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To me, identity means understanding yourself. Your identity can be shaped by your family, friends, and culture. Family and culture may influence a person’s sense of responsibilities, morals, and humor. Friends may have an influence on your taste in things such as music, and social activities. Some factors may have more an influence than others. The three themes I’m going to talk about are discovering oneself, struggle, and acceptance. These three themes have a huge impact on one’s identity, especially mine. The first time I discovered myself was in high school, when I stopped doing things to please my dad and began doing things that made me happy. My dad had his eyes set on me joining the Navy as my career choice. Whenever I would look at other career options, he would say, “You aren’t going to make money doing anything else! You need to focus on the Navy and only the Navy!”. In my junior year of high school, I started taking teaching courses. These courses made me realize how good I am at creating lessons, and how interested I am in children. I became determined to become a teacher. My dad wasn’t happy of course, so I decided to stand up for myself and do what I want. I experienced a huge struggle in my life which has affected who I am today, which was my dad gaining full custody of me when I was 3. I was a young girl who was never allowed to see my mom and not allowed to do anything until I was 12. My grades were horrible, and my dad did not care much about school or me doing my homework. I missed almost every day of school because my dad was always sleeping and didn’t want to get up. At the age of 13, I decided I wanted to live with my mom. She was completely focused in my schooling and my future. I was able to have options, which I never had before. I was making friends, which was new to me. This has affected who I am today because of how hard I work for myself each day. I finally started feeling acceptance when I moved in with my mom. She has always said, “Follow your dreams and don’t listen to anyone else.” I could talk to her about anything and not be judged. She focused on how happy I was, and she made me feel acceptance for myself. As you can see, my parents are the ones who have affected my identity.

Discovering oneself is finding your identity and focusing on yourself. You become self-sufficient and start doing things for yourself. It’s good to be a little selfish, because you wouldn’t be able to find yourself if you weren’t. In the story “Revision”, a boy discovers he is a child from rape and realizes now why he is so much darker and taller than his family. He gets defensive when his mother refers to the man as his father, however he mentions that his father is the man who raised him and loves him. He mentions how he has grown to look nothing like his biological father saying, “Plus, as I’ve aged from a skinny dark kid into a chubby paler man – having lived in sunless Seattle for twenty-three years – I have come to more strongly resemble my father and my siblings” (145). What he is saying is that he may have resembled his biological father when he was younger, but as an adult he resembles the man who raised him and took care of him. When you are around someone for so long in your life, you become more like them. I can relate to this, because my father was never there for me as a child and my grandfather was the one who raised me. At one point, I started calling him “dad”. My biological father did not like this and would punish me every time I called my grandfather my dad. My grandfather supported me, helped me set goals for myself, and made me the person who I am today. For that, he is my dad and always will be. Instead of discovering yourself through your family, you can discover yourself through culture. In the story “Operation Make My Family Normal", a young Indian girl is trying to discover who she is and where she is from. She wants to figure out why her family celebrates Thanksgiving so differently than the American culture. She doesn’t understand why she can’t celebrate the same way Americans do. As she starts to live the American way, she discovers its not as exciting as it seems. She realizes that she likes the way she lives, and she likes the way her family’s culture does things. She says, “Normal would be easier if it didn’t taste so terrible.” (187) She discovers that she would rather be weird and like it, rather than be normal and hate it. She didn’t like the feeling of a culture so different from hers, even though she thought American culture was the normal. In reality, her way of life is her normal. I like how she discovered herself by trying another way of life. This made her realize that her way of life isn’t so bad. It may be different, but you don’t want to be like everyone else. No one In the world is completely the same and everyone has a different normal. There are even different normal within the same culture. I see a connection in Roxanne Gay’s “Bad Feminist: Take Two”. She is trying to discover herself when it comes to determining which side of feminism she is on. She compares bad feminist to a good feminist. While talking about good feminists, she mentions how they don’t know anything about cars and their favorite color is pink. She realizes that a bad feminist likes the color black, knows about cars, and can still support feminism but in a whole different light. She says, “Bad feminism seems like the only way I can both embrace myself as a feminist and be myself…” (318) She discovers that she doesn’t have to be a good feminist to be a feminist. Previously in “Revision”, a man discovered himself through his father. A character in “Black Panther” discovered himself in the same way. The villain Erik Killmonger discovered who he was by discovering where his father was from through a journal. The journal contained Wakanda maps and the Wakanda language. Killmonger His father told him that he wasn’t welcomed in Wakanda and they wouldn’t welcome him either. Killmonger’s father was killed and he wanted revenge. He trained each day and discovered how powerful he is. He decided that he wanted to take over the throne by challenging the king. When the king turned down his challenge, someone in the background said, “He is the son of prince N’Jobu, he is within his rights.” (1:15:53) The king then had to take him up for a challenge. Killmonger discovers that he may be unwelcomed, but he has all the same rights to be there as everyone else. I like how Killmonger knew his worth and what he can do. He shows how he acquired the knowledge and understanding of his Wakanda heritage and it ties all together with his motivations. He didn’t give up and showed the rest of Wakanda what he discovered about himself.

