The Individual Experience in a World of Categories
Lakoff and Johnson argue for an embodied mind, saying that our categories are based on how we experience the world through our bodies. According to this theory, as a result of their different anatomies, men and women would experience the world differently and their categories would be inherently different. Also, it would be expected that all women would share the same categories. Our class and our discussions have demonstrated a diversity of opinions and methods of categorization that refute this part of Lakoff and Johnson's argument. I think that Lakoff and Johnson were correct in saying that "the categories we form are part of our experience" (Lakoff and Johnson 19).
However, what they neglected to factor into their analysis of the way human beings categorize is the differences of each individual experience. Categories and their meanings are based on an individual's personal knowledge of the world, and that is why no category means exactly the same thing for more than one individual. I want to examine the categories of race and sexuality in Moraga and Delany to demonstrate the significance of the individual experience and its direct connection to categories. Also, I want to suggest that race as "other" is more problematic than sexuality to one's personal identity.
Delany's "Aversion/Perversion/Diversion" presents us with a series of troubling tales. They all originate within Delany's life, but his reason for choosing these particular tales is "precisely because they are uncharacteristic" (Delany 125). Even within one's own individual experience, there is an uniqueness to events. The category "gay" doesn't mean that the individuals who identify themselves as part of it will share an understanding of all that it has meant for one person to claim this label for himself/herself. Delany acknowledges that the identification with others that categories create is in a way false, "even the similarities are finally, to the extent they are living ones, a play of differences" (Delany 131). He emphasizes that much of the sexual experience remains outside of language. No everything will be shared, not everything can be. An individual's journey to claiming his/her own identity is entrenched in the personal journey, in occurrences both characteristic and uncharacteristic. However, maybe these "uncharacteristic" tales are not as uncharacteristic to his experience as Delany believes. It is fact that they are indeed a part of Delany's experience as a gay man, and he says himself that there is no universal "gay experience.
Like Omi & Winant, Bonilla-Silva think that race is a categorization that assigned by dominant group and the members in the subordinate group act according to the expectation of the dominant group, whether the members aware or not. According to Bonilla-Silva, race acquired a life of their own and do not need human as actor to function. (Bonilla-Silva 1997,p.475) Unlike Omi & Winant, Bonilla-silva explained that race and ethnicity is different in a way that power is removed from ethnicity and have different history. In the other words, ethnicity do not involve power relation, it is more about self-determination. The differences of race and ethnicity, according to Bonilla-silva, are whether it is internal(self-determination) or external(imposed by dominant group) and the degree of power
Knights associated in groups which they called orders. They vowed loyalty to the king they fought under and formed military org...
As Josselson (2012) argues, it is simpler for the people to fix multicultural or multiracial individuals into a single cultural or racial identity, although realistically, most people find it difficult to categorize oneself in a single-margin. This is apparent in the reading White Teeth and Tar Baby, where the character’s identity is influenced by a socially embedded habitus of values, expectations and self-understanding, or lack there-of. In order to understand the challenges of racial and cultural identity in these novels, I will first look at characters Son and Jadine from Tar Baby and Samad and his twin sons, Millat and Magid from White Teeth.
“Sexual identity is dead,” says Derrida; however, according to Hubbard[3] , it is not so much sexual identity that is dea...
Firstly, they used immigration to show the impact it has on race & ethnic identification. The changes in immigration laws have helped to move the demographics of more than one category. The influx of educated immigrants and the skillsets that they bring with them has helped to push the typology of categories for the groups that they belong to, it has also helped to move the relative positon of those groups in the social order. As a shift in the economic and educational achievements of immigrants are pushing the framework of each category, it is leading to an increase in the heterogeneity between and within the racial & ethnic groups. Changes in immigration is also leading to a change in the social relations within and between groups, as it is leading to increased interracial interactions in schools, workplaces and households. This is shifting the boundaries of this category as well. Secondly, the authors use multiracialism or hybridity, which is the ability of individuals to fit into multiple categories. It is seen that over time individuals are identifying themselves with multiple racial & ethnic categories, this is due to increased similarities between shared attributed by different groups. Increased interaction between groups has led to the identification of these similarities, and therefore has not only shifted the typology of categories but also the
Every person has their own identity that forms who they are. Many people think that identity is a form of an ID, but identity is more than a collection of traits, skin or body parts. Identity is always a historical idea, but it is also a pattern for a way of thinking. After reading chapter 5 on “Identities and Perceptions,” I learned that everyone has multiple identities that are transacted through communication, but at the same time it also defines who you are as a person. Chapter 5 also demonstrates perception, which is someone’s perspective or point of view. For example, I describe myself as a “bi-racial young lady”; therefore, my perception is more likely to be influenced by my race or gender.
