Every individual has a distinctive perspective which determines their actions, and growth, it is the sole entity with enough power to either make or break a being. We all have the freedom and absolute control of our mentality. Simply because you grew up in a racist environment does not take away your free will to be and think what you wish. In addition, discovering ourselves is a lifelong task, we are constantly evolving and changing. Who we once were is not, and does not have to be, who we are for the rest of our lives. Your decisions will define you, but who you are right now, not who you will forever be or have always been. Traumatic experiences and crisis can have an impact on an individual's life, many factors are in place, and it can
Nations may pay for the war, but soldiers pay the ultimate price, their lives. A soldier has to be willing to lose everything to gain freedom for others. Therefore a war is not fought by two nations, but rather than the millions of soldiers. With this comes great sacrifice and selflessness. In the book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien three soldiers that stand to lose the most are Kiowa, Norman Bowker, and Jimmy Cross.
Striving for success in an environment where a person is a minority and surrounded by their oppressors can have a large and negative impact on one’s identity and and sense of self. The journey to become successful is not only filled with achievements and attaining goals, but also a pressure and stress to remain great and to continue carrying a certain image of accomplishment. When race, class, and gender are added to the process of becoming successful, a unique type of pressure and stress is added, as well as a specific form of privilege. This specific type of stress, privilege, and pressure often leads to identity issues because of the burden of not wanting to fall into a stereotype or becoming a “statistic.”
As a child, I feared the world. I concentrated on the inequitable and inhumane treatment of our minorities rather than assisting and solving the problem. From this, I too felt
Regardless of how a child acts towards their parents, all that matters in the end is their unconditional love for them. However, the time it takes for them to express their gratitude will depend on each child. In the novel The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri demonstrates this, describing the life of a young boy named Gogol and his continually progressing relationship with his mother. It demonstrates that a child is unable to view his or her parents as a human being until the parent figure experiences a traumatic event that allows the child to empathize with their parents.
My parents’ cognitive distortion that Caucasians (law enforcement and neighbors) were construed as threats to our family solidarity. This was due in part by my family’s complex historical and social dynamics. I learned my cultural diversity still affects me and how I interact with society. Because reality therapy is adaptable and it can be applied to negate several aspects of my life. Particularly, how I perceive my work and relationship with others. Due to my multiple generational ideologies within a family unit my sisters lived through era’s following World War II i.e. inner city race riots, and civil rights movement, Martin Luther King assassination, Black Power, etcetera. This intense period of our history had a major impact on my siblings and contributed to my family ideology growing up. Reality therapy offers a platform to acknowledge the environmental constraints of the
The Things They Carried represents a compound documentary novel written by a Vietnam veteran, Tim O'Brien, in whose accounts on the Vietnam war one encounters graphical depictions of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Thus, the stories "Speaking of Courage," "The Man I Killed," "How to Tell a True War Story," "Enemies" and "Friends," "Stockings," and "The Sweetheart of The Song Tra Bong "all encompass various examples of PTSD.
There are many experiences throughout one's life that can have great influence on their development as a person. In my own life I have had experiences that have influenced and molded me into the person who I am today. The experience that has influenced my development was deciding to learn about my own history. This experience occurred in the eighth grade when I decided to do my own research on Black history after realizing that throughout elementary and middle school I was only taught very little and schools only focused on Harriet Tubman and Dr. King and excluded everything and everyone else important to Black history. I found this to be very harmful to the students since the majority of children in public schools in my city are of African
Trauma can be defined as something that repeats itself. In The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, trauma recurs in soldiers for different reasons. However, although their reasons for trauma are different, the things they carried can symbolize all the emotions and pasts of these soldiers. One man may suffer trauma from looking through letters and photographs of an old lover, while another man could feel trauma just from memories of the past. The word “carried” is used repeatedly throughout The Things They Carried. Derived from the Latin word “quadrare,” meaning “suitable,” O’Brien uses the word “carried” not to simply state what the men were carrying, but to give us insight into each soldiers’ emotions and character, his past, and his present.
Historically and currently, unwillingness to reflect on personal experiences has created a barrier both towards understanding the issues faced by marginalized communities and the construction of potential solutions. In Writings on the Wall, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar describes the process of self-reflection as “filter[ing] that information through the insights gained from reflecting on personal experiences” (7). Generally, this takes two major forms; out-group and in-group understanding of an issue. If an individual is a member of a group facing systematic discrimination, critically analyzing the ways in which their lives have been impacted by their status can allow for a greater understanding of the discrimination and offer insight into potential improvements. On the other hand, a person who has not experienced the lived reality as a member of the community in question can gain an understanding of the advantages they have experienced and work to improve others’ circumstances.
