Confronting Social Identities in Society Essay - 1580 Words

There are a lot of social problems that exists in the world today, which includes but do not limited to self identity and racism. However, they somehow go unnoticed because at times people conform to what society thinks is the way to live. In my opinion, people believe they should act or feel a certain way because of what is broadcast on television, featured in magazines, and even brought into the limelight by celebrities. While Toni Morrison’s â€Å"The Bluest Eye† (1970) and Alice Walker’s â€Å"Everyday Use† (1973) both target ongoing social problems, Morrison structures her story to reveal just how pervasive and destructive social racism is, whereas Alice Walker’s â€Å"Everyday Use† focuses on the character’s conflicting ideas about their identities†¦show more content†¦In society black is seen as being ugly and dirty whereas white is considered to be clean and pure. There was a study conducted back in 1939 by Dr Kenneth Clark where they asked black children between the ages 6 and 9 to choose between white dolls and black dolls. Dr Clark asked several questions about the black doll such as â€Å"which doll is the good doll and which doll is the bad doll?† a lot of the children said that the bad doll was the black doll and the good doll was the white doll (Clark). This goes to show how society depicts blacks and whites and how racism and self identity issues still exist and very much alive to this day. For example, when making a cake white cake is considered angel food whereas black cake is considered devil food. White is considered to be nice, clean, and angelic whereas anything associated with black is considered to be dirty, evil, and bad. Society plays a big part in the way people think about one another. â€Å"Everyday Use† focuses on identifying with self and knowing about your heritage, in this short story, she uses the character Dee to exploit the issue of getting to know who yo u are and where you came from. Dee denies her actual heritage to conform to another heritage that she knows nothing about but only from what she has read about it. She goes to extreme length by even changingShow MoreRelatedAnti Heterosexuality And Its Effects On Society1369 Words   |  6 Pagesfamily, and colleagues, in order to avoid confronting this socially stigmatized part of their life, along with their own potential denial and self-hatred. Because of the stigmas attached to the LGBTQ community, one often feels that they have to hide this part of their life in order to maintain social and work relations, with pressure to conform to the heterosexually dominated culture. 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