Identity

My sister had some interesting thoughts about race and the double edged sword that being color appreciative vs color blind brings about.

"Bush makes a mistake and he's just considered stupid," Snyder says. "Unfortunately, Barack Obama makes a mistake and he's black and stupid. And it's not the same in the white world."

and then later I read this

"But if we judge Obama's performance as president as "how does Obama the person perform as president?" instead of "how the black man does as president"--wouldn't that be color blind? Judging him without factoring race? So we should ignore color when judging, but when we're not we appreciate it? I'm confused."

she ends talking about culture and it being the great divider and skin just how we look, a general identifying feature.

I love the complexity around all of this. It's not simple, and when you talk through it, dig deeper you see more than maybe what your initial reaction might be to such a subject.

Then I went to the conscientious blog and read about a new photography series that doesn't differentiate between the victims and perpetrators in Rwandan genocide. Basically it comes down to showing the humanity of everyone and the fact that regular people do horrible things isn't as safe a thought as being able to visually prejudge someone. People aren't always what they appear.

The subject of identity is one that I find particularly interesting. I know I partially make clothing decisions to show what subculture I fit into, mostly. And I'm also pleasantly surprised when I find people crossing boundaries, and being inventive and accepting of different concepts of identity. I was speaking with an acquaintance of mine who happens to be black, who tap dances in a pretty modern manner-but anyways, about people trying to win people over by not being themselves and how we attach race to culture.

There were 3 white kids trying to be cool in ways that the tap dancer and the bboy friend of mine would think acceptable and it was getting kind of annoying to my friends. Purposefully changing your speech patterns because of someone's race is silly, but I hear it frequently. I know my black friends value their education and speak in a way that reflects this, while a few have a different background or have always been a part of certain subcultures and have their accent deeply ingrained. So when my friends who may not have as much formal education hear a well educated white man changing his speech pattern to sound like them, it becomes surreal. Especially in the name of cool. I guess anyone not being honest about themselves and who they are becomes glaringly obvious at times and when is aspiring to be something different acceptable and when isn't it? When is it too far? Is that possible?