Identity essay

Have you ever asked or thought to yourself what is my identity? What does it actually do for me? What does a identity mean to you? Identities in this world can mean a multitude of things from just being someone’s name to where they grew up. An identity is formed by many things in this world. They can bring people together but they can also divide people in many ways. When I think of an identity I think like your social security, the way you act, who you grew up with/ where you grew up, and maybe the name you have. There are so many different types of identities in this world and people take advantage of it sometimes.             Identities can do multiple things for people, if you have a last name that is known by a town or a bunch of people your identity is that name and what comes along with it is a responsibility to show that you take over that name. Kwame states that “I think we run into dangers when we allow our identities to push us around, to make us do things we don’t actually want to do or need to do, just because we feel that’s what a black person would do or that’s what a white person would do or that’s what a Republican person would do. These identities can make all sorts of demands on us, and often that can overwhelm who we are as unique individuals”. Another way that they help us is that they give us a sense of who we are and how we stand out from everyone else and show how we can be individuals. Just like how white guys think they have to act a certain way and black people act a certain way that is how they divide us somehow to see that not everyone is the same and people can be different then one another just based on there identities.                   Have you ever just thought to yourself does who I am and where I come from really matter? Kwame answers this question by saying “The short answer is that identities are labels that we use to group each other. When you take one seriously, when you identify with a label, then you think of it as giving you reasons to do things and not to do things. If you’re a Catholic, you have reasons to obey the Catholic church and its teachings. You have reasons to help with Catholic organizations, and all the people associated with it, and that’s what makes it social”. What I got from that was that no matter what way you look at an identity it is always going to matter to someone. The reason being if we didn’t have them would we know whos who in this world? The answer to that is clear we would have no idea who was who and that would cause everyone to be the same so then there is no identities. Although you may not need them for certain things, they still matter because then there is no such thing as social security. If you look at them from a school perspective without them there would be no jocks, nerds, and pretty sure that wouldn’t be good for a school. They just matter all around in general they help the world what it is today. Also the example of what if we go into times square and just look around at people what would you do. You’d look around and start putting people in categories and by doing that and judging people it is ultimately. helping yourself for protection and  knowing what to look out for.