Introduction:

For my essay my guiding question was In what ways does social media cultivate or challenge media? I tried to incorporate my own experience with black identity and how social media shaped that. The goal I set for myself is to establish the struggles of being a black women and feeling like you're in constant competition with people you should be united with. I tried to make my essay as relatable as possible which I why I chose to use one of my real experiences. I feel like I did a really good job expanding on this topic and really identifying a problem within social media.

Essay:

It was the summer of 2012, on a cool Tuesday morning in the middle of July. I was awakened by the smell of burnt bacon and the almost never ending sound of the smoke alarm. I ran down the stairs to find my brother almost burning down the house. My mom and I rushed to get a towel to calm down the alarm. The piercing sound finally became calm my mom then yelled and me and my brother

“Hurry up and get dress we’re going to be late”

I wasn’t exactly sure where we were going, but I wasn’t passing up any opportunity to leave the house. She made sure to tell us to pack bathing suits; I was hoping we were going to an indoor pool. Oh, how I loved indoor pools. It was never too hot or too cold; always just right. Best thing of all-there wasn’t that burning sun on my back. We drove in the car for almost three hours and to to my dismay, we pulled up to the beach. Don’t get me wrong, the beach was fun; the nice cool breeze in my hair, the clear water, the tangy smell of sea salt in the air, but there was just that one thing: the sun. I hated the sun for one good reason I hated the fact that it made my complexion darker. When my skin was a shade darker, I used to feel as if that changed who I was and how people perceived me. I used to scroll on instagram and see all the memes talking about light skin black girls compared to brown skin or dark skin black girls. On my timeline in particular, light skin girls were always seen as “the prettier girl” so in my eyes I had to be as light as possible. Even in songs you would hear “light skin is the right skin.” For me, I never considered myself light skin until I started using social media and seen the huge debate between the different complexions and even the stereotypes. If I was going to be anything I had to be light skin because according to my instagram feed that was the right skin.

This idea of colorism shaped my identity as a young black women. It put black females against each other as if it was a competition and the people who determined the winners were the black men. They made females compete for their attention by demeaning their complexion and making them feel as if they weren’t the same. Black men controlled the women’s identity and social media controlled theirs. Social media fueled the idea that light skin black women were supposed to look this way and act a certain way and then undermine the black women who weren’t that complexion and try to poison their worth.  A culture that’s supposed to be united was divided. Instead of uplifting all black women as the queens they are the men put them against each other because of these unobtainable ideals of black women cluttered their minds. They gained the satisfaction of seeing them fight for their attention and they fed off of it.

In Colin Daileda’s article Race related conversation remain divided on social media he talks about how many black people talk about or see conversations about race “Around 68 percent of black people who use social media say they see posts about race and relations on their social media feeds, and 28 percent of them say they tweet and post about race as well.” Black people unite on topics like #BlackLivesMatter or #BlackTwitter but never on uplifting our women. Colorism stems all the way back to slavery the only reason light skin black women were seen as “prettier” is because they were closest to white. This idea was instilled in black minds and pushed into social media. The modern way of putting black women down.

Social media has it’s own flaws. It amplifies the wrong things and sometimes the right things. But it has challenged black identity in particular. It gives the men the idea and they push that idea onto black women tarnishing their identity before they even realize what it is. They shape themselves accordingly until they see fit. With no real idea of their true self or actual worth just the perception that social media gives them.

Bibliography:

Introduction-

In my paper my central question was “Is it healthy to have a private self or public self?" One goal for my piece of writing was to just let my readers know that you should just be YOURSELF regardless of what people say about you because everyone gets talked about. Although I don’t think it’s bad to have a private and public self I just believe it shouldn’t matter how you think people view you.

¨”Hi , my name is Fatoumata what's your name ¨?

She glared for a bit and said ¨ Makayla¨

¨ Well nice to meet you Makayla where are you from ?¨

¨ I'm from jersey where all of the nice homes and fancy schools are at. My mom couldn't afford my private school bill if you know what that is ?¨

I stared at her for a while do she think she is better than me because she is white ?

¨ No I don't know what you mean tell me what you mean Makayla.¨

She started to notice that I was getting upset and decided to continued with her story anyway.

¨ I just want to go back I don't belong here at all me or my mom.¨

Was rich people really this selfish , I couldn't believe it.

¨ Are you this selfish Makayla you can't even compare your story to mines its 10x worse¨.

¨ Well of course it's 10x worse you're black it's harder for you¨.

