The White Power Structure And Cultural Identity

You don’t want to be a carbon copy of someone else. But, especially during your younger years, being different is not something you want to be. Bryan Crandall helps explain how being different can limits chances you have. It is about having a disability, which Junior has in the book, so it can really relate to him. It talks about what it is like to be different and be treated differently and get different chances than everyone else just because you have a disability. It said some really interesting things about being different. It also said something about Indians being different, which directly relates to Junior. When talking about reservation life and how Native Americans are considered different, just like people with disabilities, the article states that “Native Americans have been deemed not normal; they need to be kept away, reserved, from regular society” (Crandall 75). The quote makes it clear that Indians were not considered the same as everyone else. The fact that they needed to be kept away from everyone seems a little extreme, but it shows that they don’t have the same opportunities as someone not on a reservation, because they are stuck there. Their chances are limited because they are different than what society thinks normal is. The people not on reservations and that are considered normal have a better chance at having a good life than the Indians on the reservations.

To show first hand to the whites the inequality’s and hardships that the blacks face, the entire first section is in a narrative and a descriptive format. The use of these types of essays lets the readers feel more involved in the story and feel things for themselves. Split into two sections within itself, this first paragraph juxtaposes two stories — one about a “young Negro boy” living in Harlem, and the other about a “young Negro girl” living in Birmingham. The parallelism in the sentence structures of introducing the children likens them even more — despite the differences between them — whether it be their far away location, or their differing, yet still awful, situations. Since this section is focused more towards his white audience, King goes into a description of what it was like living as an African American in those times— a situation the black audience knew all too well. His intense word choice of describing the boy’s house as “vermin-infested” provokes a very negative reaction due to the bad

Segregation had had many effects on the black nation, to the point that it started building up ones character, “See the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness towards white people”, King shows readers that segregation is even affecting little children, that it is starting to build up a young girls character and is contributing to the child developing hatred “bitterness” towards the white Americans. King makes readers imagine a black cloud settling in a young girls brain mentally, when instead she should have an image of a colorful blue sky with a rainbow, isn’t that suppose to be part of a 6 year-old’s imagination? King gives readers an image of destruction civil disobedience had created in the black community, especially in the young innocent little children.

Purpose: Alexie highlights how he ultimately overcame the hardships suffered during his early years due to his Indian ethnicity and displays how Native Americans were, and continue, to suffer from discrimination.

As a teacher, it is important to know and understand the racial and cultural identities of both yourself, and your students. Knowing about your students’ backgrounds is a great way to make the classroom a safe and welcoming environment. Not all educational settings emit a feeling of safety to its students, and that needs to be changed. In this paper, I will discuss how my racial and cultural identity may be the same and may differ from my students, as well as some ways in which the institution of education can be changed to be more racially and culturally inclusive.

At first Junior didn't like himself; he was constantly beaten up, he had a lisp and stuttered so he had no self-confidence. When he made the decision to go to Reardan, a white school, even Rowdy left him. Rowdy thought Junior was betraying their school by going away and transferring so Rowdy didn't talk to Junior anymore. Without his best friend, Junior completely lost hope. He was scared of the white people and did not expect them to welcome him. He was right. Most of the Americans were cold to him and he did not try to raise his status. Many of the white people made fun of him, and when one guy, Roger, said "Did you know that Indians are living proof that niggers f*** buffalo?" (pg. 64) he felt that he had to stop it. So he punched him. Junior was expecting to get punched back, but he didn't. In the Indian Reservation, he

One of the main obstacles Junior overcomes is stereotypes. Junior is an Indian who lives on a reservation. Indians have many stereotypes that are towards them. For instance one stereotype is that they have no hope. Junior had a conversation with one of his teachers about his future, which involved him switching schools. Junior knew that if he stayed at the reservation high school he won’t be able to make a future for himself. So when his parents got home he asked them who has the most hope, “’White people, (Alexie45)’” his parents told him at the same time. Even

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.