Struggle becomes your identity, because you always bring your struggles into your successes. Some use them to define who they are and say they wouldn’t be where they are today without going through them. Some people refer to themselves not by their name, but by their struggles. To overcome this, we need to exert strength. We need to strive for success. We should use our struggles to make us a better person. Struggles can help other benefit from them. In the story “Good Girls Become Doctors”, there is struggle with a female gender identity. The mother of a young girl is striving for the power of women. She is a feminist who wants everyone to understand women’s struggles. The young girl seen a woman getting beat by her boyfriend, “…this is what I have witnessed: a young woman getting beat up by her abusive boyfriend in his parked car” (56) After this incident, the young girl’s mother made her go to self-defense classes. This has shown that women are being shown as weak and inferior to men, which is a huge struggle for women. Men are the ones who are in control and the only ones who should be in control. She wants her daughter to stand up to a man and show that they aren’t the only ones who can be in control. The young girl’s father is very supportive of her mother and does not want his daughter to struggle without a man. Personally, I have always looked out for myself whether I have a man or not. So, I can understand where the father is coming from. It is good to have your own money, house, car, etc. and say that you did it on your own. This has always been the way I think, and I feel as a man is someone who will make you happy, not someone who you need to be dependent on. At the end of the day, you only have yourself and always will. In a reading called “Defining Patriarchy” by Bell Hooks there was a struggle for women being able to do what men can do. Men were shown as the authoritative ones, and the powerful ones. Women struggled to stand up against men, because they were too busy backing up the patriarchy role men played. In “Defining Patriarchy”, a young girl tried to play with her brother’s marbles and refused to put them down when her father demanded her to. Her father then beat her and told her marbles is a boy’s toy, so she cannot play with them. Instead of her mother protecting her, she is kind of saying “I told you so”. She simply says "You need to accept that you are just a little girl and girls can’t do what boys do" (2); therefore, her mother backed up patriarchy by telling her daughter to stay in her place. There is one struggle that has been going on since the beginning of time and continues to go on today. That one struggle is racism, and “Black Panther” shows us that it still goes on today in an indirect way. At the beginning of the movie, Killmonger went to a museum. In this museum there were white guards and white lady who worked there. As soon as he walks into the room, all eyes are on him. He was profiled by the guards and the lady was surprised by his knowledge when he  corrected her. Killmonger can feel the tension in the room and responds by saying, “You got all this security in here watching me ever since I walked in.” (0:16:47) He was just a normal person walking into the museum and didn’t seem like he was doing anything wrong. This shows that no matter where you go as a black man, you will always struggle with racism. You will struggle with people staring at you and making accusations about your identity. I have seen things like this happen in real life. When I am out shopping, I see the store associates following around a black man and watching his every move. This happens no matter where you are. However, when a white man walks in, nobody turns their head. Even though there are huge struggles within society, there are also struggles within families that has a huge impact on identity. In the story “Forty Knives”, a family was financially struggling. They were constantly moving from motel to motel. If their parents had extra money or a temporary job, then they would stay in hotels. Their parents struggled keeping a job which is why their living situation wasn’t stable.They were struggling with money so bad that it got to the point where they were selling everything they had: “…my brother told my aunt that he was going to hock all of our furniture to the pawnshop, just like mom and dad always do, so he could buy Kentucky Fried Chicken.” When his brother was younger, he thought it was normal to sell things to buy food. He didn’t really understand the struggle that was going on. When I was younger, my mom struggled with having money to buy food. She was newly divorced and decided to sell her wedding ring to be able to feed us both. She never told me she sold her ring, but we randomly went to a pawn shop one day and she had me wait in the car. When she got back in the car, I noticed her ring box was missing out of her purse. The next day we suddenly had a fridge full of food.

