Emily Ramos
12/20/2011
RCI Final
At the beginning of the semester, we were asked to interview ourselves. The interview asked questions about how we view race, culture, gender, sexual orientation, disabilities, and social-economic class. Not taking any classes that talked about these topics before this semester, I was clueless on a lot of things. I lot of the questions in my interview were answered with ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I think’. Something that was obvious in my interview was the I struggled with how I identify myself. “I find myself often caught between considering myself white or Puerto Rican like on standardized test it says check here is you are white non- hispanic and right under it says check here if you are hispanic, non-white. And you have to pick one of the other and there is no other option....There is no mixed option. And I just don’t know what to select because technically I’m categorized as both” (Self Interview, Myself). Because race was never really talked about in my household or in my surrounding, I don’t know what to consider myself. However, after taking this class, I know that to strangers, I am white. Only people who know me personally know that I am half hispanic. This is because of my skin color I identify myself as white.
Because I am white, I am seen as being the dominant however, I am oppressed based on my gender because I am a female. Men are the dominant sex. Because of this, I look up to women who have escaped the bird cage as Marylyn Frye would say. “I want to meet Michele Obama and Hilary Clinton because they are strong powerful woman and I can relate to them” (Self Interview, Myself). I look up to people who have things in common with me and that I strive to be like. These woman aren’t getting held back by their oppressors but better yet, doing the exact opposite.
I also thought that all racial groups were treated the same way before. No matter if you were White, Asian, Hispanic, or Black, you would get the same type of treatment as you would from other people. “I think that different ethnic groups can be treated different ways based on the situation but I also think that sometimes it’s out of their own will. Most of the time, people are all treated equally. Like people say I am this so this is why I’m getting treated this way. And sometimes that is true and other times its not. and I feel like some people over use that expression” (Self Interview, Myself). I often thought this because my dad is Puerto Rican and one of my close friends is African American and I have never witness them being treated any differently than myself. It wasn’t until I heard in class other people experiences with this and we watched the movie True Colors that I realized people are treated differently. Since they, I have noticed people treat my dad differently inside stores. When we went to Olympia a few weeks ago, there was a man who kept watching my dad as he shopped for basketball shoes with my sisters. Of course, people have been treating my dad like this before this instance, but I hadn’t noticed it until then.
Before this class, I didn’t think I had a culture. I am just an American who eats hamburgers and celebrates the 4th of July. “I define myself as American because I don’t do everything Irish people do and I don’t do everything Puerto Ricans do” (Self Interview, Myself). Before this class, I learned in sociology that White people don’t know their culture. I believe this to be true because I honestly hardly ever heard the word culture before getting to college. I learned that I do, indeed have a culture though. Just being Irish and Puerto Rican makes me part of that culture group. Even though I don’t direct relate to the Irish or Puerto Ricans, their historical legacy has had an impact on me and how I live my life right now.
Socialization is “the process by which we all come to believe that there is a ‘right’ way to think, express ourselves, and act- in other words, how we learn around our culture” (Cushner, pg. 15, The Nature of Culture and Culture Learning). Socializing agents are the people who socialize you. My biggest socializing agent that influenced me was my family since they are the people who are around me the most. From my family, I have learned most of my beliefs and values. My family values kindness so one of the beliefs we have is helping out others. I was brought up to always help anyone who is in need; even if it’s just holding a door for someone. Another socializing agent was my school and peers. Through my school and peers, I learned social norms, how to act in certain situations. For example, In my high school, it was a norm to wear designer clothing. The students who didn’t wear designer clothing didn’t fit the social norm. The media was also a socializing agent in my life. Because media is all around us, it is bound to influence your culture somehow. Media mostly showed me different behaviors. The television shows and movies I watched showed me how children and teenagers should act. This influenced what I thought being a teenager would be like and the type of person I strived to become. Symbols are when something can mean two different things depending on the context. Religion affected how I see certain symbols such as the cross to mean most than just a vertical line intersecting with a horizontal line. It is a symbol of my religion and my religion is an important factor in my culture.