The Military Orders, including the Templars and Hospitallers, were created to protect pilgrims on the route to Jerusalem, but grew into ranks of professional soldiers with a great presence in the East, answerable to the Papacy. These orders “grew rapidly and acquired castles at strategic points in the kingdom and northern states. […] They were soon established in Europe as well, they became international organizations, virtually independent, sanctioned and constantly supported by the papacy” (Madden). The Pope possessed, for the first time, a dedicated military force in Europe. These two outcomes indicate the growth of the Church’s power as a result of the First Crusade, and support the proposition that the Papacy intended it as a way for advancing its political and economic position.
The focus on ethnic schema is how individuals are collectively protecting and fighting for their interest as a group, which has led to ranking such as minority groups depending on their indomitable strength over others. The new system of ethnic schema promotes ethnic identity that is imperative to ones well- being. However, the shift from race to ethnic group has been implicated with the concern on historical issues. The members of certain groups are not only concerned with their past but also their interaction with members of other ethnic group (Blu, 1979). History has been termed as an important feature that describes an ethnic group based on their shared experiences and traditions and of common heritage. However, in terms of racial classification, history is rendered irrelevant since race is a biological construct. History as asserted by on the African Americans women has been the potent feature that symbolises ethnicity structure among
The first part of the text involves the analysis of race theory. Taylor opens the book by taking time to clarify human forms in such a way that simplifies the too-often rudimentary things which distinguish race from other notions. Taylor makes a point to thoroughly explain how philosophy, concerning race, “involves studying the consequences of race-talk, the practices of racial identification for which race-talk provides the resources” (p. 11). In other words, Taylor takes up the task of evaluating the meaning assigned to physical bodies by people. He does so by first answering the c...
The classification of people based on their personal characteristics is a tool used as a way of categorizing those people into varying groups. However, when these groups are created, it allows for a hierarchical system in which one group seemingly surpasses another. This happens when we use race as a classification system. The manufactured and socially constructed idea of race leads to the inevitable superiority of one race over another. Groupings of race have historically been due to the amount of blood a person has originating from a particular racial group. Exploring the use of blood to catalogue people in a way of racialization lends itself to a deeper look into why this method is used and for whom does it benefit. Through processes of racialization, power is given and taken away based on man-made classifications which can be overturned through the use of one’s own personal identity.
Being able to identify with a certain group has been an issue that individuals hesitate with daily. Am I Black, are you a girl, what religion do you practice? These are all common questions that society has forced individuals to concentrate on. Should an individual have to pick a side or is it relevant to the human race to identify with any group? One may believe not, but for others having and knowing one’s own identity is important, because it is something that they have been developing their entire life. Along with how their identity influenced their life chances and their self-esteem. This can also affect how society interact with whatever identity an individual chooses to live. Which is why it was important to recognize how identifying
I think the questions of identity per se are themselves very complex to begin with, they become all the more complex when one has to relate the questions of sexual identities or preferences with questions of national specificity. This attempt is further complicated when it coincides with the emerging discourses of nationhood and nationality which views nation in a process of making and unmaking and critique the constructed notion of nationhood itself.
Quite interesting, Nussbaum’s opens up the preface with an example of a gay teenager who describes his experiences when “coming out of the closet”. The teenager admits to being horrified and disgustful towards his own emotions that weren’t passing, as they should. Through this example, Nussbaum distinguishes between the two perspectives that are in our society today regarding homosexuals. The contrast lays “between people who can ‘sort of experience’ what a gay teenager feels and people who simply think of those desires, and no doubt, the teenagers themselves, ‘as being disgusting’”(Nussbaum xiii). She even go...
At many points in life one may ask themselves, who am I, how do I see myself versus how do others see me? The question is very complex today as it was in the Old World Diaspora such as in the Indian Ocean, Egypt and Nubia. Identity is a very wide and broad concept influenced and based on seven factors that constantly evolve and change over time. The seven factors are race/ethnicity, gender, religion, socio economic status, sexual orientation, age, and physical/mental ability. Within these seven are gender and sexuality and they are some of the main contributors that forms one’s identity. The formation of identify starts from birth and has influences from the seven factors as well as life experiences. Gender as well as sexuality are sole indicators
In today’s world the vast majority of the population owns a cell phone. Cell phones are a huge part of people’s everyday lives. Since the 1940’s when mobile phones became available for automobiles, phone companies have made huge strides in making mobile phones more efficient, much smaller, and more available for anyone to use. There was a time where only people of wealth had these types of mobile phones. Now people from all social classes own a cell phone. They are extremely convenient and have the ability to do just about anything you can think of. There is an “app” for everything. You can make phone calls, text message, surf the web, pay your bills, read books, catch up on social media, and even listen to you music all from one small handheld device. Cell phones play a huge role in today’s economy. Businesses such as AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint have become huge public corporations with large stakes in the stock market. Between these companies among several other phone companies they have created millions of jobs and opportunities. Cell phone companies have now created what are known as “smart phones”. These phones are typically slim and sleek and have countless versatile abilities. However, cell phones have not always been so “smart” or small for that matter.