Acceptance is being accepted for you are and not being accepted for having someone else’s identity. You are being accepted for being different and you don’t have to change for anyone. Being accepted means you’re okay with who you are. We can be ourselves, be relaxed, open and let go. You have no fear of judgement or rejection. Acceptance has a great impact on our self-worth because we feel worthy and valuable. In the story “Operation Make My Family Normal”, a young Indian girl is trying to find a way to fit into her school. She feels left out when all the kids are talking about what they will eat on Thanksgiving. She is not able to join the conversations, because she doesn’t eat the same way or celebrate the same way as them. To be able to join the conversations, she asked her mother to pack her cranberry sauce in her lunch for school. Before she opens her lunch, she says, “There was a real possibility that my mother could’ve kept her word and packed me leftover cranberry sauce, like we discussed at dinner. That meant that I could join the conversation and officially be normal.” (187) Even though she hated the cranberry, she just wanted to show everyone at school that she is also normal. She wants to be able to talk about her Thanksgiving and it being related to everyone else’s. For the first time, she just wanted to have the something in common with her classmates. I can relate to trying to fit in by doing and having the same things as others. When I was in middle school, I would always beg my parents to buy me new things that just came out so that I could show it to everyone at school. By doing this, people would always talk to me and I made a lot of friends. I can see why the young Indian girl is trying to celebrate Thanksgiving the same way as Americans. She just wants to make friends and join the conversations.

While the young girl had a difficult time accepting herself and her culture, a young girl in “Redefining Realness” is having a difficult time accepting herself and womanhood. A young girl doing everything she could do to fit in and be accepted for who she is. It is about a young trans girl is trying to find acceptance in womanhood. However, she realizes that it isn’t about fitting in. It’s about standing out. She realizes that journey has opened a door for hundreds of people. There are people telling her “I want to be like you when I grow up” (xvi); this shows that she is not only being accepted for who she is, but she’s making a difference for those who are afraid to step forward. Everyone in the world likes to feel some type of acceptance and feel as if they’re not alone. They just want to fit in and feel some type of comfort. In the story “Kind” by Sherman Alexie, he brings this to light in a way that we’ve never looked at it. In the story “Kind”, Alexie brings up the fact that we are with the person who shares the same struggles and experiences as us, because they are the ones who will accept us for who we are. My favorite thing he says is, “We spend our lives with the person who has the same scars in the same places.” (294) meaning that their “open wounds snap into ours like LEGO pieces.” (294) We want to be with someone who understand us, and someone who we don’t have to constantly explain ourselves to. We want someone to make us feel as we belong and are accepted for who we are. We want to be with someone who has been through what we have been through, and someone who we can connect to on that level. It would be hard to connect to someone who has nothing in common with you, because you feel as if you must open when you really don’t want to. However, if someone has the same scars as you, you don’t need to explain anything because they already know. Personally, I would prefer to be with someone who has experienced the same pain as me. I wouldn’t want to be with someone who has a “perfect” life, because there is no such thing. I want to be with someone who admits to their flaws and can relate to me in a way that also makes them feel accepted. Sherman Alexie wasn’t the only one bringing things to light for us. “Black Panther” put women into a different light, which is a world of acceptance. The movie shows us the way the world would be if women took on the roles of men. In the movie, there were female warriors, which has never been seen before. Normally, there are male warriors in almost every movie you see. Not only were the female warriors strong, but they showed integrity. They were conscious of their power and know how to use it. The king’s sister, Shuri, was very young and made all the weapons. She made all Black Panther’s suits and she even created holograms. Wakanda represents a fictional world in which women’s natural beauty and intelligence are accepted norms of a society that values their femininity. Women have so much acceptance that they could challenge the king for the throne. A joke was made by the king’s sister saying that she’ll challenge him when asked, “Is there any member of a royal blood who wishes to challenge for the throne?” (0:22:26) She then raises her hand, but all she says is that she wants them to wrap this up, so they can go home. Everyone thought she was serious when she raised her hand, but she was joking to show that she could have that power If she wanted it because of women’s acceptance.Wakanda represents a fictional world in which women’s natural beauty and intelligence are accepted norms of a society that values their femininity.