When you look at any person, you are able to tell some things about them. This like gender, and race, people can tell about you just at a glance. Other social identities such as religion, language, and sexual orientation you find out about people once you start to communicate with them. All of these social identities have a dominant and a non-dominant group and based on which category you fall into, you will be treated a different way by society. Even though I am mixed-raced, I am considered to be white based on the color of my skin. This is because people who don’t know me judge me as a white female rather than a hispanic female because that is all they see. Being white is significant for me because I’m white, I have white privilege. This is because I am part of the dominant group. Because of the fact I am white I get special privileges like getting welcomed when entering a store when people of color don’t get that treatment.
Another social identity people see right away is that I am a female. Being female is different than being white because it is not in the dominant group. This means that females don’t get any privileges because of their gender. Females are considered to be oppressed. Society views females as not being as good as males. They are not as strong, or smart as males. This influences my identity because I am a female. Seeing and hearing about women are getting mistreated by males, makes me more likely to believe the stereotypes put on by society that males are actually stronger and smarter than females. Because females are the non-dominant group, when we see a strong positive female in society, we often look up to them and idolize them because that is what all women strive to be.
Language is also an important social identity to me. Language isn’t something people notice just by looking at you; they have to talk to you first. The only language that I know is English which makes me part of the dominant group here in the United States. However, if I left the United States, I might not be in the dominant group anymore because depending on the country, the language they speak might be different than English. Because I am part of the dominant group, this definitely has it’s privileges. It’s a lot easier to talk to people when out in public when they speak the same language as you. This is also a positive when applying for jobs. Employers don’t want to hire people who can’t speak to the public because they speak another language, they want english speaking or bi-lingual employees. This is just another example of the privilege you get when you speak English.
One other thing that is important to me is religion. I am Roman Catholic which is considered to be part of the dominant religion in the United States. Because I am part of the dominant group, I never have to worry about explaining religious customs to other people. If I was say Muslim, people wouldn’t understand the way I dressed, the holidays I celebrate, or my religious beliefs. Because I am Roman Catholic, I am privileged.
Being White, my ancestors had an easy time adapting to White American culture because they already looked like everyone else. I am half Irish and according to Aguirre, “Irish Americans are the 3rd largest group and they make up 18% of the population in American (Aguirre, pg. 207, White Ethnic Americans). When the Irish came to America, they were discriminated on based on their religion. By understanding that my ancestors were discriminated against based on their religion, I now have more pride for being Catholic because it’s not just about my religion, it ties into my race and helps to create who I am. When my family came to America, they also changed their last name; which is something Nieto talks about in her article. “Sometimes people change their names, clothing, and languages so that way they can become more American” (Nieto, p.47, A Light In Dark Times). When my family came to America, their last name was O’Haggan. However, in order to fit into White American culture, they dropped to O and just kept their last name as Haggan. This is an example of Americanization. Americanization is defined as “actions designed to create emotional attachments to symbols of the United States government” (Spring, 2010, Deculturalization and the struggle for equality).
Knowing the historical context of all your social identities is important. Being a female, it is important to know about the suffering that went on with women. At one time, women weren’t allowed to work, vote, or do anything. There only purpose was to stay home, cook, clean, and raise a family. I am proud of how far women have come and I don’t take advantage of it. I make sure to vote and to get a job being of everything that had been done to get woman this far.
Nationally in America, White Ethnic Americans are privileged “White ethnics are more likely to be in managerial and professional occupations than African American, Latinos, Native Americans, and, to somewhat varying degrees, Asians” (Aguirre, pg. 203, White Ethnic Americans). This is also true for the political climate we live in. Every president that we have had so far has been male and until 2008, white. In order to be president, you have to be born in the Untied States. This is so that you understand the United States historical background. Without understanding it’s background, you cannot fully appreciate what being an American is.