Before I could say a word my teacher came and said ¨ Girls it's time for lunch hurry I need to lock the door¨

I packed up my bags and ran out the classroom so fast. Before I could run down the stairs Makayla stopped me and said ¨ That's not what I meant Fatou¨.

¨ Don't shorten my name rich girl we're not friends and we will never be¨.

¨ Can you just listen to what I have to say please?¨

¨ What do you have to say to say how hard your life is because your mom lost a little bit of money. You have people who don't have any money and you complained about how life is so hard. You haven't seen anything yet.

I thought about what Makayla said. Black people are always categorized as the poor people. Anybody can be poor it does not depend on skin color at all. I had to tell my friends about what Makayla had said because it's been on my mind all day. After weeks went by Makayla still couldn't fit in a ¨dirty school¨ that's what she called it so I helped her fit in into her new school. I taught her that not everything is handed and it's was hard for her to adjust to her new life but she got the hang of it. She always said she wanted success one of her favorite quotes that she always said was  ¨ When I taste success that's when i'll be happy¨. She did taste success and she was happy.

What I think it's really interesting is that it kind of show all of the strength to the lower class identity. There are also costs to being lower class. What wealth, education and higher station in life gives you the freedom to focus on yourself. The author in ¨Our Kids¨ elaborates more about how the rich people live with money and how they act and how poor people have high school degree or less. ¨ Rich parents go to college , poor parents have high school degree or less.  We have brilliant black people who has masters degree and still are in school.  You don't have to be rich to attend college just have to have the mindset and potential. College is an big investment but your brain is even more.

Education plays a big role in the division of society  because now in society it all depends  on your social class if your education meets the standard that your class does. I don't see why this is very important because education is education and it should be available to everybody no matter how much you have . Education is a big part of the division because not all people are educated as much other people are.. Some schools might be dirty because they don't have a lot of resources that they can pay. In rich schools they better have resources that make the school cleaner or have better resources. People who are upper class individual are likely to attend school of higher quantity because of the money that they have. The lower class attend to schools that are not very rich. College is a choice it's not mandatory for you to go. It's hard to have success because it always depends on your culture, money,social etc.

America will always be divided because of cultural background. America always depends on the culture but with the division it's causing people to be separated.Many people heritage affects their opportunities in so many ways because the way america is setup. People are divided because they don't feel welcomed , or they just don't want to be apart of this racist divided world were in. Racism is still a problem that still goes on but we have to live with it because everyone has their own opinion. Cultural background describes the beliefs , background of the individual because it identifies a person background.  

People who grow up in lower class neighborhoods as I did will say ¨There's always someone there who will take you somewhere or watch your kid. You just always have to lean to people. Wealthier people don't have to rely on each other as much. People from lower class background are better at reading other people's emotions . They give more and help more and if someone is in need they will always be there.

Citations-

"Fairfield College Preparatory School." Fairfield College Preparatory School. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.

“You gotta remember who and whose you are,” my mother told me one fine spring morning. I was eleven and  in the sixth grade. It was the day that I had to present my English paper in front of the class. Boy, was I nervous. There was not a trace of confidence in my body. I had expressed this to my mom, and she immediately gave me a hug and told me that it would be alright, and that in order to first have confidence you must first have to think highly about yourself and even remember how highly God thinks of you. Little did I know how much that one little saying - that one piece of motherly advice, and with a little help of prayer and an extra boost of self-esteem, my life would be changed forever.

Ever since that moment  I never went back. I became confident, spunky, and outgoing. I had established the definition of my identity, and it stuck with me wherever I went.  Through that phrase, and through my own belief that I was God’s child, royalty and that I was Kimberly Danielle Barnes. Although this was the main place in which my defining of my identity was established ,there were other things over the years that I learned defined my identity.  The comfortability and happiness that I would later  get from friends and certain  people around me, my hobbies and other things I enjoyed, and things I participated in, would all help to not only define but to find myself.

The way by which we define ourselves, are often times not our own. The definition of identity, is often times influenced by how others around us feel  and the power by which we allow them to have. It may come from the what and desire from someone else, or what we visualize ourselves being. Our first thoughts of ourselves, however is the first establishment of it. After first defining ourselves, we then allow for it to be adjusted and refined based on what we surround ourselves with. Although the definition by which I defined my  identity was found at the time at age eleven, there were still many things, I later encountered that I allowed to have a larger impact on my overall definition. This is why identity is as fragile package, one thought, view, or opinion can either make it or break it. It is constantly changing, and sensitive to change. This is why there are so many identity adjustments we encounter. Our definitions are not constant.

