Essay 4

Throughout our class we have read many articles about race, covering, and identity. These articles can all tie together to answer the essential question, is race real?

In Yoshino’s article his main focus was covering. he defines covering as hiding your true self from others and instead, portraying a false self. This can pertain to people who identify as LGBT or people who are considered as a minority. Many people of minorities will try to surround themselves with others that are like them, however moving doesn’t solve the fact that they’re a minority and the problem of racism, which is Olsen’s point in his article. We are all surrounded by people who are the majority. This can be dependent on economic status or racial status. We can be doing everything right, but sometimes things are affected based on the fact that someone is a minority.

This idea correlates with Hochschild’s idea of a deep story. A deep story is something that inflicts pain and makes someone feel as if they’re incompetent to do something even when they are performing everything action they need to correctly. If this specific person is being judged on their actions but aren’t succeeding, this can be because racism still exists in the world.

Racism was created for the majority groups to have power over others. Power creates an override with prejudice in this case. This makes us question, is racism a real thing? Some could argue both sides. When someone is treated differently because they are a minority then it depends on the person and what their intentions were.

These articles have helped up answer the important questions about race and what people are doing to stop it. Will we ever be able to end racism is also an important factor in some of these articles because it has become a very important discussion topic in the world, but mainly in the United States right now as we have elections beginning to approach us once again. After we had our first african american president who was in office for two terms, people believed this was a step towards ending racism, however now people believe that by electing Trump we are bringing it all back. But Trump can’t control the actions of others. No one can. The topic of politics and race is written in Hochschild’s article about Trump’s biggest fans.

Perhaps one day we may be able to end racism but I believe it needs to begin with both political groups  joining together to make a difference.