Beverly Tatum discusses the six stages of Racial Identity Development. These stages are different depending on what race you are apart of. Although I am mixed race, I am going to talk about the stages of whites because that is who I identify myself more with. The stages of racial identity development are contact, disintegration, reintegration, pseudo-independent, immersion/emerson, and autonomy.
The first stage is contact. According to Tatum, in the contact stage, you “pay little attention to racial identity and you perceive yourself to be color blind” (Tatum, pg. 95, Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria). This is the stage I was in when I first entered high school. Before then, there were only 1 or 2 people of color inside my entire school however, when I entered high school, students of color were integrated in through the MECO program (a program that takes students from the inner city and puts them into suburban schools). I didn’t pay much attention to other people or their race. I tried to act like everyone was the same. I tried to act like everyone was white, everyone was capable of the same things and were treated the same way.
The next stage is disintegration. I felt that I was at the end of this stage when I was entering RCI. In the disintegration stage, you “avoid discussion of racism”(Tatum, pg. 98, Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria). I remember last year in my human growth and development class, we talked about racism for only one class. For me, it was a very uncomfortable. I felt as though racism was something that happened more often 30 years ago. Even though I knew racism still happened today, I wasn’t racist so I didn’t feel like I had to talk about it. I didn’t know how to help people of color because I was not the problem, other people were. As we had a discussion about race in class, I started to realized my own racism, even when it only happens in my head and I’m not acting on them.
The third stage is reintegration which I feel I was in the beginning stages of when doing my interview. This is when you acknowledge racism, however, you think that just because you are white, you don’t have any special privileges” (Tatum, pg. 101, Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria). I was beginning to understand that racism exists however I didn’t agree with people when they said things like “this is just happening to me because I am not white.” I understood racism as people directly saying discriminating things to people of color. I didn’t think of racism as “this person didn’t offer me a seat of the bus but they offered the white person.” I didn’t see any advantages of being white. My friends would make comments saying “yeah, that’s just because you are white.” For example, when I ran out of money on my charlie card to take the bus, someone else just tapped me in. My friends claimed that this was because I was white but in my head I was thinking that if they ran out of money for the bus, someone would have tapped them in as well. Inside my interview, I stated that “I think that different ethnic groups can be treated different ways based on the situation but I also think that sometimes it’s out of their own will. Most of the time, people are all treated equally. Like people say I am this so this is why I’m getting treated this way. And sometimes that is true and other times its not. and I feel like some people over use that expression”(Self Interview, Myself). I didn’t think anyone had any special advantages based on their race. People were just making them up as an excuse. I later learned that these people weren’t making it up and in fact people of color were actually being discriminated against.
Throughout this year, I am beginning to understand racism and noticing how just because I am white, I am treated differently. This is part of the pseudo-independence stage. During this stage, you begin to understand how white privilege is perpetuated in society”(Tatum, pg. 106, Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria). This is also the stage where you begin to try to understand your racial and self-identity. At Wheelock, I made friends with more people of color and we would go out to eat together and stuff. I was starting to realize that at restaurants, I would get asked for my order first. Or when we went shopping I was always asked if I needed help with anything and was greeted at the entrance. My friends who were of color did get any of that type of treatment. At first I didn’t notice anything from it but after awhile, the pattern continued to happen. I learned that it wasn’t just one or two instances where I was being treated better than my friends, it was becoming a reoccurring trend. I sometimes feel bad about being white but theres nothing I can do about it, it’s the color of my skin. But I don’t know exactly how to stand up to racism.
When I did my interview, I thought there was only individual racism/ discrimination. I was doing individualistic thinking; “assuming that everything has only to do with individuals and nothing to do with social categories, leaving no room to see, much less consider, the role of privilege” (Johnson, pg. 77, Privilege, Power, and Difference). In my self interview, I also stated that I didn’t think the United States was racist. “I don’t think the US as a whole is racist but I think some people inside the US are racist” (Self-Interview, Myself). Racism was only something individual people could do. After this class however, I learned the real definition of Racism, which is power plus prejudice (class notes). Racism can be done the dominant group as well. I benefit from White Privilege everyday of my life. I don’t have to deal with racism. Inside the mind of Americans, people of color are thought of as doing more wrong than White Ethnic Americans. This is seen when just going shopping. White Ethnic Americans get helped right away where people of color get ignored and then watched as they shop around the store. Most White Americans don’t notice their White Privilege; I sure didn’t before I took this class. But It does exists.
