Author: jconnerton (Page 2 of 4)

My solution to a lot of my problems is simple, I just need to focus up and get what I need to do done. It is as simple as that. I am not blaming my hard ships and rough start on the fact that these past couple months have been the hardest months of my life. Which may had a chain effect or a trickle down effect on how I act in the classroom or while doing homework. I will not go in to what I have been trying to cope with but its not cool or fun at all.

One thing that really needs to improve is my reading process, first things first, I need to start printing out the damn papers I am assigned to annotate, then I need to read the given set amount of pages and annotate like my teacher asks for. This will also be a huge help when trying to do my writing and also it will help critiquing my own work as long as with others as well.

I already know I have exactly what it takes to ace this course because I did well last semester with the same professor. I just have to get my priorities straight and attack them.

Identity, there are many different kinds of identity, all in which shape each other and mold one another into being different, just shifting the way these identities are. Speaking of identity, you of-course have the kind of identity that is controlled and modified between your ears, this kind of identity is your personal identity. It is the identity that you only see and feel, it is the identity you can either choose to show to the public eye or you can keep all of your personal identity locked up inside. Which is totally up to you though. On the other hand, there is your social identity, the piece of identity that you are observed by, the kind of identity that other people see you as. Therefore, it describes the type of person you are and it is what people will describe you as when asked who you are. All in all, this is the type of identity you need to make sure you pay close attention to because this social identity can alter the way you think about your personal identity as well.

These two types of identities both alter, shift and change the way your mind thinks about yourself or about other people, which in the long run may affect the type of relationships you develop, which can also alter your life and your life goals. You see how this is like a trickle down effect? Reasonably, that is why it is so important to make sure all of your identities are healthy, whether they are just thought or if they are the real you that people see. If I am not mistaken, everyone wants to live the American Dream with the big happy family, steady job with a nice paycheck, nice neighborhood for your kids to build lifelong friendships, and everything is all peaches and cream everyday. Sadly, some kids, some mothers, some fathers and some people just are not able to live those kinds of lives. Whether it is the specific environment they grew up in, the relationships they have with their parents, work, fear/violence, etc. Accepting that reality, these people may not ever become the person they personally want to be, these people may have both of their identities diminished to the point later down the road where they don’t know who they are anymore. 

All of these things that people go through in their lifetime can really alter a person’s life, it can happen fast or it can slowly escalate over time. Consequently, after a while of having to reassure or check your social identity and your personal identity it starts to diminish your mindset and outlook on a lot of things in your life. In response, some people change their physical appearance, some people confuse their true self compared to their false self and they may expose their false self to the public, which is bad for both parties. For instance, Yoshino dealt with a lot of racism and people deteriorating his race and all of that, so Yoshino went to “covering” which is, “To tone down a disfavored identity to fit into the mainstream,” (Yoshino 479). In more broader terms, covering is the act of hiding your true self from the modern day society because you feel as if you will just be bashed for what you believe in or what you look like. This is bad not just because it is unethical as a human to have to hide who you truly are because you are tired of being verbally, physically and mentally assaulted because of your beliefs. But this is a bad thing because after a while of “covering’ you may get your true self and your false self mixed up and you will personally diminish your personal identity along with your social identity.

These kind of people use things like athletics, school, or work. Maybe, even a hobby that someone is truly passionate about. People use these things to crawl their way out of the troubling times they are dealing with, whether its racism, rough neighborhood, or a troubling experience from the past. These people end up having remarkable stories because of the simple fact that the racist people, the people who do bad things, or just the neighborhood they come from gave them a whole lot of motivation to make a move and make their way out of the situation they are in. “Some people who managed to write their way out of the working class describe the classroom as an oasis of possibility. It became their intellectual playground, their competitive arena. Given the richness of my memories of this, its funny how scant my recollections are of school”.

All these different problems that these normal people with different beliefs go through can really psych someone out. Which I think is a huge problem especially in the US, simply because there is so much racial tension no matter where you go, I personally come from a rough place and it completely changes the man I wanted to become because of the simple fact that i’ve seen and done things that most men never see in their lives. So it’s kind of like im scared by the things I have seen and I personally can’t be the person I want to be because I feel like I can’t show emotion in front of people because they can use it against me to hurt me, I can’t sit in public restaurants with my back open because I like to see what is in front of me, I am not the same. I share some problems with these people and something else I noticed is that it completely alternated my idea of the “American Dream”.

At the end of the day this wide variety of issues that people like myself have to deal with in a regular day basis are things that mess with our minds, identity and our lives. The only change that could make this better than it already is, is the people have to change it because there is no law that can be made that will change people’s feelings towards another race, color, or beliefs. This paper is just a small portion of the problem at hand, and there is so many more ways this can be avoided or just stopped but it starts with us as the people. I wish I had the power to at least try and enforce a law, or bring the problem at hand to more people’s knowledge.  

