This week readings, lecture notes, and class discussions, reminded me of my experience with intersectionality in United States. Arriving in American in 1979, my first encounter of intersectionality was in my junior high school, where my race, gender, and culture had a negative role to play in my life. First, on preparing to emigrate to American with my family, my older sisters and I had our hair platted in cornrows with colorful beads, not knowing the negative impact it might evoke upon arriving in America. Few days after our arrival, we started our junior high school. It was at the school we encounter intersectionality, because all the white girls and boys constantly teased and make fun of us with our hairstyle and our name becomes something of a joke. To make matter worse, it was during this time the movie ‘Roots’ was brand new on the television screen. However, to my dismay the black girls joined the bandwagon. As Dr. Bernard stated in her lecture note that oppressor tends to separate/divide in order to dominate, justify and control, which is the case of the white students.
We were feeling powerless, experiencing culture shock at the same time discrimination and marginalization was at its worst. We felt like a ‘transplant’ as Petersen (2006) described it as someone who is delicate and subjected to being exclude by her peers or community. While at the same time, the oppressed (black girls) had now become the oppressor. This was a double jeopardy in the sense that my
What does it mean to you to be a black girl? If you aren’t one, what do you see when you visualize a black girl? If your imagination limits you to just an afro-centric featured, loud and slang-loving, uneducated woman, then this piece is addressed to you. The persistence of the stereotypes concerning average black girls have chained us all to the earlier listed attributes. One side effect of this dangerous connection is the wide opening for a new form of discrimination it creates. Whether it is depicted through slave owners allocating the preferable duties to lighter-skinned black woman, or in modern times where a dislike in rap music categorizes you as not really black, segregation within black communities occur. Tracing all the way back to elementary school, my education on the subject of racial segregation has been constricted to just the injustices routed by dissimilarities between racial groups. What failed to be discussed was the intragroup discrimination occurring in the black society from both outside observers and inside members. Unfortunately, our differences in the level of education, in physical appearance, and in our social factors such as our behaviour, personality or what we believe in have been pitted against each other to deny the variety of unique identities that we as black individuals carry.
I am applying intersectionality and the sociological imagination to my intersecting identities: class, gender, and ethnicity. By employing intersectionality and the sociological imagination, I am analyzing how my positionality affected my personal experiences while connecting those events with society. I also included five peer-reviewed articles as supporting evidence.
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.
There was a time when America was segregated; Caucasians and African Americans were forced to attend different restrooms, restaurants, and water fountains. However, the era of segregation has been terminated; now America embraces and appreciates the various cultures and ethnicities that create this melting pot several people call home. Likewise, it is this melting pot, or mosaic, of races that multitudes of individuals have identified themselves with. Thus, race and ethnicity does matter for it portrays vital and crucial roles in the contemporary American society. Furthermore, ethnicity and race brings communities together in unity, determines which traditions and ideals individuals may choose to value, and imposes an impediment for it categorizes humans unjustly.
Race and gender are two facets that inherently dominate individuals everyday lives. A person’s social environment, work environment, and educational environment is congruent to their race and gender. From birth, it has been set up that everyone is assigned to a label. A pink or blue blanket is swaddled around a newborn child and a box is checked signifying that child’s place in society. These two actions ultimately define how a child is to be viewed and treated. As children grow into young adults they either decide to stick with their original assignment, while others decide to deviate from it. These individuals deviation results in many of them being viewed harshly and looked down upon because they strayed from their social norms. This constant cycle of being classified and labeled from birth is the social institution of gender and race. These social institutions aid in the inequality that is present in society, and race and gender are shaped by this. However, if these social institutions were removed, race and gender could dissipate. This is due to the fact that race and gender are not real, but are socially constructed concepts used to organize the power, or dominance, within our society to one social group over the other groups.
The book challenges perspectives by daring the reader to empathize with a minority group and try to see from a point of view less commonly discussed
My pre-adolescent years were spent in a community thick with diversity. My friendships were as diverse as the environment in which I lived. It never struck me that racial and ethnic ideals separated people in society. However, upon moving to a predominately white upper-class community I began to question such racial and ethnic ideas. From my adolescent years through today I began noticing that certain people are viewed differently for reasons relating to race and ethnicity. As a result, the most recent community I grew up in has kept me sheltered from aspects of society. As a product of a community where majorities existed, I found myself unexposed to the full understanding of race and ethnicity. Prior to the class I had never fully dealt with issues of race or ethnicity, as a result I wondered why they would be of any importance in my life.
To want change, it requires a vivid mindset. To envision that life is occupied with a multitude of differences. To understand that things may not go the way you would like it to. To comprehend that everything you do and live by contributes to the life you live. Which includes your race, class, gender, sexuality and even religion. All of these aspects mentioned, shapes an individual, and in a way pathes their future. In this research paper, there will be a exploration on identity, diversity, stereotypes, discrimination, difference, and oppression that everyone in some lifetime will face . The evaluation will help get a effective comprehension of cultural identity and intersectionality.
Intersectionality expands beyond multiple locations of oppression, to explore how people both occupy positions of oppression and privilege simultaneously, and that these identities are also mutually constructive.The term “social location” refers not just to the way that these multiple idenitiies interact with the larger
Lorde, writer of “Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference,” gives a firsthand insight on what it means to be a 49-year old, African American, middle class, lesbian woman. She describes how these identities, which she is absolutely proud of, work together as forces of “oppression” in order to create a systematic set of experiences that disempower her and empowers others. In fact, she focuses a lot on those who are empowered by the oppressions others experience. Lorde describes that “[i]n america, this norm is usually defined as white, thin, male, young, heterosexual, Christian, and financial¬ly secure” (Lorde 285). Even though this approach is definitely related to intersectionality, the author does not explicitly state the term.
Carol Stack finds herself in a curious place as a young white woman venturing into a black neighborhood in hopes of alleviating negative stereotypes and bringing illumination into a semiosphere that is altogether ignored or even despised. While she defined her purpose as the attempt to “illustrate the collective adaptations to poverty of men, women, and children within the social-cultural network of the black urban family” (28), her methods are not merely those of an outside observer spouting back information, but truly that of an actively engaged participant. Staying true to the guidelines of participant observation studies, Stack did not attempt to isolate or manipulate the culture she saw, and instead of donning the lab coat, as it
During my time as an undergraduate, I majored in philosophy but intentionally selected courses that would further my knowledge on my range of interests in social justice and law. As I started to engage and learn about theories of intersectionality, social and structural inequalities and constructs, I grew angry at the world we have created for ourselves to live in. I understood that the injustices imposed on people at the dangerous intersections of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, race, and ability are frequent and widespread. The oppressive forces that have allowed for the creation of such injustices have not only routinely excluded and silenced the voices of many groups of people, but have destroyed countless lives.
There are many interpretations of intersectionality, but without a doubt, the critical theory of intersectionality is based on the understanding that oppressive institutions within society take different forms for specific cultural and social positions of individuals and groups. Among the concerns in the article, Joan Simalchik and Hunter College Women’s and Gender Studies Collective discuss the ways in which intersectionality provides a better understanding of how relations of power and privilege and the intersection of gender and race influence women’s everyday lives.
The following paper will discuss two of the major dimensions of my cultural identity, and analyze the way in which my identity holds privileges, or has exposed me to oppression. Being that I am white, I have lived a life of privilege simply because of the color of my skin. I have been afforded opportunities, and lived a life free from persecution due to my skin color. I have also lived a life that has been impacted by oppression because of my female identity. This unique position between privilege and oppression is where I live my life.