Assimilation and Separation
Culture affects all aspects of life. West Point culture and prior cultures draw a difference between cadets that sculpts their ways of life and their interactions with others. Therefore, West Point culture is the basis for all similarities in interaction and divergence is in accordance with another. West Point confronts minority cadets with a culture that influences their daily actions by inhibiting and magnifying tendencies in accordance with social norms asserting that assimilation is survival.
Accidental establishment of an aggressively dismissing culture at West Point seizes minority cadets’ identities by forcing a you versus me culture within the ranks that hinders individual and cultural expression. This …show more content…
The behavior driven by cultural adaptability in each instance offers the option of fit the mold to make life easier. This behavioral change allows for easier acceptance from strangers. These extra measures to alter behavior and make those around them more comfortable allows all cadets from all different backgrounds to sacrifice their own comfort for the collective. In West Point’s case, diversity is drawn from the differences of all and unity is found in giving up these identities and altering behavior to match that of the military ethic. Culture influences cadets during their experience by guiding their behavior and …show more content…
Staples proves this by rejecting the culture that white America receives poorly, he protects the people around him by making them more comfortable. Bolina asserts that identity is “a process that relies first on negation of one identity in order to adopt another… assimilation is a destructive rather than constructive process” (Bolina 498). Cadets must experience the dismissal of past cultural identities to acknowledge their new cadet way of life. As such, cadets experience identity removed in the beginning of Cadet Basic Training when the Army shaves their heads, takes their clothes, and replaces all personally identifiable materials with government-issued items. Similarly, cadets sometimes must strip themselves of their backgrounds to assimilate into the Corps. These rejections of culture often dramatically change lives for cadets at West Point because West Point’s culture is dramatically different from most
Culture affects all aspects of life. West Point culture and prior cultures draw a difference between cadets that sculpts their ways of life and their interactions with others. Therefore, West Point culture is the basis for all similarities in interaction and divergence is in accordance with another. West Point confronts minority cadets with a culture that influences their daily actions by inhibiting and magnifying tendencies in accordance with social norms asserting that assimilation is survival.
Accidental establishment of an aggressively dismissing culture at West Point seizes minority cadets’ identities by forcing a you versus me culture within the ranks that hinders individual and cultural expression. This …show more content…
The behavior driven by cultural adaptability in each instance offers the option of fit the mold to make life easier. This behavioral change allows for easier acceptance from strangers. These extra measures to alter behavior and make those around them more comfortable allows all cadets from all different backgrounds to sacrifice their own comfort for the collective. In West Point’s case, diversity is drawn from the differences of all and unity is found in giving up these identities and altering behavior to match that of the military ethic. Culture influences cadets during their experience by guiding their behavior and …show more content…
Staples proves this by rejecting the culture that white America receives poorly, he protects the people around him by making them more comfortable. Bolina asserts that identity is “a process that relies first on negation of one identity in order to adopt another… assimilation is a destructive rather than constructive process” (Bolina 498). Cadets must experience the dismissal of past cultural identities to acknowledge their new cadet way of life. As such, cadets experience identity removed in the beginning of Cadet Basic Training when the Army shaves their heads, takes their clothes, and replaces all personally identifiable materials with government-issued items. Similarly, cadets sometimes must strip themselves of their backgrounds to assimilate into the Corps. These rejections of culture often dramatically change lives for cadets at West Point because West Point’s culture is dramatically different from most