The Development of Social and Sexual identity - Essay Example

of the of the Concerned 8 July Identity Even a cursory perusal of the history of the last few decades testifies to the fact that the people around the world have done much to inculcate equality and justice in varied realms of human existence that are social mores, law, economy, science, etc that one collectively refers to as the society. In the context of the developed world it will be true to say that more or less, people today are free to think and speak whatever they want to. Yet, the truth that has indeed failed to escape the human attention is the fact that irrespective of the much hue and cry being made about the contemporary ‘melting pot’ global phenomena one could distinctly notice that this world comprises of varied cultures, races, ethnicities and nationalities. In this variegated world the human beings simply could not avoid the unavoidable and intimate process of socialization that gives way to what is called the individual and collective identity. Thereby, the individual identity is not merely the product of one’s specific self concept, but is rather a concept that is shaped and formed by an array of forces that tend to be economic, legal, social and many a times historical in their ramifications, which scratch and etch the human consciousness and continue to shape, control and define the entity that is called identity. Identity is a notion that happens to be multi-faceted, open and perpetually evolving in its content and scope. As far as I could peek into my childhood days, I could distinctly notice the fact that during the nascent stages of the human life, the development of the individual identity is governed a lot by what an individual thinks about oneself. When I was an infant, my parents where the only outside force that to a large extent shaped my identity (Gielen & Roopnarine 213). The very helplessness and dependence of my child hood state saved me from an early exposure to the multifarious social forces that I had to deal with at a more mature stage. My home and family was the cocoon that not only allowed me to shape my identity in a relatively benign and loving environment, but also protected me from more potent and political outside influences. I was totally oblivious of the fact that in the times to come, forces like ethnicity and color will pervade my inner world and shape my identity in varied ways and forms. Hence, the only god that governed the shaping of my identity was I and my parents. Thereby, I am happy to say that I had quite a happy childhood and this allowed me to develop a positive self concept of myself that shaped an identity that was open, gregarious, happy and confident. The positive reinforcements from my family further ossified this sense of invulnerability and mirth. However, this identity related complacence was not to last forever. As I grew up and my sense of self evolved, I realized that my parents and my family were not only a source love and affection, but also happened to be social individuals who belonged to a specific class, race, ethnicity and culture. It is not that my parents predominantly tried to introduce me to these sometimes hard to acknowledge, but valid facts, but I gradually picked up these facts about my family and hence about myself through eavesdropping into their unsuspecting daily interactions. These socio-economic attributes assigned to my family gradually began to become a part of my identity. Hence, I got a very basic idea of the society and my place in it through this primary socialization with my family (Gielen & Roopnarine 63). Thereby, I could certainly say that my family circumstances largely selected my mother tongue, religion, social class and nationality. It will be true to say that I had a very basic idea about my identity as I entered the mature world. Yet, I was curious to not only test the validity of these identity attributes I inherited, but to practically see as to where I stood in the outside world. In that context I could distinctly identify my young adulthood period as a significant phase in the development of my social and sexual identity. Thereby, the secondary socialization I engaged in with the outside world not only reinforced some of my inherited identity concepts, but also extended or sometimes tried to extend many unwanted identity attributes to me, which I accepted or discarded on the basis of my mental resilience (Gielen & Roopnarine 324). Thus, as I entered the adult stage of my life I had a truck load of multiple identity attributes those I l either liked or resented. In that context I really identify with the identity development process narrated by Zora Neale Hurston in the reading How it Feels to be Colored Me. She vividly narrates as to how she evolved from merely being “the Zora of Orange County (Hurston 217)”, to being a “little colored girl (Hurston 217)”. In this reading Hurston vividly explains as to how her identity evolved from being a color neutral person living in the benign environment of her all black neighborhood to being a colored person as she entered the outside world. However, as I further matured, while being engaged in sporadic and intense regular catechism about my identity, it dawned on me that my identity was not or should not merely be the outcome of what society heaped on me, but as an adult person I had the innate vision and multiple strengths I inherited from my community that could help me contrive a vision regarding what I ought to be. Therein entered the concept of self determination in my identity makeup and I realized that I could chose to disregard the unwanted social contributions contributed to my identity and could be the person I want to be. To this day I believe that an individual always has a choice in the matters of identity makeup. The socio-economic and political imperatives may be strong and demanding, but when it comes to the contriving of an identity, an individual always has the option of making a choice to be a good person, besides or irrespective of one’s color, race, class or ethnicity. One could always dream and could make the dreams come true as Martin Luther King says “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character (King 202).” Works Cited Gielen, Uwe P & Roopnarine, Jaipaul. Childhood and Adolescence. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008. Print. Hurston, Zora Neale. How it feels to be colored me. Martin Luther King Jr. I Have a Dream. Print Read More