For me fear is an essential emotion. I believe that if you do not feel scared or fearful about something in your life you are not leaving your comfort zone. If you are not pushing yourself out of your comfort zone you do not give yourself the ability to set new boundaries and grow as a person. As much as I try not to I find myself wearing a mask throughout daily life. I typically wear a mask to protect other people’s feelings. For example, during discussions with others I tend to have very strong views on certain topics. I have been told that I can be a bit inconsiderate of other people’s feelings. This is the point in which I must wear a mask and muzzle my thoughts. I believe that stereotypes can be used for good as well as bad. While nobody enjoys the phrase “black people like chicken”. African Americans, black males in particular can benefit from these stereotypes for example, the stereotypes of blacks and sports. I believe that if you are African American you are pushed for more opportunities than other races in sports like baseball, football or basketball. Courage is another essential character trait for me. I feel that you need courage because you need to be able to stand up for yourself and take on more challenges. If you do not have courage you will crumble under pressure and let people walk over you. These four topics, fear, masks we wear, stereotypes, and courage are all components that we use is our everyday life that are essential to get us through. 

Fear plays a big role in shaping our identity. The definition of fear is a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, or pain, whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid. Fear tends to prevent us from doing things that help us progress in our life or just simple as being who we are. This could be as simple as feeling like you are due for a raise at your job and asking your boss to consider it. For others fear can be a more complex. In Janet Mock’s book “Redefining Realness”, Mock talks about how she struggled with being transgender and her fear for coming out. In her introduction she stated, “Only the people closest to me knew I was trans my family, friends, and boyfriend” (Mock, xiv). Her saying this tells me that she kept her secret mostly within her family and didn’t want many people knowing. Fear can also switch from the mental dimension to physical. For example, in “Good Girls Become Doctors” the main character struggles with this by telling the readers “being taught to feel a rapist body for moles or scars was almost too much to bear” (Bhattacharya 56). For a woman the idea being raped is already scary but being taught a method for which do defend it is basically forcing them to welcome the idea that it could happen.

            Our identity is also made up of the masks we wear. Sometimes we as people wear masks to hide emotion good or bad, to get that dream job, or some of us wear masks physically. No matter what the case is this can have great impact on who we are or who we try to be. We wear many different masks. Sometimes the masks we wear are to hide emotions. In Reggie Bullock’s “For My Sister” he says, “I got her a train ticket from Wilson North Carolina to Baltimore” (Bullock) I felt like he felt responsible for her even being in Baltimore in the first place. While this is not a bad way to wear a mask, but this is an example of suppressing your emotions. We also wear masks physically. In Janet Mock’s Redefining Realness, she says, “Only the people closest to me knew I was trans my family, friends, and boyfriend” (Mock, xiv). Mock is choosing to keep her identity as a trans woman a secret. Since no one knows she is trans people perceive her as a woman. Sometimes the masks we wear can go so far as changing our entire physical appearance. In Bhattacharya’s “Fair Game” the main character struggles with her dark skin and takes many measures to lighten it. “I have cousins that are dark and were aware from a young age that that was not a good thing to be” (Bhattacharya 46). This way of thinking comes many generations that come before the children. I believe the world we like in has made people of color feel like their skin is not accepted and so they take means to correct it by making it lighter.

Stereotypes are an impact on our identity. What is a stereotype? A stereotype is a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a person or thing. In other words, this is a thought or belief something that may or may not be true about a person, race, or a group. For example, in Janet Mock’s “Redefining Realness” Mock struggles with not wanting to be subject to the pain and punchlines that trans woman faced. She continued to keep her Identity a secret because “she doesn’t want to be seen as one of them” (Mock. iv). This is a clear example of how stereotypes can shape our identity. Since Janet was faced with all these negative thoughts and issues about being trans she chooses to keep her identity bottled up inside. These same stereotypes can also help us not just hurt us. Some people will use the stereotypes and rise above the thoughts. In Janet Mock’s “Redefining Realness” Mock does just this when she “realizes that she is one of these women and she had to honest with herself about her about her experiences.” (Mock, xv) As many people try to battle stereotypes, some people are forced into stereotypes. We see this in Ashanti Branch’s “The Masks We All Wear”. When Branch was only seven years old one of his uncles came into the house and told him that he had to be the man of the house. While Branch knew this was not a suggestion he still did not agree with this decision because he tells the listeners that “he really didn’t want it” (Branch). I believe that bestowing a responsibility of this magnitude on a child can be stressful because its human nature to not do well at a task when you are not interested in it and no child wants to disappoint their elder family members. 

