Racial Identity and Racial Identifications - Essay Example

Racial Identity and Racial Identifications There are various human races in the world. More often people tend to identify themselves with a particular race. Some people consider certain races to be superior to others, and this has led to issues of racism all over the globe. People have been discriminated at their workplaces, in schools, hospitals and other social places based on their racial identities. Racial identity can either be determined by external classification or internal classification. External classification identifies a person based on their phenotypic characteristics mainly their skin color while internal classification identifies a person to be of a given race based on their habits, origin and cultures. The two classification methods often cause confusion when it comes to racial identity. Some people may identify themselves with a given race based on its cultures. However, this identification may be very different from the color of their skin. In fact, they may call themselves black but phenotypically they are white in color. Misunderstandings and confusions on whether to identify one’s race using external or internal characteristics has led to the aspect of racial identity being simplified and distorted by some people (Maureen) Simplification in this case is whereby an individual tries to define racial identity based on either external or internal characteristics alone. However, the definition fails to describe racial identity as a complex aspect of human nature may be affected by other factors. Many people would simply define racial identity as to refer to skin color while other would prefer to follow cultures. Others would even be distorted by the racial identity thing. ‘Distorted’ in this case meaning these people are mixed up and misunderstand the racial identity issue. Maureen in her passage “One Drop of Black Blood”, identifies a boy called Sean who at the age of six started insisting that he is biracial and not black. This is shocking to the writer who has been trying to convince the boy of being racially black and ethnically African American (Maureen). Sean goes further and asks her mother why she does not have black children and that he is black and white. This is a small boy who is trying to identify himself with a certain race. The boy is black in color but the fact that he described himself as black and white highlights the fact that the boy uses both internal and external characteristics for his racial identity. According to the author, the boy has both African and Irish roots. The author tries to convince the boy that he is black because of his skin color, but the boy insists that he is black and white. This shows how the writer simplifies the racial identity issue. Distortion comes in from the point of view of two different people that have different ways of defining racial identity. We are therefore, not in a position to decide which of the two methods is best. Senna Describes herself as black in color but with parents from different races. The author writes of having a wasp mother and a black-Mexican father. She also describes herself as a black woman thereby introducing the use of external phenotypic characteristics to describe racial identity. Her parents decided to raise her and her other siblings as black. This was not based on their skin color but their own choice. It was some sought of culture that believed that being black was a privilege and that black was beautiful too (Senna). In this case, there is the use of both external and internal characteristics for racial identity. These parents decide to raise their kids as black is a way of teaching the kids that black can be a culture. Therefore, the kids can racially identify themselves as black not only by the color of their skins, but also by the type of culture they decide to embrace. This can be a simplified way of racial identification. However, it can be very hard to adopt for extremists who use color for racial identification. This is where the mismatch between the use external and internal characteristics for racial identity becomes evident. The effect of the mismatch between the use of external and internal characteristics for racial identity is mainly pronounced in people with parents from different races. The writer Describes herself of having Jewish father and a black mother (Walker). She also refers to herself as a movement child because she is given a lot of freedom by her parents. The writer recalls a day when a drunken Jewish student entered her room in school and asked her whether she was black or Jewish. The writer brings out the fact that a lot of people tend to judge and identify other people based on color. Most people rely on external characteristics for their racial identification. The writer goes ahead and informs us that her mother is black and that she has never visited the writer’s uncle who is Jewish. This is mainly because of her race. The writer further recalls that her uncle has never visited their house either. The main issue separating the writer’s mother and uncle is skin color. The fact that they are from different races brings about the enmity therefore, reinforcing on the fact that people can be segregated based on their racial identity. Racial identity in most cases is identified using external phenotypic characteristics such as color. (Walker) The author tells of how she visited relatives from her mother’s side and that they referred to her as a cracker. This is a term black people use for white people indicating the cruelty and racist culture of white people (Walker). The author’s relatives believed that she possessed certain characteristics of white people. The writer became confused by her own identity. She did not know whether to call herself black or Jew. Externally she was black in color but internally she had the blood from both a black and a Jew parent. She therefore, called herself a movement child. (Walker) The use of internal and external characteristics for racial identity is evident when (Alvarez) describes Mother’s family as white in terms of race, and white also in terms of class. Other than their skin color, her mother’s brothers and uncles went to school abroad and also adopted the behaviors and habits of the whites. Her father’s family on the other hand, lived in the interior, in old fashioned houses, had darker skin and coarse hair as compared to her mother’s family. Even within the writer’s family itself there was some aspects of racial discrimination in whereby the lighter colored siblings were considered better as compared to the darker colored ones (Alvarez) The writer’s mind in terms of racial identity was also influenced by the maids who raised them. Most of these maids were dark skinned therefore, most of the stories they told the kids were related to the histories of black people. This affected the writer’s internal characteristics that related to racial identity since these stories were connected to the writer’s origins (Alvarez). This paper identifies Maureen Reddy as an author who simplifies and is also thoughtful on the description of racial identity. The writer records in her passage that she used to teach a lot of black history and culture to Sean so that the boy could have the pride of being black. The writer simplifies the issue of racial identity as to be dependent on an individual’s color as well culture. By teaching Sean about the Black culture, the writer shows how thoughtful she can be. When a kid has the knowledge about his culture, he will develop pride in his race. This puts the kid in a position to identify himself with that particular race. However, efforts to instill black pride in Sean failed when the boy openly declared that he was black and white and not black as was expected of him. The act by Sean opened the mind of the Author, and she started taking a different perspective on how to handle racial issues (Maureen). The fact that the writer suddenly changes her thoughts on ideas about race shows how thoughtful she is. The conclusion that the writer of “One Drop of Black Blood” brings out in the passage also shows how thoughtful she is. The writer describes race as a social construct. Racial identity should not only be based on external characteristics, but also on the internal characteristics that define the social aspect of the human beings. The world is a mixture of many races. Therefore, there will be exchange of cultures among these races (Maureen) Works cited Alvarez, julia. "A White Woman of Color." Half + Half: Writer on Growing Up Biracial+ Bicultural.E. Claudine Chiawei O'Hearn. NewYork: Pantheon Books, 1998. Maureen, Reddy. "One Drop of Black Blood." Crossing the Color Line: Race, Parenting, and Culture. New Brunswick: Rutgers U.P., 1997. Senna, Danzy. "The Mulatto Millennium." Half and Half: Writers on Growing up Biracial and Bicultural.Ed. Claudine Chiawei O'Hearn. New York: Pantheon Books, 1998. Walker, Rebecca. Black, White, and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self. NewYork: Rverhead Books, 2001. Read More