I feel as my view on identity has not changed. Everything I’ve talked about has strengthened my view point on identity. I purposely put these themes into this order. I wanted to start out with discovering oneself, because it's important to know who you are as a person for others to understand who you are. I then moved to struggle; this shows discovering oneself comes with a lot of struggle. Finally, I finished with acceptance. This shows that you are going to go through struggles when discovering yourself, but in the end, you will find acceptance. Others will find acceptance for you, and you will find acceptance for yourself. Due to these themes, I understand myself. Therefore, I have found my identity.

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                                                   Family Feud

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                                                   Family Feud

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At the beginning of watching Jay-Z’s “Family Feud” video, I felt disappointed. The characters were fighting over who had power and killed each other over it. The male character asks the female character, “who’s going to take this family seriously when you’re the first face that they see?” As I continued watching the video, I felt so many different emotions at once. As a woman, I felt as if women aren’t respected. As I continued to watch this video, I began to see empowerment for all women. It shows that men aren’t the only ones who can be in power. The video proved this by having two presidents including one male, and one female. I believe that this will balance out the power and have more than one perspective. When both presidents are being interviewed. The interviewer brings up Mr. President’s family history, and how there was a murder within the family. He then tells her the good things that his family has done, and we should only be focusing on that. For example, one of his ancestors was in a committee of foremothers who revised the constitution. This committee represents women of diverse backgrounds. It shows that women can have the power, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re black, blue, pink, or purple. In the past, women were not the ones with this power, and it is huge seeing them have it in this video. At the head of the table full of women is an adult version of Blue Ivy (Jay-Z’s daughter). She is one of the foremothers of the new United States and refers to when she was younger. She mentioned how her father taught her an important lesson which is, “Nobody wins when the family feuds”. We must strengthen our families, communities, and our society. The video started to get more centered around money, and it teaches us an important lesson. We need to be more focused on relationships rather than money. It is not worth all the fighting between us about money, when it’s not as important as our relationships. When I watch this, I feel as if we are constantly comparing ourselves to others. Instead of supporting each other, we tear them down, and let greed overcome us. This video helped me understand that all families have problems, and bad choices are made. It is obvious that the characters in the video are facing a large issue and stress the need for some sort of solidarity. They talk about the world needing to come together as one, as a “unity”. The point of this video is that every community needs to see each other as family, and back each other up. We are all human, which makes us all related. Everyone needs to stop being only for themselves and start supporting others. I completely support every single one of these messages, and this video shows me what could be our future if there isn’t change now.