Courage is another feeling that shapes our identity. Courage as we know can be shown in many ways. Courage is needed in our day to day life to help us do the things that we may be afraid to approach or maybe even walk away from. For example, in Bhattacharya’s “Good Girls Become Doctors” the main character had to show courage in the physical realm when she had to “be taught to feel a rapist body for moles or scars” (Bhattacharya 56) For a woman the idea of being raped is already scary but to have to accept it or allow it to happen to gather information on her attacker is even worse and take a lot of courage to accomplish. Other times courage could just be you standing up for yourself or the people that you love or care about. Sometimes we allow fear to get the best of us and this will prevent us from speaking up for ourselves. For example, let’s say you’re up for a promotion at your job and you are your boss’s go to employee for everything. Well for this years Halloween party boss wants you to wear a slightly humiliating Halloween costume and you do not want to, do you say you got it to keep your promotion in place? Or do you express your concern with your boss? If you choose to approach your boss guess what, that just took a lot of courage. In Bhattacharya’s “Fair Game” the main character faces a similar issue except for the issue is her family not accepting the children in their family because they do not have light skin. Through the entire story this is brought up as an issue. She even tells us that she can remember her long list of ways to lighten her skin. As she grew older she realized that it didn’t matter what color her skin was and further expressing that “their rebellion needs to be two-fold against the community voices that create narrow and impossible standard and against the voices in our heads that keep us from loving our skin” (Bhattacharya 44). To me this is extremely courageous because its one thing to stand up to stranger but to stand up to family is another. 

Fear, masks we wear, stereotypes, and courage are all components that we use is our everyday life that are essential to get us through. The concept of identity is different for each individual and is shaped by different factors for everyone. My journey and what shaped my identity and made me the person who I am today, may look very different from the path and experiences that have impacted others. However, there are some factors that I believe can impact anyone’s identity. Fear is a strong emotion that can influence the way we feel about ourselves and the decisions that we make if we allow it. Fear can also cause us to mask our true selves in front of others. Stereotypes, and the fear that can come with other people’s belief of those stereotypes can also cause us to mask our identity. In every situation, we need to have courage to be who we truly are regardless of our emotions or what other people’s misconceptions may be. 

Black vs White is a constant issue in today’s America. When I say black vs White I do not mean as in racism I mean it in a comparison, meaning whites act like this and blacks act like this. The season in which I am writing this paper is a perfect example. Thanksgiving is right around the corner and soon we will all see the Instagram and Facebook post comparing black and white families mainly about the seasoning of white people’s food. This is exactly my point we argue a point of white food as opposed to black food but when you think about is it really about race? No, its not, it’s about the knowledge, the knowledge of knowing how to cook your food healthily which I can say coming from a black family we do not grow up eating healthy and we don’t any better because the food knowledge is not there. If you were to come to my home on thanksgiving and I was to be in charge of the cooking my food would probably look like a “white person” cooked it because I am very cognizant on what I put in my body as well and food. We see this black vs white comparison in Cullors’s “when they call you a terrorist” when he invites a white friend that he met in school to him home and the white friend said “I didn’t know you lived like this (Cullors 25) this is a clear representation of the comparison of white and black home and how they are so different and people tend to believe one is better that the other.

