Whiteness

3. Everyone can reach the top level of needs, but many can not get there due to life experiences

Consequently, fundamental aspects of our social experience and identities, like race and gender, can be readily understood through the symbolic interactionist lens. Because both race and gender have no biological basis whatsoever, both race and gender can be understood as social constructs that function based on what we believe to be true about people, given what they look like. We use socially constructed meanings of race and gender to help us decide who to interact with, how to do so, and to help us determine, sometimes inaccurately, the meaning of a person's words or actions. Symbolic interaction perspective is a useful

Our actions and interactions with others and society are what define us. Society’s perception of an individual may contrast with that individual’s perception of self. Our actions and interactions with others create certain stigmas which may not change despite progression and change an individual has undergone. But however at the end of the day we are our own creators and we chose who we interact with.

Profoundly interpersonal, the experience of shame is also therefore social and cultural. Shame is the result of feeling deficient, whether in relation to a parent, an admired friend, or a more powerful social group (39).

our social identity. It is these groups that can have a negative or a positive effect on ourselves. We can be part of the “in group” or the “out group” depending on somebody's experience of the membership of that group, sometimes groups maintain an us and them mentality when it comes to being part of it. The norms of the group are expected to be adhered to by members, and this can lead to members being expected to conform, non conformity can often lead to role conflict

A. It is important to recognise an individual as a person as it is their human right to be seen as such. If an individual is not seen as a person it devalues them and isolates them from everyday society making them feel “different”.

In the PBS documentary, we learned that that race and freedom were developed together. Historian Robin D.G. Kelley points out a problem our founding fathers faced: “how can we promote liberty, freedom, democracy on the one hand, and a system of slavery and exploitation of peoples who are non-white on the other?” (1:04:43). Our past presidents rationalized this contradiction by declaring that blacks and other races had a natural inferiority to whites. Such reasons were used to justify America’s political goals for power and money that benefit the white society at the expense of others. Omi and Winant claim that “the introduction of slavery… presupposed a worldview which distinguished [whites] from ‘others’.. . to explain why some should be ‘free’ and others enslaved, why some had rights to land and property while others did not” (1). The enslavement of Africans led to the ideology of white supremacy which builds up a political system that privileges white people over “others”. Granting opportunities only to whites widens the social difference along racial lines. This historical attitude toward racial difference has determined the way most of us currently view the world.

2.4 Describe ways to ensure that own interactions with individuals respect their beliefs, culture, values and preferences

2.4)Describe ways to ensure that own interactions with individuals respect their beliefs, culture, values and preferences

The PBS series “Race: The Power of an Illusion” effectively works to expose race as a social construct and deconstructs the false notions that race is a biological marker. The series first discusses that all human beings originated from Africa but dispersed about 70,000 years ago to various places in the world. As a result of this migration, people were spread to different locations throughout the world with different environmental conditions that affected their physical traits. It was many years after the migration in which people began to display these new physical traits such as slanted eyes, fair skin, and differing hair textures. While the series notes the physical changes that occurred during the migration it also emphasizes that race while it may seem apparent in skin color and other physical features has no real biological basis.

Our behaviour is also influenced by the presence of other, no matter how much we believe ourselves to be individuals.

The concept of race and the meanings associated with the term have continuously changed and evolved throughout history. Many negative connotations have been associated with the word race and these are evident as one reflects on the historical origins of the term. Commonly the term race is closely connected to the notion of ‘racism.’ Racism is a specific form of prejudice which focuses on physical variations between people. It describes the ideological belief that a person, or groups of people can be classified into ‘races’ which can be ranked in terms of superiority and inferiority (Spoonley, 1988:4). Giddens defines racism as “the attribution of characteristics of superiority or inferiority to a population sharing certain physically inherited characteristics” (1997:584). This supports the idea that racism is a manner of prejudice or animosity against people who have different physical characteristics. It is in virtue of circumstances such as these that Anthropologists find it necessary to make a distinction between the concepts of race and ethnicity.

I wish to convey to the reader that although the opinions of others can impact the shaping of our identities, there are other factors that also make a contribution. I chose these 3 topics to talk about because of their relevance to the topic of

It is human nature to interpret and reinterpret life and find meaning of one’s place in the world. Without such knowledge, or belief for that matter, any possibility of humanity is lost. Hence, humans are plagued with the necessity to interpret themselves and their connections to their surroundings—both human and physical. Because one’s connections and contexts for interpretation are endless in some sense, humans are inherently a divided self—the culmination of all given interpretations they make for themselves and interpretations from others. In addition, this totality of interpretations through the lens selves as being what is around you, it follows that poetic-rhetorical language is necessary in discussion of the divided self.

What judgments do we make about others? Everyday we make judgments in our social interactions about why others act the way they do, which is known as