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To me, the concept “mother” means many different things. Being a mom involves building their child’s self-esteem, supporting them, and putting them first. I feel as you need to love your child more than you love yourself and do anything you possibly can to make them happy. You need to be selfless and sacrifice your wants and needs for your children’s. Being a mother means being there through all the trouble your child causes, and still love them unconditionally. I believe forgiveness is important because everyone makes mistakes, and no one is perfect. You help your child learn through their mistakes and prevent them from making the same ones. A mother is more than an authority figure, she is a friend, and a role model. Mothers are someone who you can count on through breakups, drama, struggles, etc. They can always be trusted with your problems, and secrets. A child is a mother’s most prized possession and will always be there for their child. Mothers always tell you that you can do it and they boost your self-confidence. They never tell you that you can’t do something, because they know that you are capable of anything. They make sure the child is reaching their full potential, and is gaining more skills, and knowledge each day. I feel that a mother will always have their child’s best interest at heart. To be a mother, you need to have specific traits. I think mothers need to have patience, patience is key to motherhood. Patience prevents mothers from losing their temper and saying things that shouldn’t be said. Patience shows a child an understanding, and that they can go at their own pace with things. A few other traits mothers need includes creativity, responsibility, loyalty, ability to inspire, and a positive attitude. As you can see, I believe that motherhood is more than just conceiving and giving birth to a child.

My mom is my best friend, and she is always there when I need her. She never gives up on me when other people do. My father and I have never had a close relationship and he has never supported my dream of becoming a teacher. However, my mom has always told me to do what I want and do whatever makes me happy. She tells me to never listen to anyone else, because no one knows me better than I know myself. Whenever I put myself down over a test coming up, my mom tells me to stop acting that way, because she knows that I’ll do fine. When I was younger, I used to live with my father. He was not very supportive and lowered my self-confidence. I was failing all my classes and gave up on myself. When I started my second year of middle school, I decided to live with my mom. Every day she told me that I would do great, and not to worry about anything She would tell me to go with my first instinct always, because I used to always second guess myself. When in high school, I was earning straight A’s on each report card. I was even awarded for being an outstanding student in the Teacher Academy of Maryland program.  None of this would have been possible without the support of my mom, and I am very grateful for her support, and love.

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Reflection: Dominant and Non-Dominant Identities

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Reflection: Dominant and Non-Dominant Identities

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Members of dominant groups are granted privileges while non-dominant groups are at a disadvantage. Non-dominant groups face various forms of institutionalized discrimination including racism, sexism, and heterosexism. I have both dominant and non-dominant identities, just like the rest of the world. I am a woman, which means that I am non-dominant. Women will most likely will never have as many opportunities as men. It is hard for women to do what they want, especially make their own career choices, because men are dominant in that area. Women are counted as “weak” and should get the easy route. It is said that women can’t do what men can do, which I totally disagree with. The color of my skin can have both a dominant, and non-dominant identity. No matter the color of your skin, you will always be both dominant and non-dominant in that area. I am dominant in the ageism, because I am in my young adult years (18). I have more job opportunities, because businesses want someone who can physically do everything. I also have a large chance to be chosen over an older individual for a job depending on the job type. This is because they want someone who will be there for a long time and won’t be retiring within a few years.  I am dominant in adultism, because I can do things without parent/guardian permission. I can make my own decisions, and not have them made for me. I have a lot more freedom, and I am more likely to be understood. As an adult, people take a second to listen to me. As a child, I had difficulty to be heard and understood. I felt as if I was being ignored and had no control over anything. No one in this world is completely full of dominant, or non-dominant identities. We all have mixtures, which means everyone is the same and shouldn’t be treated any differently.