Fear is another issue in this country because how many people are even afraid to exist in it. For example, for a black male in America fear is shown in the aspect of being actually afraid of being a black male in America. For a black male in America we are looked at differently than our other black counterparts. in 2015 I experienced a situation like this walking down Jefferson ave, a street in Towson, Maryland, I was walking to my girlfriends how on campus Jefferson ave is not a very well-lit street. It is about 30 degrees outside, so it is not inappropriate to have on a hoodie. I was approached by a white police officer to take off my hood. At this time I did not immediately realize the fact that my life was in danger until after the situation that happened. This was also a heated time in Baltimore after the killing of Freddie gray. Fear is shown directly in Coates’s Between the World and Me when he expresses the fear for him and his son when he says “I am still afraid. I feel the fear most acutely whenever you leave me. But I was afraid long before you” (Coates) this is unfortunate because black people should not have to be afraid to walk the streets of America if we are in fact “free”

Slavery is a Huge issue in America. Now, when I say slavery, I am not talking about what you may think of slavery, I am talking about the modern day slavery. Modern day slavery also does not just pertain to blacks. There are many different forms of modern-day slavery a few examples could be being a sweat shop worker and not being paid for you wages or the fact that teens in today’s generation are slaves to social media. The biggest form of modern-day slavery is the prison system of America. The prison system of America is setup the exact way that slavery was setup. When the 13th amendment was established abolishing slavery the countries lucrative money pipeline was destroyed. Because of this America needed a new pipeline and they did this by using the fine print of the amendment by painting black people males in particular as criminals to lock them up and use them for free labor the same way that slavery was set up creating Americas new pipeline. In Coates’s Between the World and Me this example of modern-day slavery is shown in the physical realm we he talks about “feeling the sting of his father’s belt” (Coates). His father feared for his life so much that he would try to whip him straight. However, that is not my point. There is no coincidence that the beating of children is not as prominent in white families as in black families. This is because the beating and whipping has been passed down generation to generation from slavery because of what was done to us. 

In conclusion America is not perfect we have so much that we need to work on my clear examples of Black vs White, Fear, and Slavery show you this. we are a tough but pivotal point in this country we have people starting to wake up and see the issues in this country for what they are. We are starting to realize that blacks are no different than whites’ browns are no different than blacks. We understand that we should not have to fear walking the streets at night after enjoying a good dinner and movie and that we can break the chains of modern-day slavery and fight back because our voices will be heard.

The cultural product for this paper is NWA’s song F*** tha Police. The song and the rap group that wrote and performed it are part of the rap industry here in the United States. The artists in the rap group were also visual representations of black male identity in the 1980’s. To be even more specific, they were visual representations of black male identity in Compton, California in the 1980s which was a location were young black men were experiencing a lot of negative and/or violent encounters with law enforcement. Rap music has historically been used by the African American community to highlight the trials and tribulations that come with the black experience in America. One aspect of the black experience is the experiences of black males and the issues they have surrounding how they view themselves but especially how the rest of the country views them. 

In her article “Rap’s Unruly Body,” Annette Saddik discusses how black male rap artists use the performance of their music to exchange the more negative associations with their identity for more typical masculine character traits. “The performance of black male identity… reads the self-consciousness of African American black male identity in terms of more mainstream American values- capitalism, pride, arrogance (Saddik 13).” This is opposed to the more negative character that are usually associated with black males which include violent, intimidating, and dangerous. (See fig 1.) Fig.1. N.W.A “Fuck the Police”. Hip Hop Politics. Clark University.2018. https://wordpress.clarku.edu/musc210-hhp/hip-hop-culture-politics-exploring-the-narrative-and-power-of-rap-lyrics/fuck-tha-police-n-w-a/ 

This quote speaks to rap artists’ attempts to show that they can achieve some elements of American masculinity standards. This “swagger” is an attempt to hide or ignore the socioeconomic inequalities that are faced by black men in America.