In Flowers for Algernon, a man defines his identity through his ability to obtain intelligent, The smarter he becomes, the more confidence he finds within himself. However, his definition of his identity came more from based off of what others felt about and towards him. He found his intelligence and was able to determine it through the many tests he took, that would allow for him to see how smart he was. His results were given back to him, by the people who were working with him to make him smart. He could not properly spell his words, making him impaired and because of the knowledge he saw easily grasped by others around him he desired to be smart as they were. He emphasizes his desire for intelligence so that he will fit more in touch with his identity. “Miss Kinnian says  maybe they can make me smart. I want to be smart.” Charlie’s definition of his identity was not complete, because of the lack of knowledge he realized he lacked. His want to be smart, would help him to complete that. His trust in Ms. Kinnian “making him smart” came from the understanding that she herself was on the level of intelligence that he wanted for himself. After months of testing and observations, he at one point reached the level of intelligence he wanted. He illustrates the change he felt not only internally but externally. “I'd hidden the picture of the old Charlie Gordon from myself because now that I was intelligent it was something that had to be pushed out of my  mind. But today in looking at that boy, for the first time I saw what I had been. “ The transition from “mentally impaired” to intelligent changed Charlie in ways he had never imagined. He finally felt confident in himself and the way he viewed himself, because of this. He now saw a man confident enough to be seen by others and now felt renewed a change in his identity. The “old Charlie Gordon” was the man he hid away, not confident and comfortable enough to show. This in turn made him uncomfortable in the definition of himself, and he quickly forgot who he used to be with the new man he had become. This is often what happens, when the definition of ourselves, stems from negativity and not things by which we find happiness and are comfortable in. However, when the way by which we define our identity stems from things that make us feel good, positive things they are easier to remember. This is why we need be careful, the things by which we let influence us and define us.

In What it Means to be a Women in Society, a woman's definition of identity came from the outside sources from around her. The beliefs that society had about women and what it meant to be one. So much so, that she herself could not really determine what it meant to be a women, without it being the actual definition of a women, influenced and established by society. She states the feelings she had upon coming to terms with herself and what it meant to be a women. “Nothing came out. How could I articulate what made me a woman without making it sound like my definition was THE definition of woman?” The author, was so used to this definition that she at first didn’t even know how to define what made a woman a woman. This happens so often, where we are so trained to think about what society has to say or societal views, that we don’t allow our own selves to do the thinking. We feed off of societal definitions, therefore not having an idea of what certain things mean ourselves. She allowed for her definition of identity to be defined by society’s overall definition. If i was defining what it meant to be a GIRL or what a GIRL was I would say myself, being me. Then I would go into my own opinions, based off of myself and how I feel. I would say a feminine female, but that is just my definition, some girls are tom-boyish or prefer sports over shopping. So, I believe that allowing our own definition of what it means to be something or a certain someone should come straight from both our opinions and also our experience and even our own lifestyles. Her definition was fully reliant on society’s opinion, this is why she had no other official definition of her own self.

We must be careful the ways in which we allow things to define us. Each one having its own impact, either positive or negative on our lives. The more positive the better, and stronger our identities become, the more negative the more unstable and fragile we allow for the impact to have on ourselves.

Introduction

Going into this essay I wanted to get across one point and that point was we as people do not have to live according to other people's standards and that there is always a way to make a new lane. I think I was able to get that point across along with other points which exposed identity and more. I think I did a good job brainstorming this idea and creating my larger idea and also finding examples to further express and prove my point.

Essay

“It’s brought.” she stated. I was mid sentence when my grandmother corrected my speech. Confused and a little annoyed, I faced her and asked her “Why is it so important that I say that if I’m having an informal conversation?” I mean, I understood she was a former English teacher but everyone has a different type of speech when they’re around different people. “It’s just proper English.” Proper English? What exactly does this mean? I started to wonder if proper English was a standard that everyone she encountered had to meet. I’m sure my assumption as to what proper English is may be differ from what proper English may be to her. Although I challenged her thoughts, I followed suit. But why?

Society is an aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community and the status quo is often influenced by societal norms and standards. But, who sets social standard and what is considered a social standard? Standards are often set by the mindsets of those who are dominate and have the ability to convince people to follow this one path in life. This path not only marginalizes people but it narrows the ability for people to act or portray themselves a certain way. But on the other hand, we have this thing called free will and self identity and this gives us the power to do what we want and be who we want to be. We are all unique for certain reasons, whether it’s our race/ethnicity, religion, sexuality, physical appearance or our personalities. Unfortunately, self identity will always be challenged and picked on by this bully portrayed as society.

