Tuesday, September 9, 2014
How Race is Lived in America - Chapter 9 Comment
I think the issue of when children begin to notice and segregate themselves based on race is definitely an interesting one, and one that's prevalent throughout this chapter. The fact that the three girls followed in the chapter were good friends and thought nothing of their mixed race friendship until middle school shows that something must happen during adolescence to increase awareness of race. I think social stigma is definitely to blame for the sudden desire to group up based on race, at least partly, but I wonder if there could be a natural cause as well. Perhaps we have some innate desire to surround ourselves with people who look like us, be it for survival or propagation or some other evolutionary need.
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I really found this chapter to be one of the more interesting ones. You make an excellent point when talking about evolutionary need and perhaps it mostly has to do with convenience and social stigma. I found it very interesting and really thought back to when I took a special education course at UNCG about teaching special needs children in different ways and I remembered (while reading this chapter) that my professor said that black students are usually overrepresented in the special needs department and Asian students are underrepresented... makes a good point on how much culture actually connects with our psychology and behavior.
ReplyDeleteChildren start life with a sensational appetite for life. They are continually influenced by their surroundings, and over time, as they learn to analyze, they begin to notice differences. This appears to happen during middle school years. This is also generally the same time young bodies go through physical and emotional changes. It is possible these changes trigger fear, which could explain the inclination for like groups to pool together. Once groups separate, cultural and social differences become more apparent. In the case of the three girls, they may go their separate ways as they grow into adulthood, but they will most likely remember their childhood friendship. My experience has been that this separation also occurs among same race friends.
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