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 The way black males are viewed as dangerous and up to no good has led to many cases of police involved shootings and deaths of unarmed black men in the United States. This has been publicized a lot recently, however, these events have been occurring for years. (See fig 2.)

Fig 2. Preitauer, Chris. Rodney King police acquittal. Black History Collection.2014. https://blackhistorycollection.org/category/of-interest/

Saddik goes into detail about how NWA created their song as a way for listeners to visualize young black men giving their testimony in court about their unwarranted encounters with police. “The narrative of ‘F*** tha Police,’ is based on a ‘real’ experience of oppression…ruptures the boundaries between representation and the real. This song is even broken up into ‘scenes’ that dramatize how young black men experience the police. The ‘testimonies’ in the song give voice to these victims so that their stories may be heard (Saddik 7).”  Performance of the song created a space where NWA could speak on behalf of the oppression of their people.

The song “F*** tha Police,” was produced so that the story they were trying to convey could be heard by the masses. Rappers create a way for different viewpoints and visualizations of the black experience to be broadcasted in a public way. Rap artists were basically forced to make music about what they were experiencing because of the way the media covered instances of police brutality. In the article “Political Rap: The Music of Oppositional Resistance,” Beighey and Unnithan write about how the media uses negative images of rap music and artists to manipulate the way consumers view them. “Mass media reports were part of a network that ‘framed’ poor African Americans by depicting lawlessness, amorality…a alternative to negative characterizations to mass media reports was a common theme in political rap (Beighey and Unnithan 136).”  

The media coverage was usually inaccurate or focused on the more “negative” character traits of the victim. The same way that the media depicted police brutality, they depicted rap music and rap artists. In response to media misrepresentations, other artists used their music to put out other, more positive visualizations of the black community. They created music about family and relationships, building community, and how black people can come together to support one another. “The media seldom mentioned positive aspects of the music- personal empowerment, anti-drug rhetoric, and a celebration of Black community building, a major theme identified in this study (Beighey and Unnithan 141).” This shows how rap music has been marketed as negative and negatively associated with the black community. However, there are many principles and themes used in rap music to show ways Black people can uplift themselves. 

The major issue that NWA wanted to convey with their song was the impact the criminal justice system had on their everyday lives and the lives of black men like them in their neighborhood. The song set the stage for interpreting instances of police brutality from the beginning of the person’s encounter with the police until the individual was locked up and charged for something that they did not do or that could be debated. The most important part was that a lot of times the way they were stopped or arrested was not lawful to begin with. In his article “Thug Life: Hip Hop’s Curious Relationship with Criminal Justice,” Cummings discusses the inequalities faced by African American men when they enter the criminal justice system. He discusses inequalities in sentencing, representation, as well as accurate depictions in the media of the so called “criminal.” “…a United States criminal justice system that was inequitable and unfair, a system that targets and profiles African-Americans and inner-city youth, and the descriptions by those artists became, in Chuck D's words, ‘the Black CNN’ (Cummings 531).” This quote shows how the performance of rap music creates a “show” like a television show where the topics are true to the real experiences of African Americans and the criminal justice system.

Cummings also addresses how specific laws affect the African American population adversely compared to how they affect other populations of people. One example of this are laws involving possession of crack versus cocaine. African Americans were convicted with much longer sentences for possession of crack (which was more prevalent in the black community) when compared to convictions of whites and other groups for possession of cocaine (Cummings 533). Many people viewed the differences in sentencing as unfair due to the crack and cocaine being fundamentally the same drug. During the 1980s when these laws were being enforced many rap artists were also putting out music in response to what they saw as injustice. “Hip-hop points out the incoherence of the law's construct of crime, and it attacks the legitimacy of the system (Cummings 533).”

In conclusion, the cultural product that NWA created through the production of the song “F*** tha Police,” represented many different issues faced by black men in American society. The interaction of black male identity, rap music in the media, and the criminal justice system, set the stage for this cultural product to be created and received the way it was during the 1980s.