The Ideas of Beverly Thompson - Essay Example

The Ideas of Beverly ThompsonThompson raises a question that reflects a common problem among individuals of multi-racial heritage (Thompson 171). Multi-racial stage is an idea that may develop from the nuclear family or be a historical phenomenon that involves sexual relationships and marriages between people of different ethnic identities. A historical multi-racial heritage, however, may provide less conflict at the individual level. This is because a person may attain one’s identity from the dominant ethnic group among the relationships.

On the other hand, an immediate biracial heritage invites a significant conflict within the affected individual as a person does not know which identity to choose. The author seems to applaud the society’s tendency towards classifying people within established clusters. By seeking identity, she endorses the existence of social prescriptions that constrain the individual development. It is arguable that the society quickly places people within distinct categories in order to retain the privileges of the unfairly powerful classes.

Race is a powerful issue in the American system. America has highly been affected by racism, as individuals are placed within ethnic hierarchies. In this order, the whites have enjoyed more privileges than the other racial groups. The race system in the American society has an order of status and power that it follows. This explains why Asians may exist at a lower sociopolitical rank than the whites, but exist at a higher rank than the blacks. In this sense, the society confers particular socioeconomic advantages according to the racial classes.

This means that the conception of identity is a political issue. In turn, in as much as Thompson may deny the existence of an established order of identities, the society will otherwise place her in a given ethnic disposition that makes it easy for her to receive treatment according to her defined identity. In a case of a marriage between a white and an Asian, the American society is highly likely to define Thompson as an Asian. This is because the dominant white culture may be less willing to accept a different identity other than the established one that places them at the highest level.

On the other hand, the Asian community, in spite of mild rejection, may accept her because such an ethnic group has limited power over the aligning of sociopolitical identities. Such an analysis means that the conception and formation of an identity is a complex factor that may supersede the individual because the society sets the same. All the same, the author performs a useful task of self-identity analysis. This issue is illustrated in the memoirs of the US president, Barack Obama, who was born of a biracial heritage.

Self-identity formation is a painstaking and intensely emotional process that involves choosing a single identity from particular options. Thompson declares that she has to live her life as an Asian American because that is the only thing that she truly is. However, such a decision ignores the individual’s limited power at choosing one’s identity. This occurs as the society makes social prescriptions within which individuals are grouped. Works citedThompson, Beverly. “Fence sitters, switch hitters, and bi-bi girls: an exploration of Hapa and bisexual identities.

” Research periodicals 21.1 (2000): 171-179.