Oppression was also something I didn’t think about until after this class. Of course I knew sexism, classism, and racism existed but my logic was it doesn’t have anything to do with me why worry? My next thought was always, people should just move out of the group that is being oppressed. For example, if you are poor, you should just get a better job to move up to middle class. This was very naive thinking and practically impossible. The thing that helped me to understand this was Marilyn Frye’s article when she relates oppression to the bird cage. When thinking of a birdcage, “if you stare at one wire, you cannot see why a bird couldn’t escape. However, if you look at all the wires, you can see why the bird doesn’t go anywhere” (Frye, pg. 45, Race Class and Gender). This made me realize just how hard it is to break the mold and stop being oppressed. Also, it made me realize that some things can’t change. Just by being female, I have been a victim of sexism. I can’t change myself. I can just try to get other people’s views of females change so females can be less oppressed which in turn will start to eliminate sexism.
One of the reasons it is so difficult to eliminate all the isms is because they are in the bird cage as stated above. Not just one wire needs to be broken, but lots of wires. It takes a group of people in order to stop any of the isms from happening. To stop racism, we need to start by talking to children because they are the next generation. However, “many adults do not know how to respond when children make race-related observations”(Tatum, pg. 36, Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria). Most White Ethnic Americans have trouble even stating their own racist beliefs. “Whites have a superiority complex covered up by denial and are afraid of exposing the deep prejudices most know are wrong”(Rothenberg, pg.155, White Privilege). This makes it very difficult to end racism because Whites don’t feel comfortable talking about it. In order for racism to end, you need all groups to be working together. You can’t end racism without Whites because being White is a race.
Although I have grown throughout this semester, I still have more to learn about my personal understanding of identity, culture, race and oppression. Inside the short “series forward” from the book, See you when you get there, by Gregory Michie, he states that “teaching social justice is teaching of, by and for the people” (Michie, See you when you get there). In order to continue my learning, I need to understand the history of my culture, race, and oppression. I need to continue to learn about what people like me have been through and see the bravery that others have had. I also need to continue learning about self-awareness. Self-awareness is “knowing what we owe one another, what’s fair and now, who we are in the world” (Michie, See you when you get there). It is important to continue to know where you fit into the world in order to understand your identity. Lastly, you need to learn from social literacy. Doing all three of these things will help to make me understand the world better and help to stop racism, sexism, and all the other isms.
Work Cited
Cushner. (2003). Human Diversity in Action- The Nature of Culture and Culture Learning. McGraw Hill.
Tatum, Bevery. (2003). Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria. New York, NY. Basic Books.
Nieto, Sonia (1998). A Light In Dark Times. On Becoming American: An Exploratory Essay. New York: Teachers College Press.
Spring, Joel (2010). Deculturalization and the Struggle for Equality. New York: McGraw Hill.
Turner/Ajurrie. White Ethnic Americans.
Johnson, Allan (2006). Privilege, Power, and Difference. New York: McGraw Hill
Rothenberg, Paula (2012). White Privilege. New York: Worth Publishers.
Frye, Marilyn (2010). Race Class and Gender. Belmont, CA. Cengage Learning.
Ayer/Quinn/Michie “Series Forward” See you when you get there: Teaching for change in Urban Schools.
Artifact 2B
From Google Books:
The great right fielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Roberto Clemente was proud of his family, his native Puerto Rico, and his ability to play baseball. “Baseball fans will welcome this book because of the fast-paced action, but the temper of the man and his concern for human beings will leave a lasting impression on the younger reader.”--The Horn Book
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