Kenji Yoshino Cover Analysis

Foreign cultures are stigmatized, or shamed, for possessing different lifestyles and physical features because they don’t fit into the mainstream society of the culture. Many of these foreign people conform and find different ways to blend in with the culture. Kenji Yoshino, author of “Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights,” discusses several instances where people try and “cover” or tone down a disfavored identity (293). On many occasions, people cover a disfavored identity to assimilate themselves into a more accepted society. Yoshino suggests that we cover based on four axes where we assimilate to a culture: appearance, affiliation, activism, and association (305). In other words, we can assimilate to a more accepted society …show more content…
For example, Adichie talks about how “we teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller” (27). Adichie suggests we do this to girls to “cater the fragile egos of males” or to sugarcoat men with what they need to boost their egos (27). In a patriarchal society, women would face higher costs from their covering because it is the predominant role of men to have power and for women to be lesser. Society teaches girls from an early age to cover themselves and their true talents to assimilate to a man’s type of women. Again, we see covering suppress one’s true authenticity. In a patriarchal society where men hold predominant power, we may expect to see covering amongst women much more expected rather than a covering on racial identity. Your surrounds can heavily impact the costs of assimilation. On the opposite, Yoshino explains, “I believe [The United States of America] is in the grip of white supremacy as it is in the grip of heteronormativity” (305). He states that in America, it is more acceptable to cover your identity and conform to white supremacy than it is to be gay. For that reason, many people in an American culture may be more tempted to cover their gay identity since the most prominent type of assimilation is to be white. In comparison, women may be seen to cover more in a patriarchal society where the cost of them covering is much higher for them. The …show more content…
As Adichie writes, “culture does not make people. people make culture” we can see how heavily influenced people are in society and are almost forced to cover a stigma and assimilate to the mainstream (46). Those who don’t, will continue to suffer from their stigmatized identity and will be referred to as weird, different or odd. We need to shed light upon this problem and reinstall the idea that it is our authenticity that makes everyone so unique in their own ways. Covering is a stigma we implement on ourselves when we make the choice because if we don’t, we suffer from the people’s