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Joey Abely
Dr. Drown
ELA-123
January 28, 2019
Who Are We?
Every single person in the world no matter race, skin color, or origin all share something in common; we all have identities. Identities are essential to our salvation as human beings. They separate us from the other 7.5 billion people who inhabit the world with us. Identities make us unique from other people and are used to define who we are and often are given to us based off of observations from other people. Identities can be both good and bad depending on the identity you’re given but are used to separate us from the general population.
Identities differentiate us from the general population in both good ways and in bad ways. An example of a bad way would be the Unabomber. A name created for a criminal who terrorized the United States for decades by sending packages to high authority figures that contained makeshift bombs inside. His real identity Ted Kaczynski. But do people really get to shape their own identities? At first no, your parents name you when you are a child but after that initial first identity given to you by your parents you are given another one to you by the government known as your social security number. While you’re growing up you are given common identities based off your strengths and weaknesses observed by your peers. Some include nerd, geek, genius, freak, jock, and so on. But really you can only shape the way your identities are given to you. Appiah illustrates this by saying, “If you allow your identity to be totally shaped by your opposition to a dominant culture, as many racial groups have done because of the history of racism and xenophobia, you can become locked into that minority status. The first time a group becomes conscious of itself as an important social group, it is because they realize that they’re all being subjected to something. But if you define yourself through the act of opposition, then you’re letting the oppressors set the terms.”. This is essential to forming your identity because only you want to set the terms of how you can be identified. By not giving other people the space to identify you, in turn you are creating your own identify for yourself that other people would know you as. An example of this would include being in school and participating consistently in class, coming prepared every day with the homework due, having all of your needed class materials, and by scoring well on quizzes and tests, you are making it known to other people that you are a smart well rounded student.
Identities help define who we are and make us separate from everyone else and also in some circumstances help us out. They are absolutely necessary for us to get by in our day to day lives. This is displayed most beautifully in an article written by John Gravois called A Toast Story. The article is about a woman named Giulietta Carrelli who has a mental disorder which she overcomes by creating her own identity to be known by. Her disorder is so bad sometimes she forgets where she is and gets lost, “When an episode comes on, she describes the experience as a kind of death: Sometimes she gets stuck hallucinating, hearing voices, unable to move or see clearly; other times she has wandered the city aimlessly. “Sometimes I don’t recognize myself,” she says. “I get so much disorganized brain activity, I would get lost for 12 hours.”. To overcome this horrible disorder she made herself known by wearing unique clothing, “… Carrelli wears a remarkably consistent uniform: a crop top with ripped black jeans and brown leather lace-up boots, with her blond hair wrapped in Jack Sparrowish scarves and headbands. At her waist is a huge silver screaming-eagle belt buckle, and her torso is covered with tattoos of hand tools and designs taken from 18th-century wallpaper patterns”. With this she is now known to almost everybody in the city, she stops and talks to most making herself a known person incase a fit came on and she needed to get back to her shop. That is an extremely perfect example of how someone can shape their own identity as well as use it in their favor. But that draws to a major pivotal point in this matter; Why do identities matter? The answer to that question in my mind is simple. Every human is given the identity of being a person, and every mammal, primate, etc…, are given the identities as animals. Without anything having an identities established what would make us any different from a gorilla or a bear? This is the same with humans, we are all alike, we all breathe air, eat, sleep every night, and almost all have some sort of way of communicating with one another. So if we were all just known as humans and were all given identities how would we be able to distinguish between each other? The answer is we would not be able to. But luckily our brain already does that for us.
Sit back and think about a time you met a completely new person and have had a conversation with them. Whether it was someone you ran into at a coffee shop, or a member of your family you have never been introduced to before. Your brain takes a short amount of time to give them their identity to you. Usually based off how they appear, speak, and interact with you, in just that short amount of time you have already made their identity up in your own head. The same goes with husbands and wives, both either male or female but when you interact with the opposite sex no one can compare to the way they make you feel, therefore given your feelings be so strong for them that you feel compelled to get married making them your husband or wife. Have you figured out your identity or are you letting others do that for you?
Works Cited
Gravois, John. “How Did Toast Become the Latest Artisanal Food Craze?” Pacific Standard, Pacific Standard, 13 Jan. 2014, psmag.com/social-justice/toast-story-latest-artisanal-food-craze-72676.
Illing, Sean. “Why Identity Is a Lie We Can’t Live Without.” Vox.com, Vox Media, 2 Nov. 2018, www.vox.com/identities/2018/11/1/17980384/identity-politics-kwame-anthony-appiah.