Growing up on a reservation where almost everyone has lost hope, Junior feels like an outcast for having a passion to chase after his dreams. When he moves to Reardan to find hope, he is gawked at and teased because he is the only Indian there. Junior faces internal conflicts within himself figuring out how to balance his two selves. According to Junior, “traveling between Reardan and Wellpinit, between the little white town and the reservation, [he] always felt like a stranger. [Junior] was half Indian in one place and half white in the other. It was like being Indian was [Junior’s] job, but it was only a part-time job. And it didn’t pay well at all” (Alexie 118). Junior is determined to discover his identity as it is evident in his choice of words. Feeling like a stranger wherever he goes, he believes that he is too white for the reservation while being too Indian for Reardan. The people on the reservation live in an atmosphere where they trust only each other and stick up for one another. However, when Junior goes to the reservation after being exposed to a community filled with white people, the Spokane’s do not see him as a true Indian anymore, hence the reason why Junior

Self-awareness is a critical skill to hone as a behavioral health worker. Understanding how individual traits, cultural influences, and life experience shape perspective and constantly assessing one's thought processes in order to remain as objective as possible can be difficult but is necessary from an ethical standpoint. A lot of harm can be done if personal bias goes unchecked, intentional or not. This paper will define cultural bias and discusses my personal background, cultural identity, and biases and how they may influence my work.

Many of the characters who associate with middle-class white culture feel the need to separate themselves from lower-class blacks whom they identify as lazy and criminals “I destroyed white baby dolls….The truly horrifying thing was the transference of the same impulses to little white girls." (pg. 22). "White[ness]" is associated with value, virtue, and cleanliness while being black is associated with immorality, dirtiness, and the sense of being disposable. The novel involves mostly black characters and due to this the idea of being white exists on a spectrum. Race is not only decided by the genetic make-up of one's appearance and skin, the shape of one's features, or the texture of one's hair, but also by one's place of origin, socioeconomic class, and educational background “... his mother did not like him to play with niggers. She had explained to him the difference between colored people and niggers. They were easily identifiable. Colored people were neat and quiet; niggers were dirty and loud” (pg. 53). These ideas of race being valuable became a main point in the story. And by internalizing these ideas about race the main characters ultimately obtained a racial self-hatred, which created various forms of dysfunction in the characters'

There were many factors that led to the construction of the “white race”, many of these were cultural and structural. As we know, race is not a biological term, it is a social construct that the population gives meaning to. In the begging, when English colonists arrived to what is now the United States, they saw that they had no physical resemblance to the Native Americans and therefore they characterized the indigenous population as “savage” while they characterized themselves as “civilized” (which is kind of ironic taking into account that they are responsible for the genocide of an entire population). When they came across this new country, one of their main concerns was to preserve it and to have it reach its full potential, in their eyes,

Like many White Americans, I do not have a strong sense of ethnic or cultural heritage. “White” has come to denote the majority, boring, bland culture. What is white culture? Put simply, it does not exist. Culture, defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary, is: “The beliefs, customs, arts, etc. of a particular society, group, place, or time”. The US has a multitude of cultures, influenced by race, ethnicity, heritage, and region. Because of this, “white” culture does not exist, as race is not the sole determination of culture, and because there is such a mixture and distribution of white people in the US. Thus, it is necessary to go beyond “white” culture to find an identity, one that clearly defines

    At first, the narrator cannot grasp that his grandfather was fighting against oppression in his work he was compliant to white men. But as he progresses as a student the denials of the system become more clear it is not clear if white men wish for him to advance or not. The narrator’s  worldview has become more

Key issues The meaning and importance of culture Dominant culture Subculture Folk culture High culture Mass, popular or low culture The changing distinction between high culture and mass culture Global culture The concept of identity Different types of identity The socialization process Primary socialization Secondary socialization Socialization and the social construction of self and identity Theoretical approaches to the role of socialization in the formation of culture and identity Structural approaches Social action approaches A third way: structuration Social class and