This question troubles many of us because it is very hard to answer. Some believe that you are born with it. Others think that your identity is shaped by culture , & then many believe its shaped by personal choices. I think they all contribute in their own way.
The way i see it, you are born a specific gender so that itself is a factor in your identity. I am a male so it is expected for me to be strong, have courage, and treat women with respect. There arent many other factors that you are born with which make up your identity.My culture has a bigger impact on identity than my birth. You are around culture so much that you grow accostumed to it and make it a part of who you are. I was raised in a culture were a man must always show respect to women no matter what happens. This shaped me up to become a gentlemen and the man i am today.
For me, personal choices contribute the most to my identity. The reason being that I always CHOOSE to do something. I choose to follow my culture, I choose who I want to be around and I also choose what I pay attention to. Everything we do we chose to do it consequently adding to who you are as a person or who you become in the future.
i understand everything you are saying but i think that your identity is a mixture of culture,race, and how you see your self because i have friends that they were adopted and they know there original race but they identify there self whit the race they grow up with because for them that is there family they show them there culture and they accepted and they love it even though they original race is a completely different one. This is why i think it is a mixture of different thing that make a person be able identify them self.
ReplyDeleteWhat Flerida says makes me think about the way people choose to identify. We have no control over where we are born or over our heritage. But we can select how we identify. I have a friend who is of Thai parentage, but raised by African American parents. She fully identifies as Black. Another friend of mine is of South Asian bloodlines, but she identifies as Black, too. Some of that has to do with politics, but as Flerida suggests, lots of it has to do with their environment, too. As young people, they didn't question their identity, but as they grew older, they chose to keep their identification as "Black".
ReplyDeleteIdentity can be a complicated topic. There are soooo many factors that form a person's identity. The part of your post that really stood out to me was about choice. I agree that our choices help form our identity, but I also believe society has a BIG influence on those choices. Sure, I can choose, but I'm oppressed, questioned, or controlled if society doesn't like it.
ReplyDeleteI see your point. Society does have a very big influence on the choices we make. But we still have that freedom to make those choices. You can always go against what society says, its up to you to choose what route you take.
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