What is the obsession with people’s need of identification. Don't they understand that in the outside we might be different, but in the inside we all are the same? In her article, “Being an Other,” Melissa Algranati gives a personal narrative of her life and her parent's life and how they faced discrimination and her struggles about being identified as an “other” even though she was an American born jewish and Puerto Rican. Michael Omi’s article “In Living Color: Race and American Culture” reinforces Algranati’s article since in his article he discusses about people ideas about race the stereotypes that they face. Michael Omi reinforces Melissa Algranati because they both argue about America’s obsessions of labelling people and how it affect
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Omi says, “Ideas about race, therefore, have become ‘common sense’ a way of comprehending, explaining, and acting in the world... An encounter with someone who is, for example, racially “mixed” or of a racial/ ethnic group we are unfamiliar with becomes a source of discomfort for us, and momentarily creates a crisis of racial meaning. We also become disoriented when people do not act “black,” “Latino,” or indeed “white.” (Omi 627) …show more content…
Omi argues this by discussing how people notice the outside of a person and based on that is what decides the way that person acts around them. Omi says, “Race is itself a slippery social concept which is paradoxically both ‘obvious’ and ‘invisible.’ In our society, one of the first things we notice about people when we encounter them (along with their sex/gender) is their race. We utilize race to provide clues about who a person is and how we should relate to him/her. Our perception of race determines our ‘presentation of self’ distinctions in status, and appropriate modes of conduct in daily and institutional life. This process is often unconscious; we tend to operate off an unexamined set of racial beliefs.” (Omi 137) This quote reinforces Algranati’s argument since it discusses how a person would be treated differently based on how your look in the outside, while Algranati discusses her mother’s experience being a Puerto Rican that did not look like a Puerto Rican. She says, “ My mother is what we call a ‘white hispanic.’ With her blond hair and blue eyes my mother was taken from everything but a Puerto Rican. Once my mother perfected her English, no one suspected her ethnicity unless she told them...She was able to exist in American society with very little difficulty.”(Algranati 109) Algranati’s mother’s appearance helped her coexist as a white woman. She did not face many
Omi says, “Ideas about race, therefore, have become ‘common sense’ a way of comprehending, explaining, and acting in the world... An encounter with someone who is, for example, racially “mixed” or of a racial/ ethnic group we are unfamiliar with becomes a source of discomfort for us, and momentarily creates a crisis of racial meaning. We also become disoriented when people do not act “black,” “Latino,” or indeed “white.” (Omi 627) …show more content…
Omi argues this by discussing how people notice the outside of a person and based on that is what decides the way that person acts around them. Omi says, “Race is itself a slippery social concept which is paradoxically both ‘obvious’ and ‘invisible.’ In our society, one of the first things we notice about people when we encounter them (along with their sex/gender) is their race. We utilize race to provide clues about who a person is and how we should relate to him/her. Our perception of race determines our ‘presentation of self’ distinctions in status, and appropriate modes of conduct in daily and institutional life. This process is often unconscious; we tend to operate off an unexamined set of racial beliefs.” (Omi 137) This quote reinforces Algranati’s argument since it discusses how a person would be treated differently based on how your look in the outside, while Algranati discusses her mother’s experience being a Puerto Rican that did not look like a Puerto Rican. She says, “ My mother is what we call a ‘white hispanic.’ With her blond hair and blue eyes my mother was taken from everything but a Puerto Rican. Once my mother perfected her English, no one suspected her ethnicity unless she told them...She was able to exist in American society with very little difficulty.”(Algranati 109) Algranati’s mother’s appearance helped her coexist as a white woman. She did not face many