Social Identity vs Personal Identity
In this paper I will discuss the differences and similarities between the two using three texts from June Jordan, Tim Wise, and Avery Gordon as well as give you my personal opinion about the topic. Social identity, in my opinion, is a bad thing as a whole because it doesn't take into account the experiences that any one person has, it just lumps them together. There are many factors that one needs to take into account when discussing these topics and I will try to explain them as best as I can. Social and personal Identity in today’s society is very much blurred, the individual person has his or her own identity that she relates to but when viewed as a whole in today's society people get lumped together with all the same “people” whether that be race, class, gender or status. The first article I will talk about is Tim Wise’s "Preface" and "Born to Belonging” in this article Wise talk about being born to belonging and what he means by this is that white people that are born into white homes don’t usually have to work that hard to get far in life such stated in this quote “We, are unlike people of color, born to belonging, and have rarely had to prove ourselves deserving of our presence here” (Wise 3). What this quote talks about is that the white race is generally seen as the better race, and because of this white people won’t have to work as hard to get good jobs and have a good income. This is a social identity that he presents here and this is one of the examples that I think make social identity a bad thing. It classifies certain people and either being good or bad. Wise also talks in his article about African Americans and how they have constantly been held back in society “by 1860, three years after the supreme court, in its Dread Scott decision announced that blacks could never be citizens, even if free, and ‘had no rights which the white man was bound to respect’” (Wise 8). Social identity in my opinion started back then and has been reinforced
Bibliography: Gordon, Avery “Theory and Justice” Keeping good Time pg.99-105 Jordan, June, “report from the Bahamas” Some of us did not die pg. 211-222 Wise, Tim, “ Preface and Born to belonging” White men like me preface to the new edition pg.vii-16