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Stereotypes In Issa Rae's Essay The Struggle

Decent Essays

When I was brought into the world, I was not aware of the hand that I was dealt with. I was completely oblivious to human constructs that inevitably left our world divided. I did not know about race, religion, sexuality or gender roles. If it had not been for the media, I would not have tried to put so much emphasis on the label that was given to me, Latina. When reading Issa Rae’s essay “The Struggle”, I felt a sense of comfort knowing that someone else had gone through similar experiences. Growing up, I was considered “too white” to be Latina, and I constantly tried to prove my identity to others, but in the end, I realized that I never had to prove myself. Like Rae, I was accused of being “too white” to be considered a person of color. In her essay, she discussed how people needed to look past stereotypes when thinking about marginalized communities. Their actions alone do not make them black. Rae wrote, “others questioned my blackness because some of the life choices I made weren’t considered to be ‘black’ choices: joining the swim team when it is a known fact that ‘black people don’t swim,’ or choosing to become a vegetarian when blacks …show more content…

Although cultural factors such as music, food, language and dancing do heavily influence Latino identity, it should not be reduced to whether or not a person can dance. A lot of these things that we use to stereotype people are superficial. We use things like skin color, phenotypes and speech to stereotype people. My ability to dance does not validate my identity as a Latina. As Rae beautifully wrote, “Only recently have I come to ask, What am I trying to prove and to whom am I proving it?” (175). I noticed that people have been conditioned to see people of color in a certain light. Some people do not know that what they see in the media is just a fabrication and that people are more complex than what they see on the

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