Why have we as a society become so politically correct, that we cannot identify people by race?

In Beverly Daniel Tatum's "Why are all the black kids sitting together in the Cafeteria" And Other Conversations About Race, she tells a story about a father who, in picking up his young daughter from school, asked her to point out a new friend that she had been talking about. She described her, but did not mention that she was the only black child in her group of friends. The father was pleased, as he saw this as a sign of his daughter's colour blindness. Tatum saw it differently, and thought that is wasn't that the daughter didn't notice the colour of her skin, but merely that she was taught that it's not appropriate to identify people by skin colour.

I believe that our society tries much to hard to make "race" a bad word. True, our identities should not revolve around our race or place of origin, as that does not make a person, but when trying to describe a person to someone who doesn't know them, why is it "racist" to describe them as "the one who's Asian", when they are in fact the only Asian person in the room?

In areas where traditionally the dominant group has somehow treated the subdominant group badly, today we in society feel bad about using the classifiers of those areas as categorization. It's as if, in using the words "fat", "gay", or "black", you're somehow demeaning the person. These words are now like swear words in some contexts, not appropriate for public consumption.

What is wrong with using those words in a purely recognizable context? If I am with a group of friends in which I am the only Caucasian, I don't mind being called the "white girl", because I am. We need to move away from the idea that being black, or gay are somehow bad, and if we stop shying away from using the words, we will come that much closer to an equal society.

If your identity is based on what others see, how can you really have your own identity?

Erikson has said that the formation of identity is a process of reflection and observation, and is related to how people see you; in short they are the mirror in which your identity comes to life.

I see a fundamental issue in this view. If you form your identity based on the views of other people, how is it YOUR identity? I believe that identities should be formed on careful inner reflection, about what you want and what you believe in, not on how other people see you. If we did not rely on how the world sees us to form our identities, they would be more personal, and less about physical outward appearances. Your identity could be, "I'm the person who loves piano and monster movies." Not, "I'm the Italian girl who loves playing piano, Bellini was Italian too."

There is no need to categorize ourselves in such simple terms, and when we stop making things we have no control over (such as skin colour, race etc.) part of our integral identity, we as a society will be that much closer to being equal.

What does it mean to have a cultural identity?

Cultural identity is a means of differentiating between people, and also a way to feel special and unique. "Identity" is an important aspect of being human, and one's cultural identity is a specific way to feel connected to (or in other cases segregated from) a group of people, geographical place, belief system, or an ideal. Humans use "cultural identity" to find a sense of belonging to something bigger than the individual, and if you want to look at it in a darker way, belonging to something that others are not a part of.



The clip I chose deals with Filipinos debating what it is to be Filipino. This clip illustrates my point, as people talk about how wonderful it is to be part of this cultural group, while others debate who is actually "allowed" to be Filipino. Some using language as a requirement to be label Filipino, where others use place of birth, amount of "Americanization" or knowledge of cultural heritage to determine who is in this cultural group.

I also found this article on cbc.ca that you might find interesting. It deals with the changing and ambiguous cultural identities of Canadians with mixed heritages.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/mixedblessings/