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After taking three identity inventories, a lot came to light for me. I learned new things, and a lot of them were surprising. The first identity inventory is white privilege. This was a checklist, and I put a check next to the things I felt made me privileged based on my race. A few things I checked included not being singled out for my race, being able to get into places without being questioned, and not being the only white person wherever I go. When completing this checklist, I questioned what happens to the people who aren’t white? Do they have all the problems at which I do not need to worry about? If so, this is very devastating to me. I didn’t realize that all this racism still goes on today. I find it hard to grasp that we live our lives revolved around the color of our skin. It makes me wonder how people of other races feel whenever they go somewhere. Do they have to worry about being stopped on the street, and be questioned? Do they worry about being followed around in stores? One thing on the checklist that surprised me the most was, “I can be late to a meeting without having the lateness reflect on my race.” What I got from this is that just one person from another race can affect the image of everyone in that race. For example, just because one black man commits a crime doesn’t mean all black men commit crimes. Another thing I got from this statement was that people blame things on someone’s race. For example, imagine that the person late to the meeting was an Asian. In this case, a white colleague would say “Asians these days”.  One person should not be held accountable for the face of a whole race. The second identity inventory is upper-class privilege. This whole thing made me irritated while reading it. There are people in this world who are homeless, don’t have any medical care, are hungry, and don’t know if they will survive. However, the upper-class are hiring maids and people to pick their outfits out every morning. Why would they waste this money on things that they can just do themselves? Why wouldn’t they help those in need? I believe that they are just being selfish especially if they say things such as, “I can sleep all day and still make money.” I don’t understand how they can live with their selves if they truly feel this way. One thing that surprised me was that the upper class hires people to care for their children. I thought that since they had so much “free time”, that they would do things with their children as much as they can. The third, and last inventory is heterosexual privilege. While reading this, I realized how much of a “norm” being straight is. I find it surprising how people who are straight don’t get questioned about their sexuality, however a gay or lesbian may be questioned. I feel as if love is love no matter who the two people are. People should not have to fear telling others about their sexual orientation. I do not feel as if they should have to defend themselves, and others should be supportive of them. One of the things I read and found interest in said, “I can go for months without being called straight.” I never really thought about the fact that straights are never called a name until I read this. Nobody brings being straight to a negative light. However, we have all types of names for gays, and lesbians which are all very inappropriate.

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When I went to go see the new Black Panther movie, I was extremely surprised by how much identity was in the film. At the beginning of the movie, there was a scene of racism. When Erik Killmonger (the villain) was in the museum, and the white security guards wouldn’t stop watching him. The white woman who worked there kept asking him if he needed anything or if he had any questions. She was doing this so that she could keep a close eye on him, and he said something to her about it. The black men and women had all the power in this movie, and the women were able to fight along with the men. There was a lot of integrity with the female warriors. They respected the throne, however did what they had to do to protect their people. They respected who was in the throne no matter who they were. The warriors used their integrity and turned it into strength. The king’s sister is a scientist in this movie. She was designing and building all the weapons including Black Panther’s suit. She worked with high technology such as holograms. In this movie, they mention the struggles within the American culture, which I feel has never been addressed in a superhero movie before. A few points were made that they should be sharing what they have with the rest of the world, because there are people who need it. I very much enjoyed how everyone was focused on the people, and the whole world. They were focused on how one thing can make a huge impact, and they would do anything in their power to protect the people. There was a lot of fighting over power within family and culture. Killmonger was the king’s long-lost cousin whose father was killed by the king’s father. Killmonger wanted revenge, and the throne. He wanted everyone to feel the pain that he felt when he lost his father. For the king to defeat him, he needed more help than what he had. He then asked the tribe who previously challenged him for the throne if they would join him. I was very surprised by this, because he was asking an enemy for help who could turn on him. However, I did like how the king let the tribe know that it’s not a fight for him, it’s a fight for the people. The tribe decided to join the king and put all differences aside. I really like this scene because they focus on the lives of the people because that is what’s important. I also enjoyed the variety of cultures, because it was different cultures coming together. It wasn’t just focused on one culture, it was focused on all of them and how they could work together. There was a white CIA agent who took a bullet for the king’s ex-girlfriend. In return, he was taken back to the king’s homeland to be saved. The king knew that bringing him back would cause trouble, however he found that it was his duty to save the agent’s life. My favorite thing about this movie was that the king did not back down form anyone. There were these ritual challenges to take over the king’s throne. The king always accepted the challenges each time someone challenged him. He wanted to show that he was brave and not weak. He was willing to do anything to prove that to everyone and himself. Even if he wasn’t sure that he would win, he didn’t give up. He fought until he could no longer fight. He was a very selfless king, and only thought about not only his people, but everyone.