Identity

A person's identity is their own; nobody can give it or take it away from you. Everyone in this world has a different character because they all make up their own over the course of their life. There is no one thing that gives a person their identity. There are, however, many different factors that contribute to one's individuality.

One of the key factors that contribute to one's identity is ethnicity. Ethnicity is social groups with a shared history, sense of identity, geography and cultural roots which may occur despite racial difference. An individual ethnicity helps define what they are, however in James Baldwin's piece "On Being WhiteÐ'...And Other Lies" the term race comes into play. Baldwin's piece emphasizes on the negativity of the word race and how it eliminate the purpose of ethnicity. The ignorance of people in Baldwin's piece illustrates how a group of people can simply classify a group of people due to their skin color. When coming to America, Europeans immigrants paid the price of giving away their culture to become "white". They became white because they follow the lifestyles of the previous Europeans. As a "black" your ethnicity was stolen in return of being a slave. How is a person supposed to identify themselves if they personally don't know where they are from? Your ethnicity signifies who you are and how you live your life. Since the terms "white" or "black" doesn't exist as a cultural ethnic group, how can you identify as something that doesn't exist?

In society individuals are placed into classes without given the chance to choose. They are put into these classes based off their parent's social status in life. Classes are classifying as a group of people that share the same economical status and job status, this basically effect the youth in any society. Being placed into a social class puts a strain onto their identities because they are unable to figure out who they are before getting the chance to. Before allowing ones chance to figure themselves out they are put into a social class where they force to become what they parent are. In order to broke apart from this social restrain, individuals have fight and prove what they identity is and what they are. Rather than allow them to give them the chance, society put them in social classes where they predict/ pushes them into the fields