I only feel I can be
myself around close friends and family. When I am comfortable I talk a lot and
I cannot sit still. In larger social setting I am more reserved and quiet, I
prefer to listen and observe. When I choose not to verbally express my opinions
or ideas I feel like I have held myself back in some way and yet I choose to
remain quiet anyways. Why do I choose not to speak up? Well there are many
reasons: I don’t want other students to criticize my opinion, I don’t want to
be seen as stupid or wrong, I feel like someone else could articulate the point
more clearly and sometimes I am probably just being lazy. Aside from laziness,
none of these points hold any weight. Logically I know that answering questions
and participating in class would probably only improve my performance, but I
have been socialized to think about all of the what-ifs. I have not been taught
to know my worth and love myself for who I am, but to look at everyone else and
compare myself to them. So while I cannot imagine the experiences of those who
are disabled like Stella Young or women who transition as Lana Wachowski, I can
be aware of how painful it is to compare yourself to others and feel like you
come up short somehow or like you will never belong.
Watching I Am Not
Your Inspiration really made me reflect about my encounters with those with
a disability. I have had a few personal interactions, but most of my experience
has been the ogling that Stella Young described. I have seen all of those
sentimental memes featuring people that are disabled and I too have thought
well I should work harder because it’s easier for me than them. Ms. Young
stated that what people with disabilities had to work to overcome was other
people, not their mental and physical impairments. This is kind of mind
blowing, that maybe the mentality of non-disabled people is holding disabled
people back more than their own disabilities.
Then Lana Wachowski again reinforced this idea that your
identity is at least partially dependent on other people. She, like Young, show
how good or bad we can feel based on how others see us. An example that Lana
gave of this was the first time she went out with her family after she
transitioned. She mentioned it being very important what the people at the
restaurant thought of her and how they addressed her. Then she spoke fondly of
her mother introducing her to the server and the server simply saying that she
(Lana) looked like her mother. This may seem insignificant, but to Lana it
meant the world. In just one simple phrase that person was able to make an
important impact in Lana’s life. Just like IO Wright with her Self Evident Truths project. She does
not know the people that she takes pictures of. She just knows that they don’t
identify as completely straight. That fact alone makes them susceptible to hate
and judgement. Her message is simple, that all of humanity deserve the same
rights and that these should not be able to be denied on the bases of sexual
orientation, gender, sexual preference, etc. Just by giving those communities
faces, she is helping re-shape their identities.
The chapters in Adams really emphasize that this search
for identity is life-long and everyone goes through it. Also most people are
oppressed in one way or another, so finding common ground and trying to
understand others people’s perspective is very important as well as not making
snap judgments. Chapter sixty-nine even laid out a list of judgements that a
person can make based solely on gender. Even though I was reading it for an
assignment and it was not directed at me, it still made me compare those
negative sayings to my life. Even a simple list of words can make an impact on
our identities.
Adams,
M., Blumfeld, W., Castañeda, C., Hackman, H., Peters, M., Zúñiga, X.
(2013).
Readings for Diversity and Social Justice. New York, NY:
Rutledge.
HRC.
(2012, October). Lana Wachowski Receives the HRC Visibility
Award. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crHHycz7T_c
Wright,
T. (2012, December). Fifty Shades of Gay. [Video file].
Retrieved
from https://www.ted.com/talks/io_tillett_wright_fifty_shades_of_gay
Young,
S. (2014, April). I'm Not Your Inspiration, Thank You Very Much. (Video).
Retrieved from
https://www.ted.com/talks/stella_young_i_m_not_your_inspiration_thank_you_very_much.
I really liked how when you first talked about your identity you included how it changes in different situations. Not only is identity hard to define because things like gender, sexuality, etc. are on a spectrum and don’t have true binary labels, but also because the person we are can change from one minute to the next. In each setting, we have reasons for adjusting which parts of ourselves we let be seen and which parts of ourselves we modify and hide. Each individual’s identity is not only complex because labels and assumptions cannot truly understand and encapsulate an individual’s true self, but also because a person controls how they act and what parts of them are presented in any given situation. When an entire group of people is given a certain label and stereotyped, that erases all of the very unique qualities of each individual and forgets the complexity of being a human.
ReplyDeleteI also like how you talked about Young discussing that in fact people hold people back more than things like disabilities. If we continue seeing groups as ‘others’ and stereotyping who they are, we never let them just be who they are and succeed at normal things. We place them in a box and tell them what they are supposed to be able to do and what they aren’t supposed to be able to do. We don’t just let them do. Each individual has the same rights as anyone else, and we need to stop letting culture and society hold them back from what they could be capable of.