I think that my race is one of the strongest identity markers next to my gender. I would describe my race as one of a kind, meaning that we are unique in the way that we have our own music, food, and culture in general. I know that in society we are often painted in a negative light both African American males and females. The reason I think that it is the strongest is because that is one of the first things that people notice about you is your race and often begin to make assumptions on your personality based on how you look. I think that others may view my race in a different light based on preconceived notions about our attitudes and behaviors and I don’t agree that who I am is based off how society views me because I like to do things my own way as I was taught to always be a leader and never a follower, to always go out on my own and make my judgements about the world that I live in.
In terms of what kind of impact, it has had on me, I would say both a positive and negative impact. Emotionally, it can be hard to see how my people are treated as less-than and how we must constantly live in fear of what the world is going to throw at us next and being a woman on top of it all just makes me feel even more anxious. It makes me sad and frustrated to think about how the mother mortality rate is much higher in women of color than Caucasian women. On a social level I do not think that it has really had a significant impact on my life as I have always been sociable and easily made friends wherever I go.
My race does not influence who I decide to be friends with; I do not have a best friend, but most of my friends are black. I do have Hispanic and white friends as well. Like I stated earlier, it has always been easy for me to make friends since I never really cared about things like race when it comes to picking my friends just as long as they are fun to hang around and have good vibes it does not matter about their race, gender, or even sexuality. I think that my gender and race intersect and they have shaped my view of the world to a sometimes negative one because of how on one hand women are being treated poorly and are constantly fighting for our rights and on the other, I’m African-American and given this country’s history with my race, I’m not always allotted the same opportunities of someone of a different race.
