Sociology 101: Entry 6
Chapter 10: To what extent do race and ethnicity incluence the opportunities you have and obstacles you face? How conscious are you of your race and ethnicity and ther possible influence on your life?
To be honest, I never even noticed my race until high school. Where I grew up, it was a primarilly a white community with the majority of families having a source of income through Microsoft. I barely even realized there was a difference of race until high school the different races and ethnic groups seemed to clump together and distance themselves from the rest of the school.
Or at least, that's how I saw it. I may have been friends with a few girls that identified with an Asian ethnic group in middle school, but I never really became aware of racial differences until a few years later. At around that time I began to see myself as "caucasian," but I didn't really get what the deal with race and ethnicity was.
It wasn't until I started taking college classes that I really thought about it. After a couple anthropology classes, one of my psychology classes, my Queer Studies class, this sociology class and actually hanging out with different racial groups and listening to them talk about race that it really hit me.
I'm a white female.
Not nearlly as socially prestigous as a white male, but society has certain expectations of the "good white girl" stereotype, and I might be considered a better canidate for a position either in work or in a social structure than another woman who isn't white or male.
I still don't really think about it, and have been socialized to an extent to expect certain behaviors of other racial groups, but as I become more aware of my own standing as a Caucasian, I hope to be more conciouslly aware of other races and ethnicities. Becoming aware of my own subconscious, or conscious, expectations is the first step in being able to fix them.
To be honest, I never even noticed my race until high school. Where I grew up, it was a primarilly a white community with the majority of families having a source of income through Microsoft. I barely even realized there was a difference of race until high school the different races and ethnic groups seemed to clump together and distance themselves from the rest of the school.
Or at least, that's how I saw it. I may have been friends with a few girls that identified with an Asian ethnic group in middle school, but I never really became aware of racial differences until a few years later. At around that time I began to see myself as "caucasian," but I didn't really get what the deal with race and ethnicity was.
It wasn't until I started taking college classes that I really thought about it. After a couple anthropology classes, one of my psychology classes, my Queer Studies class, this sociology class and actually hanging out with different racial groups and listening to them talk about race that it really hit me.
I'm a white female.
Not nearlly as socially prestigous as a white male, but society has certain expectations of the "good white girl" stereotype, and I might be considered a better canidate for a position either in work or in a social structure than another woman who isn't white or male.
I still don't really think about it, and have been socialized to an extent to expect certain behaviors of other racial groups, but as I become more aware of my own standing as a Caucasian, I hope to be more conciouslly aware of other races and ethnicities. Becoming aware of my own subconscious, or conscious, expectations is the first step in being able to fix them.