I JUST WANNA BE AVERAGE

1. “Some people who manage to write their way out of the working class, describe the classroom as an oasis of possibility. It became their intellectual playground, their competitive arena. Given the richness of my memories of this time, its funny how scant are my recollections of school”
2. “Budding manhood. Only adults talk about adolescence budding. Kids have no choice but to talk in extremes; they are being wrenched and buffeted, rabbit-punched from the inside by systematic thugs. Nothing sweet and pastoral here. Kids become ridiculous and touching at one at the same time; passionate about the trivial, fixed before the mirror, yet traversing one of the most important rights of passage in their lives~liminal people, silly, profoundly human.”

QUESTION

1. People usually defend themselves from the things they feel threatened by because if we are thinking in broad terms, it is human instinct to protect oneself from something that may hurt you or when you feel threatened. In the case of Mike he has a rough upbringing anyway so somethings he already has labeled as a threat because of past experiences.

I JUST WANNA BE AVERAGE

1. “The neighborhood was poor, and it was in transition. Some old white folks had lived there for decades and were retired. Younger black families were moving up from Watts and settling by working white class families newly arrived from the South and Midwest.”
2. “Right to the north of us was a record shop, a barber shop presided over by old Mr. Graff, Walts Malts, a old shoe repair shop with a big Cat’s Paw decal on the window, a third barber shop, and a brake shop” (all this reminds me of my area everything is so close knit)
3. “One night I watched as a guy sprinted from Walt’s to toss something on our lawn. The police were right behind, and a cop tackled him, smashing his face into the sidewalk; I ducked out to find the packet; a dozen glassine bags of heroin. Another night, one August midnight an argument outside the record store ended with a guy being shot to death”

QUESTIONS:

1. Mike Rose had an experience, not just a normal moving transition experience, like trying to make new friends, going to a different school, or learning the ins and outs of the neighborhood. Mike Rose was put into a place with high crime rates, shootings, police brutality, etc. Some of these things people should never see in their lives, but as a 7-8 year old Mike witnessed these things. “One night I watched as a guy sprinted from Walt’s to toss something on our lawn. The police were right behind, and a cop tackled him, smashing his face into the sidewalk; I ducked out to find the packet; a dozen glassine bags of heroin. Another night, one August midnight an argument outside the record store ended with a guy being shot to death”. These two scenarios depict the life that he had to accustom himself to. Rose’s parents are similar to Coate’s parents in a couple of ways, in a broad view both of these parents had to go through struggles and changes in their lives. Both had to try and make their child’s lives easier than harder, and both of these parents had issues with health, demographic problems, and problems with everyday people.

1. When Coates says “The Dream… wars with the real world” I personally think that he means that this dream seems so unreal when you come to a realization of what the world really is then it all disappears, and he says war because everytime this realization comes to his mind the real world always wins, it’s just reality. “Dream rests on our backs, the bedding made for our bodies”.
2. The American dream is built on black bodies is a very strong but reasonable statement. Simply because in my mind that all of the suffering the african american race has went through over hundreds of years slowly pushed this white supremacy higher and higher above on this platform of “whos better”
3. Race is the child of racism not the father. I felt this quote on a different level, because I understood it immediately. Imagine if this world did not even place labels on people because of the tone of their skin, imagine if people were just considered people and a person was just considered a person. This “race” label slowly progressed into the problem of racism.

Julian Connerton

During the constructive revision process, I was told to attach comments on one of my classmates essays. Looking for pivotal words, sentence fragments, places were quotes should be inserted and the wording of the essay within itself. I made roughly about seven or eight comments on my peers paper. I was never told to do this type of work in high school formally. I usually would just be asked by a friend to just re-read their essay and try and correct the grammatical errors and spelling. I wasn’t asked to formally try and place new quotes into their essay. Until college is when I was asked to formally attempt to put myself in the other person’s shoes and try to read their essay from their prospective. I started off with simple comment because I wasn’t used to doing this. Then Dr. Drown walked by me while I was typing my comments and corrected me. Now my comments are lengthy and full of ideas and words.

When I am editing papers and reviewing them, I am looking for spaces in between their writing where a quote from the passages that were studied could be added. Also, I would be looking for a spot where transitional words could be placed along with words that can change the mood and idea switch of a topic. Pointing out the implications of the writers ideas is big as well, because there are levels of an essay especially talking about a topic such as covering. If the essay is overall pretty good, there is always room for improvement, whether it is the switch between words or paragraph organization. When leaving a comment you should have a reaction to their paragraph by explaining how their paragraph made you feel as well as what you took and understood from reading their essay.

