The Construction of My Race (534 words)
My race is constructed by the societal expectations associated with my physical traits and past-experiences. To start, my white skin, fluent English, and positive interactions with public actors are clear notions that I am white. My physical appearance is a clear notion to anyone walking past me that I am white. My fluent English is another notion to how others would perceive me as white as typically it is assumed that all white people in America speak English. Finally my positive experience with public actors is another clear notion to my whiteness. While most of my school officials were ones without any racial prejudice, they still all were very kind to me as I was kind to them. However whenever looking back at my interactions with authority figures, specifically with police officers, it is made clear that I am white.
One of the two times I was detained in my life I was with a group of all white men, and we got called on because gunshots were perceived to be heard when we were just using fireworks where we shouldn’t have been. In a situation where we could’ve all been left with citations and more intense consequences, our group of five’s punishment was a singular citation given to one of us to split the fee of paying it off. After the police left, we brought up the scary truth that things might’ve gone differently if we weren’t white. That experience, along with my white skin, and fluent English are all factors that construct my whiteness whereas my dress, past-experiences, and relationships with peers and family are factors that might go against the scripts written for white people.
I typically dress with clothes that are thrifted, from stores like Target, and from my parent’s closet. Although I’m sure a lot of white kids dress with a similar wardrobe that I listed, I believe that usually when you think of what white people wear you’d think of polo shirts, khaki pants, and clothes that can cost a decent amount of money. And while this is an intersection with socio-economic status as typically white people are viewed to be financially comfortable, I still see how I dress as something that isn’t commonplace amongst white people. I believe that also applies to my relationships with peers and family.
Aside from my family who is majority white, pretty much all the friends and peers I’ve had aren’t majority white. In fact race never really was a factor when making friends throughout my life as I’ve consistently been put in diverse environments since birth. Since birth, I've been raised in both New York City and San Francisco where all of the schools I ever attended were majority PoC. This put me in a position where I was consistently learning and living in diverse environments which I believe isn’t common amongst white people.
Societal expectations make up the construction of my race as they are the reasons why I view my physical appearance, speech, and interactions with public actors to be more in line with my race whereas I see my dress, experiences, and relationships with my peers and family as more flexible and less in line with being white.
I really liked your distinction between your race (through your social interactions) which felt very finlined and how you are perceived by the world (relationships & dress) which you write about being more flexible. Also after reading a few other classmates and now yours I realized that we brought up alot about how people pervise us through our clothes and how we act. I just think it's interesting that its a common experience and it reminded me that no matter how much society tells us we are vastly different, we truly are much more similar than we appear.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting how you questioned how differently the police would've treated you if you were of another race. As a white person myself, I often find myself questioning how different I would be treated by public actors if I wasn't born into the situation that I am in.
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