The environment where one was raised impacts in a variety of ways- some that aren’t thought about much until later in life. I grew up in Spearfish, South Dakota. It’s a stereotypical small town where virtually nothing seems to happen, which is why I’ve always dreamed of leaving this entire state behind someday. Once I graduated high school and left for college in another state, I realized that I didn’t want to leave simply because it was a small town. I wanted to leave because I’ve always had an underlying feeling of being different. Like many other regions in the midwest, my hometown was predominantly caucasian. I was blissfully ignorant at the time, so whenever my friends made a joke at my expense, I didn’t think of it as racist- I was taught that it was supposed to be funny. This derogatory humor aimed at these races were just another form of comedy; they're just words. After attending college in Denver and encountering so many people of different races and cultures, I realized how wrong it all was. Because of this, I became aware of how crucial
We can learn about the Holocaust by examining the day to day experiences of one victim. We can learn many things just by one victims experience, such as how they lived, what they could and couldn’t do, for example, they could not ride automobiles but could ride the ferries, they couldn’t go to the movies, go to school, play any school activities. Anne Frank’s diary entries show us about the way individuals respond in time of chaos or danger, for example when one of then was out buying some things they needed and the Nazi police was doing a rousting and was going to look for any Jews out, they were extremely worried. The reacted fast and hid before Nazis soldiers captured them and took them to concentration camp like most of the Jews were.
What makes us who we are? Do we make this choice ourselves? Many people are shaped and influenced by the society. We tend to consider social norms and consequences of our actions. In the 1940s, black people were considered less superior than white people. Black people felt powerless so they tried to better themselves among their community. In The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, Cholly and Junior’s personalities are influenced by their parents’ treatments and the society which makes them become violent towards women.
Childhood molestation is more common than the average person may think. My cousins and I were molested by my grandfather as children and some, even as teenagers. The trauma of being molested has caused me to be angry for a long time. It effected my childhood and my teenage years. This childhood trauma still continues to effect me in my adult life and my personal relationships. Being molested as a child was the worst thing to ever happen to me.
All I see is my reflection in the water, I’m telling myself should I or should I not jump? Next thing I remember was trying to save myself from drowning, however every time I tried jumping up, the water kept sucking me in further down. All I could see was the bright sun slowly disappearing, I was running out of breath, is this the end of me, I thought? I open my eyes to see a beautiful man looking down at me, I could not tell if I was in heaven or not. He finally told me he was the lifeguard who had recused me from the pool. At the end of the day, I was embarrassed of what I have done, I was only six years old. What six year old, who does not know how to swim, dives into a 15 feet pool. Since that day, I am afraid of anything that has to deal with deep waters. When it comes to going to the beach, I prefer to stay close to shore. I even have nightmares of drowning. This is a painful memory that I have carried throughout my whole life and no matter how much I try, I cannot get rid of this memory that haunts me. In my mind I never thought what I have been going through because of this traumatic event, was actually a disorder, which is called post-traumatic stress disorder. If you do not know what post-traumatic stress disorder is, it is a mental health condition that is triggered by a terrifying event. For Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder, they are a lot of causes, history, symptoms and ways people can get help if they have this disorder.
Before, I had a sense of how I identified in terms of many different factors. With this class, I was able to realize that my racial and overall identity is composed of a mixture of the factors not considering these factors independently from one another. I believe that my strong sense of self has always remained the same, the great difference is that I now know why I think the way I do and I am now also able to see why people think the way they do. My story tells a lot about me; it says that I have always had a strong sense of self and have always tried to live according to that sense of self. It also says that I have not always known how to interpret myself or make sense of why I am the way I am. It has definitely shown that I struggled with understanding other people’s perspectives, especially when they conflicted with mine but I am now working on maintaining an open mind instead of becoming immediately defensive. My story also shows that although I have always been well aware of racism and have always felt against it, I have not done what is necessary of me to stand up against racism. The resources I can rely on within me to fight against racism are the coping skills I have internalized for so long. Some resources I have outside myself include the skills I am learning in my Master’s program at Simmons as well as some local community outreach programs that strive to advocate and end racism and other oppressive