010). Even though, I was always open-minded and had a friendly relationship with almost anybody, I felt that my racial identity was a part of a problem. As I was the only student of color, I felt alienated sometimes.

In fact, S said many Ethiopian immigrants reject the label “black,” and talk differently about themselves from other US born black people. Then S provided an anecdote of him recognizing his own race in the US society for the first time. When he was young, his mom always locked the door whenever they drove down the neighborhood of which residents were predominantly black. S’s parents labeled the US born blacks in Arabic word that technically meant “slave,” a derogatory term for African Americans. But in general, S said his parents avoided answering to many of the questions pertaining to racial issues in American society, and were even afraid that S might actively express his thoughts about such matter in public. Although his parents’ racial attitudes remained relatively reticent, S “clearly remember[ed] that there was very distinguishable ‘us’ from the ‘other’ black people, who may be dressing or speaking differently.” The social identity theory suggests that it is a natural tendency to categorize people into us vs. them, assigning superior traits to in-group and negative traits to out-group. However, it was surprising to learn that people would not want to identify with the race that most people would categorize them in. This phenomenon of dissociating themselves from other African Americans resonates with Tatum’s internalized oppression, which explains when the member of a

In Anderson and Collins’, chapter on “Why race, class, and gender still maters” encourage readers to think about the world in their framework of race, class, and gender. They argued that even though society has change and there is a wide range of diversity; race, class and gender still matters. Anderson and Collins stated, “Race, class, and gender matter because they remain the foundation for system of power and inequality that, despite our nation’s diversity, continue to be among the most significant social facts of peoples lives.” (Anderson and Collins, 2010) When I was a little girl, I never knew that people were classified in to groups such as race, class, gender. I knew there were people that had a different color of skin than

In American Mosaics, Karl Woodkey argues, “American identity is a process that is best understood if one apprehends two key factors. First, American identity occurs within the primary contexts of race, class, and gender. Secondly, one must understand that the primary conflicts inherent in American identity emerge from these contexts.” The basic logic of Woodkey’s argument is to understand American identity we need to understand how we, as a group, separate each other into different races, classes and genders and the conflict that stems from that segregation. This segregation stems from us being power hungry, we as humans always feel the need to be better than one another which causes us to say that one race, class or gender is better than the

This definition requires some unpacking, but is threefold; a racial identity is a label which requires both an ascription and an identification where there is a history of a presence of that identification. The ascription is made by an outsider who does not claim the label for his or herself and is an expectation of another person to behave a specific way due to antecedent properties of that person, what Appiah calls “consequences,” of the label’s property applying to them (107). Racial identity is not based on identification alone, but on a person’s chosen performance and the expectations of that performance. The identification, however, constructs the second part of Appiah’s definition. By identifying as label “R,” people who do so willingly accept the ascriptions given to label “R” and agree to make decisions that a label “R” would make. What are these decisions? They are included in the third part of Appiah’s definition, that possessors of the racial identity have a shared racial essence that causes them to make similar choices.

The subject of race, within the field of sociology, can often be viewed as both a fluid concept and a cultural experience. Contrary to popular belief, race is not biological, but is a socially constructed category of people that share the same biological traits. Race can often change over time and is formed primarily by our personal views and the views of others. These can range from ethnicity to self-presentation and feelings of place within society. One example of the fluidity of race can be seen based upon the classification of the White or Caucasian race. In today’s culture, this race has been drastically increased to include a vast array of “white” individuals.