Depending on what role you play within the public, your identity has to match it. A good example of this would be President Obama. As a prior president and leader to our nation he has had  to carry himself in a very prestigious, sophisticated manner but according to others, very assertive and “angry” as well. Keli Goff , an American journalist known for being a political commentator during the 2008 election expresses her feelings on Obama’s lack of an angry appearance. “President Obama received so much criticism for failing to appear angry enough about the Gulf spill. Well when you’re a president it’s often a case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t. “ she then went on to talk about the many angry black male stereotypes that could follow suit. This is a perfect example of how a set identity in society clashes with personal self identity.

LGBTQ community members face this bully like society every single day. An article published by The Atlantic reviews transgenders facing a crisis with using public restrooms and quoting the author Emma Green, “They’re objections to what people are, which isn’t tied to any particular act.” Transgender people experience enough identity clashes throughout their time of life. From the moment they realize they aren’t fit for the gender they were given at birth and up to the actual change. When approached with situations like this, situations where society feels as if you are still associated with the gender you were given at birth , you start to no longer feel accepted into what you thought you’ve finally became a part of. And it’s not because of who you are, it’s because of what society is and how society wants you to be.

The fortunate part about this is that you can pioneer a new train of thought. Not everyone has to be subjected to living in the margins of others social standards. There are people who completely dismiss the set lane and make their own. For example, Lady Gaga, Madonna and Stevie Nicks all created their own style. Lady Gaga’s 2010 MTV ceremony Meat Dress is still one of the most famous, out of the box looks down by any celebrity who walked the red carpet. Her dress was so remarkable that it was taken and preserved in the “Women Who Rock” exhibition in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  

Now, we can’t all be Lady Gaga or Madonna or Stevie Nicks but we can be ourselves. After that car ride with my grandma I realized we were put here to challenge social norms and to set higher standards. Brought may be proper English, but in my community so is the word “jawn”. To some people, transgenders surely should go to the bathroom that was designated for their birth gender but in their community a bathroom is just a bathroom and maybe Obama isn’t to angry for your liking  but he says “Change requires more than righteous anger.” Social barriers were meant to be broken, let’s be the ones to tear them down.

Bibliography

Politi, Daniel. "Obama To Howard Graduates: “Change Requires More Than Righteous Anger”." Slate Magazine. N.p., 07 May 2016. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.

"Obama – Not Angry Enough?" NBCNews.com. NBCUniversal News Group, n.d. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.

Green, Emma. "America's Profound Gender Anxiety." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 31 May 2016. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.

Precursor/Introduction

Over this last quarter, my writing process has improved significantly. I do think, though, that the main field in which it has improved is the way I phrase the ideas. For example, I have had problems with repetition, but those have significantly lessened. I think this is certainly a sign of growth in my writing - and although it is one that I have always been doing - I have happened to notice it during this quarter.

Assimilation is not Colonialist

Over the past few decades there has developed an emphasis, primarily on the part of left-leaning thinkers, on “setting the dominant culture back” for those who immigrate to a new country. While we should not force immigrants and their children in our schools to give up their culture entirely (which was once done with Native American children in U.S. government-run boarding schools), no host country should suppress its own culture either. Proponents of this left-leaning thinking seem to want to discourage immigrants from learning, engaging with, and practicing the language and culture of the host country as a gesture of respect for and sensitivity to their origins.

Personally, I believe this view is incredibly weak, and when I say weak, I mean a source of weakness for the host nation--and for the immigrant, too. As far as the immigrant is concerned, non-assimilation could lead to isolation and even poverty. Even if the immigrant has a community of other immigrants to help him or her, non-engagement with the larger surrounding culture shuts down opportunities for work, education, and travel. I do want to make it clear that assimilation to the larger culture does not have to mean the immigrant groups totally give up their original culture. It simply means they are fluent in both--and it means the dominant culture of the new country continues to thrive. It is not turned into something else.