This has been a couple hardest months in a very long time, so school and trouble does not mix well. I have been trying to get focused and complete all of my assigned work but I only end up doing some of it. I did all of the workload last semester, it is just the simple fact that right now in my life I am personally not in a steady strong mindset. For the work I did do I feel like it was mediocre for the quality of work I did last semester. I had a strong feeling towards the covering aspect essay and how these everyday people who are just different by a label, color, clothes, just the simple way they identify themselves can cause the society around them to bash them, physically, mentally and emotionally abuse these normal people. I feel like I felt so strongly about this topic because I dealt with discrimination towards my identity before, not to the extent of the way these people get treated but I felt their problems first handedly. I feel as if my ideas and the way I personally felt about both of these essays were laid out on my paper very well and I helped build a strong underlying support towards the topic at hand.

There were a bunch of techniques that we were taught either this semester or last semester and I used a couple of these techniques but I definitely believe I could have put more of the techniques that I was taught into my essay, which would make my essay a whole lot better and probably elevate my writing skills. Another thing that I could have done as a writer would have been just to simply try to manage my time better, which is hard given the circumstances I am being put in right now, but that’s no excuse. I will continue to try and do my work fully and on time.

In today’s society, there are an unlimited amount of problems that go on, on a daily basis. Some may be little nuisances of problems, some may lead to death, some may have been lingering for years on end without any major solution. Many of these issues can be easily seen by the average person, and some go on behind the curtains and have not made rise yet. All these problems are issues that if you are “the problem”, you may be forced to hide your true self or you must put a fake persona on in different places because you are looked down on because of your skin, race, look and identity. These societal discriminations may make everyday life hard for the people who identify themselves in a way that is frowned upon to society.  

An average Muslim American man walks into an airport to catch a flight to see his family in New Jersey, proud to be calling himself Muslim and a man who stands firm in what he believes in will be looked at up and down constantly and be made uncomfortable. Why? Because society has put a label, a negative identity on a religion, a belief. These scenarios happen daily not just to people who believe in being Muslim but, it happens to African Americans, Gays, Women, people with disabilities, etc. Me personally, I’m from a city by the name of Egg Harbor City, New Jersey, Camden, New Jersey, and Philidelphia. All places with high gang activity, drug distribution, violence, a place where people would call it “ghetto” or “the hood”. I use slang on an everyday basis, and I have no problem using it in public because that is just the way I speak, and I am a product of my environment in my own ways. Of course, I walk into a job interview and I will have my tattoos hidden and I will put on a fake persona in the way I talk and carry myself because the way I speak is wrong and incorrect to societies eyes.  

The simple fact that I would have to do that doesn’t bother me as much because of the simple fact that the way I speak is not correct English. On the other hand, something that doesn’t sit well with me is I would have to switch up the way I carry myself. Which may be a good thing or a bad thing. If I were to meet someone in my work environment and I have my fake professional persona on and I run into that person the next day in a location rather than my work place than it would one, be weird two, be very unexpected and it would make me look bad. But in work I look good and I look professional. Over a long period of time hiding my true self from coaches, teachers, parents and job managers, it gets old. I just don’t feel like me when I’m in the certain environments where these people are. It’s really an uncomfortable situation.  

I feel like there are two different groups of people that face societal demands and must hide their true selves, compared to letting themselves be free and expose their true selves to the societal world. One group is the African American culture and the other is Women, even though racism towards the African American culture isn’t as strong as it used to be there is still people who feel the need to hide their true selves in certain scenarios. It is hard to bring an example into play because I personally don’t feel the need to hide my side of being part African American in any scenario. There are two movies describing certain scenarios, one is called “Sorry to bother you” and “Hidden Figures”. “Hidden Figures” is about the first women to work for NASA and how she was frowned upon and it wasn’t “correct” to society. “Sorry to bother you”, is about a very talented black man who worked for a telemarketing company and is forced to use “his white voice”.  

There should be certain period where these kinds of people should be protected by society because of the many years of hardships, “Group-based identity politics is not dead. As I have argued. I still believe in a group-based accommodation model for existing civil rights groups. This is in part because I believe we made a commitment to those groups to protect them from such covering demands.”- Kenji Yoshino.  

Overall, these examples, quotes, and scenarios that I personally shared with you and hypothetically shared with you should give you a better understanding in how these groups of people feel daily. So maybe next time you see a Muslim man or women out in public greet them, speak with them, smile and wave. Have a conversation with any of these groups of people if seen in public, it goes a long way and it definitely would if someone were to do that to me.

