Experience In Belonging To A Black American Ethnic Group Essays Example

Introduction

Cultural identity is made up by nine micro culture including; race, class, ethnicity, language, gender, religion, age, exceptionality and geography. Every one of us belongs to a given subgroup in each micro culture but our identity is based on the relationship we have other subgroups in these micro cultures and interaction undergoing within the micro cultures (Folkenflik 1993). For example, a Jew may be staying in the Christian community that is predominant hence experience negligible impact from cultural conflict. Also by one being a female in a family with three or more boys will affect her attitude and influences the way she views life in the coming world.

Cultural Autobiography

I am a female in terms of gender, and due to my household being of female gender, I have developed a type of person who is fond of doing things involving my feminist. Being the only child and center of attraction in my family, this habit has been allowed within my family. Even my dad began to watch more movies that are girls which were enjoyable to him when I came around. Despite being girly I feel like my relation to male is perfect. I have always done things with my father like watching football. My ethnicity is a black American, with my father being an America and my mother an African. I therefore observed culture as the cooking part of this family. My mother was from a culture that is mixed with no dominating culture. I tried to appreciate everyone ethnicity in the classroom. Someone’s ethnicity should not prevent them from undertaking there studies rather move them forward when using it to their advantage. Black is my race and I am part of the less dominant culture. My race was a disadvantage over others in the places where I belonged to the dominant culture in the community and school. I care much about my way of looking, loving to shop and fulfill almost every aspect of a girl belonging to America (Smith et al 1998).

Conflicts Emerging

My class is considered to be low class to middle class. My father was a farmer and a studying among children of different class. Looking into the community around, most of them fits the low social class level. This affected the economy as most of the citizens were self-employed working on the farms. The lives there were of low standards with most of us living under the poverty level. Being surrounded by community that was much richer did not change the lifestyle of my community. Being surrounded by the whites, there were conflicts arising as my community was considered of having negative practices in the society. The surrounding White community related us to theft, burglary and a lazy community who could not afford for their children (Saracho et al 2010). Some members of my community got a chance to work as house helps tom the houses of the few Whites who had no problem with our race. White being determinant in my place ripped us the title of holding administrative offices and we therefore had no say in the matters concerning the administrative issues.
I belong to a small community with little diversity, everyone is almost the same. News and media are the only outlets I see in my community to any other culture. Despite of having little experience in diversity, I have never had a strong belief in all that I observe in the media or read from the newspapers about different cultures. However, having few resources discussing about diverse culture, I believe some of the information given about those culture are true with others being false. In my high school, have never seen it hosting a foreign exchange student to study there. I therefore depended on education and my own experiences to get information about other cultures. I have travelled a lot to get the opportunities of knowing about other cultures. I have had the chance of walking across the coast to have information about new cultures and individuals of backgrounds that are diverse. I came to learn that being in the ethnicity with another person does not matter a lot. They may end up having different beliefs or practices depending on the part of country they dwell on. In many communities that have smaller population like mine, many of us have got the same status economically and have the same job experience. We stay in rural life having the same backgrounds and familiar ties that are intimate to other community members. Some women decide not to attend college, becoming married immediately after finishing high school and stay as housewives taking care of the children and doing the house cores. Some men also do not attend college and decide to begin farming business immediately after high school leading them into early marriages. Some come up with decisions of working as factory workers as a pass time for not attending college. These practices are common in my community with little social change. This is different in other cultures.
Living as a less diverse community as blacks between the dominants Whites and living under hatred and poverty, mistrust occurred between the two races. We are given less opportunities tom participates in elections of the administrators and even in the schools. This made the members of my ethnic group not to be involved in the elections of such posts. We were exploited as were given jobs of low pay and despite of the academic achievement of some of our people (Horowitz 1985). Most of the children were enrolled in the schools that existed within our land occupation. So you have to study all your academics within the community. This did not give us the exposure that the whites’ children were enjoying. We were to attend our own churches as members of my community had the fear of attending the churches dominated by the white Americans. The main religion that existed is Roman Catholic. All the priests serving these churches were whites and the blacks were given clergy positions which were also few. We were living in a rural environment with our neighboring race occupying the urban areas. Electricity was only being able to be passed by the few. We were therefore not easily updated about the outside world as there was no media to do so. The level of education provided to children at school was low. The teachers that taught our children were not well trained and this therefore affected the quality of education given. Only few children could make it to college with most experiencing school dropouts. The colleges were on the urban areas where the conflict of race is more and worse. This however did not prevent some of the children from my ethnic group from becoming doctors or even lawyers, who are now forcing changes in the community and sponsoring children with ability to get access to quality education.

Conclusion

Being in a dominant ethnic group proved to be dangerous to one’s life. This lowered someone’s self-esteem as he or she lacked say over the majority. Having lived within Whites as a black gave me the courage in life indeed. Despite of the environment I lived in, I could still defeat their children and make it to campus. Conflict between two ethnics groups especially in the same location prevents economic development (Finkbeiner et al 2006) . This is so due to the existence of selfishness that one ethnic group will benefit more than the other. For example, coming up with free education is not possible in my place as the Whites will see that the Blacks are going to benefit than them. We should therefore avoid ethnic conflicts and focus on development.

REFERENCES

Horowitz, D. L. (1985). Ethnic groups in conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press. Page 481
Finkbeiner, C., & Schmidt, P. R. (2006). ABC's of cultural understanding and communication: National and international adaptations. Greenwich, Conn: Information Age Pub. Page 117
Folkenflik, R. (1993). The culture of autobiography: Constructions of self-representation. Stanford, Calif: Stanford Univ. Press. Page 268
Saracho, O. N., & Spodek, B. (2010). Contemporary perspectives on language and cultural diversity in early childhood education. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Pub. Page 181
Smith, S., & Watson, J. (1998). Women, autobiography, theory: A reader. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Page 212