This is what happens when too many immigrants go too far to retain the traditions of their culture of origin. The dominant culture in their new country is profoundly affected and ultimately may not survive in its own homeland. An example of this is what is happening now in Germany. There, women generally don’t cover up when running simple errands like, say, going to the market. For some male immigrants from some Islamic countries, this is a problem. Based on the customs of their countries of origin, they see these uncovered women as sex workers, and they make unwanted sexual advances. This creates a climate of fear and discomfort where there had been none. Also in question is the German tradition of Oktoberfest, where people drink beer in outdoor settings. For some immigrants, drinking alcohol is considered haram (unlawful), and some judge the beer drinkers as bad people. If too many people with these views move into Germany without respect for its culture and without a willingness to assimilate somewhat, the traditions of German culture may be lost and the people who practice them threatened.  

Why would we want to lose a single rich national culture? In everybody’s native homeland, a culture is just going to be dominant--that is an unavoidable fact. In Somalia, Somali culture is going to be dominant. In Germany, German culture is going to be dominant. This is simply and powerfully the way it is, not an expression of any sort of “bigotry,” and traditionally many immigrants have understood this. No, I would argue that “setting back our cultures” is cultural suicide, and that is not the same as showing tolerance for immigrants. The latter does not require the former.

    Some people argue that former colonists have an obligation to host immigrants from former colonial holdings. Because colonial nations controlled and oppressed the native cultures of their colonized peoples, these nations must make amends by offering immigrants the chance to live and express their cultures within the comfort and stability of the former colonists’ borders. For example, they feel strongly that Great Britain should take in migrants from former empire countries because they owe them that.

This does not make sense, though. Does it really help former colonists to stand on their own two feet if they are welcomed into the colonizers’ homelands to live however they want? Britain was wrong to harm the culture of Pakistan, for example, but is rejecting British culture while living in Britain really helpful to former colonists such as those from Pakistan? If the Spaniards and the Portuguese built themselves up after Moorish colonialism, shouldn’t we encourage former colonists in Africa, for example, do the same? Also, this question of owing former colonists the right to enter a colonizer’s country is not consistently applied. Only Europeans and some other Western countries seem to have this asked of them. For example, why isn’t Turkey flooding itself with Southern Slavs, Romanians, Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians, and Arabs--all formerly colonized by the Ottoman Empire? Unfortunately, colonial guilt has been pushed too strongly in the West, to the detriment of Western cultures and immigrant alike.

Some final thoughts: in one of the sources that I read, it says that “Assimilation efforts have changed over the years, yet they remain colonial, oppressive, and in 2015 these ideas go against the freedoms that are supposed to be at the core of what it means to be ‘American’.” While you can certainly make that argument about America and, say, Canada or Australia, which are countries of immigrants that have been home to people from almost every nation on Earth, you cannot do that with, say, Europe. Europe has no obligation to adjust its cultures to immigrant populations. This is because Europe is and has been indigenously European forever, belonging to the Proto-Indo European people.

    I also want to mention the other quote above: “In the United States, approaches to integrating immigrant and refugee children in the educational system focus on getting the children proficient in English as quickly as possible, often at the expense of their native language, which can result in interrupted intellectual development and a break in valuable links to family and community.” This does not ring true. Frequently children of immigrants are bilingual or multilingual  and remain so throughout their lives. I believe they would experience greater trouble with intellectual development if they could not access the language or educational system of the dominant culture.

In short, I would argue that immigrants can still practice their native cultures in many settings in their communities, and they should. They don’t need to force themselves to stop speaking their languages or stop being who they are. What they cannot do is ask the larger culture of their adopted country to change its ways to allow them to remain who they were. It is not “colonialist” to protect the culture of an immigrant’s new home; rather it is very much in opposition to that. What we want to avoid is the destruction of the cultures in the host nations--and the actual creation of colonies of ethnic groups in those countries. Think about it: when the Pilgrims came to “The New World,” they were originally settlers. Later, they formed colonies. Those colonies harmed and even destroyed the cultures of the Native peoples. My plea is for respect for the dominant cultures of host nations and a willingness on the part of immigrants to engage with those cultures and to some extent to identify with them.

Sources:

“Losing Identity During the Refugee Crisis” by Tracy Brown Hamilton, Тhe Atlantic, 2016

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/05/balancing-integration-and-assimilation-during-the-refugee-crisis/482757/

“Will Immigrants Today Assimilate Like Those of 100 Years Ago?” by Alexia Fernández Campbell, The Atlantic, 2016

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/will-immigrants-today-assimilate-like-those-of-100-years-ago/495746/

“Germany’s Migrant Rape Crisis Spirals Out of Control” by Soeren Kern,  Gatestone Institute, 2016

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8663/germany-migrants-rape