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The American Dream : Who Are You?

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Who are you?
This is a question many people struggle with, as Identity is key in today’s society. Knowing who you are, what you identify as, or your ancestral lineage speaks volumes about how an individual will be treated due to public perception. For example, America is a growing world power that has strong social, economic and political influence on the world stage. It is this status symbol that many Americans identify with, irrespective of race, gender or sexual orientation. Identifying as American citizen creates an image of perceived wealth, power and intelligence perpetuated by media and misleading myths of the “American dream”. The American dream is an idealistic notion of freedom and equal opportunity that implies the high possibility of success, in the presence of determination and hard work. However, can this truly be achieved in the company as sexism, homophobia, and racism? Are our privileges determined by the color of our skin? Or is it simply biological, that some races are naturally inferior to others? Race is a social concept used to categorize a certain group of people by culture, location, ethnicity and skin color. “Race is a cultural invention, that bears no intrinsic relationship to actual human physical variations, but reflects social meaning imposed upon these variations” (Smedley, 1999) Race is cultural rather than biological because, the foundations of its core principles are based on western colonialism, as well as a lack of scientific evidence

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