The Great Gatsby Essential Question: How do class, gender, religion, race, and culture determine our relationships?
Examining this question on the level of the infamous high school hierarchy, my first thought is that people associate with those on the same level as them. It’s the widely-held belief that “populars” don’t deign to speak
to the nerds and outcasts. But it’s also those on the fringes who often feel
“above” befriending the populars. I feel like a majority of people identify themselves as nonconformists and use this as a basis to separate themselves from that group. For a few of these people, it becomes easy to denounce those in the group as superficial, catty, or vapid. Because we like to feel that our own individual group is unique, we tend to generalize and stereotype others.
In the book How to Be Black, Baratunde Thurston uses comedy to expose the intricacies of understanding race. He points out that although it is generally accepted that racism is bad, it is hard to differentiate between what is racist and what is not. Obviously, most people don't go out of their way to be racist, so at least in most environments that I've been exposed to, race has never been a problem in developing relationships. I do think that people of the same backgrounds are commonly friends, but I think this is partially due to the fact that their cultures automatically give them something in common to bond over, not that they are intolerant of people of other backgrounds.
“Like vampires and extremely rich people, black folk can sense one
another. Use your Spidey Sense (Blacky Sense?). Use your blackdar to
inspect the workplace for signs of Other Negroes. They may be working
security for the building. They may be in administrative support. They
may be among the associate pool, or they may even be in upper
management. Black folk can be anywhere. After all, you're here. But one
of the biggest mistakes you can make as The Black Employee is to assume
you are the only one.”
-Baratunde Thurston, How to Be Black
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ReplyDeleteLillian, your post is thought-provoking, and I love your word choice.
DeleteIt's true how so much of our racism is accepted. We often make Asian parent jokes, and it's fine, so long as we're Asian. But when someone else says the same thing, we feel offended. It's interesting how you always manage to find such pertinent examples.
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