I feel like there are two different groups of people that face societal demands and must hide their true selves, compared to letting themselves be free and expose their true selves to the societal world. One group is the African American culture and the other is Women, even though racism towards the African American culture isn’t as strong as it used to be there is still people who feel the need to hide their true selves in certain scenarios. It is hard to bring an example into play because I personally don’t feel the need to hide my side of being part African American in any scenario. There are two movies describing certain scenarios, one is called “Sorry to bother you” and “Hidden Figures”. “Hidden Figures” is about the first women to work for NASA and how she was frowned upon and it wasn’t “correct” to society. “Sorry to bother you”, is about a very talented black man who worked for a telemarketing company and is forced to use “his white voice”.  

There should be certain period where these kinds of people should be protected by society because of the many years of hardships, “Group-based identity politics is not dead. As I have argued. I still believe in a group-based accommodation model for existing civil rights groups. This is in part because I believe we made a commitment to those groups to protect them from such covering demands.”- Kenji Yoshino.  

Julian Connerton 

January 27, 2019 

Identity Essay 

Dr. Drown 

When I hear the word identity, I think of Superman or Spiderman. Simply, because these superhero’s have two different identities that they usually try to protect by having either a mask or just a way of portraying two different lives to the public. One being a superhero and one being a normal citizen. After having a bunch of class discussions and reading a couple passages about identity I have a different outlook on how an identity can portray yourself to the public or simple portray a self-observing image when looking in the mirror. 

When I was asked to describe or give a definition to what an identity is or how can an identity affect you, I had a real simple answer in all honesty. It was something like an identity is something that you create yourself that people can describe you as or notice you as. Which all in all, is not incorrect at all, but after reading all these passages and having class discussions I have a different view and definition of that word. I would change my description to identity is you, it is the you, that you create along with the things you do in public that can also alter your identity. The public also takes part in creating your identity, but if you create a good outlook by doing the right things in public you will have a good overall identity. Then you won’t have to put on a false persona or pretend to be something you aren’t just so you can boost your identity back up.  

One of the main things you cannot do when trying to keep a steady identity is let others portray into being known as someone or something you’re not. In the “Why identity is a lie we can’t live without” passage Kwame states, “But if you define yourself through the act of opposition, then you are letting the oppressors set the terms”- Kwame. This quote really stuck out to me because I was thinking about this topic, in this type of way when we were discussing it in class a then one of the readings says something that relates to the topic I was thinking of. This quote reminded me of slavery, because when the African American culture was being oppressed, they didn’t let the people who were oppressing them set the terms and give the false allegations they were being told and accused of life. This further led to the freeing of the slaves of the oppressors. Don’t get me wrong there is still a lot of racism in the world today but imagine if the African Americans let the terms that were set continue. This may be a reason that shows why identities matter.  

“The key thing I think is to make sure that the teams are held together by more than just hatred and contempt for the other team. There’s always going to be an element of that, but if you lead with the hatred and contempt, as Donald Trump often does, then you’re leading irresponsibly.”- Kwame. This quote is very meaningful to me because not only does it describe the problem that we are in right now with who is in office, but it shows that one person can give a bunch of people an identity. Trump single handedly with his actions gave the US and his supporters their own labels, some of these people don’t even fulfill these labels but because of Trumps actions that is just the way it’s going to have to be.  

Reflecting off that topic, creating and molding your identity can be hard and can be very risky, because some things you do may not sit well with others but may sit well with yourself. You don’t want to have everyone paint a bad identity of you because your all about yourself and what’s best for you. Sometimes you need to step out of your comfort zone and do things that you may not think is all right for you, but it may help others. It’s like a balancing act. “So, I completely agree with you, and that means we have to notice the dangers of identities and demand responsible leaders who will use them with an awareness of those dangers, and with a desire to advance common causes.” When Kwame said this is also made me think about the topic of how one person who is higher up, identities can affect a whole group of people. Identities do for us just as much as if we were to paint a picture of ourselves showing how we personally are as a human and all the good and bad things we do.  

All these quotes and stories add up to just trying your best to portray yourself as a good person by doing the right things even when nobody is looking. It will make you an overall better person and make your outlook on life better.  

•  “The key thing I think is to make sure that the teams are held together by more than just hatred and contempt for the other team. There’s always going to be an element of that, but if you lead with the hatred and contempt, as Donald Trump often does, then you’re leading irresponsibly.”- Kwame. 
• “But if you define yourself through the act of opposition, then you are letting the oppressors set the terms”- Kwame. 
•  “So, I completely agree with you, and that means we have to notice the dangers of identities and demand responsible leaders who will use them with an awareness of those dangers, and with a desire to advance common causes.”- Kwame