Alivia Shattuck
March 1, 2019
Eng 123
As your sitting in a classroom full of people you many or many not know everyone, but each person has their own life story and identity. From their race and gender to their social class and work ethics, we are all put into a category. In the past and even now today the way that black people live are very different. The way you get treated, raised or even the footsteps they have to follow vary by race. In order to understand the way that our lives and life paths are shaped by our social identities, let’s look at Te-Nehisi Coates and Mike Rose, both grew up in a neighborhood where they had to worry about their race as they walked down the street every day and fought to find themselves a future. Although Coates was black and grew up in Baltimore in the 1980s and Rose was white growing up in Los Angeles in the 1950s, they both had their lives changed by their social identities. Coates grew up hearing stories from his family about the challenge he has to face because he is black. However, Rose, had to face similar challenges due to him being white and living in a neighborhood of Hispanics and African Americans. For Coates, he had a fear of walking down the street because he was black. These causes him to feel vulnerable as his social identity has changed the way he lives his life. He lives his life in constant fear and always be on the lookout for safety. When for Rose, he was afraid because he was white. Roses life is shaped by his neighborhood and who stood around him. Coates helps us to explain how he felt as a black person living in the 1980s by stating “As for now, it must be said that the process of washing the disparate tribes white, was not achieved through wine tastings and ice cream socials, but rather through the pillaging of life, liberty, labor and land; through the flaying of backs; the chaining of limbs; the strangling of dissidents; the destruction of families; the rape of mothers; the sale of children; and various other acts meant, first and foremost, to deny you and the right to secure and govern our own bodies”(Page 8) For Coates, growing up as an African American has shaped how he thought of his social identity. He became angry at the fact that people who are black have to be shaped because of their identity.
As Coates grows up living in Baltimore, he came to an understanding of how Americans are shaped based on their identity. He adds “Americans believe in the reality of “race” as a defined, indubitable feature of the natural world.” (page 7). He believes that race is something that naturally taught to be different. The way black people are treated is a way to destroy their body and who they really are. They are taught that they are less than those who are white. Coastes growing up in a black family was exposed to violence and comments. This shaped who he as. As he dedicated his story “Between the World and Me” to his son, he explains that because you are black their will changes as you go throughout your like. Living in America and hearing about the American dream, he comes to his own understanding of the American Dream. The American Dream to him is that people who are black are taught that it is natural to have racist comments towards them and that because of this their bodies where to be destroyed. The American Dream is based on enslavement and our schools are there to fail us and the destruction of the population. Coates explains how “When our elders presented school to us, they did not present it as a place of high learning but as a means of escape from death and penal warehousing. Fully 60 percent of all young black men who drop out of high school will go to jail. This should disgrace the country.” (Page 27). For Coates, he faced fear and violence within the ways school affected him. Schools affect those who were black, and they shaped their life path. Because those who were black did not feel comfortable in school, they convinced them that there was no future ahead of them because of their race.
Even though Mike Rose was white, his social identities shaped his life paths and his life. Rose’s experience was similar but different as he grew up. Rose grew up in a working-class family on Vermont Ave in Los Angeles. He lived in fear as he left his front door. He found a passion for chemistry. In his senior year of high school, he met a role model who helps shape who he was as a person. Jack McFarland was a role model to him on being able to succeed in life. McFarland was able to let Rose see that there is a world outside of Vermont Ave. He explains this by saying “It enabled me to do things in the world. I could browse Bohemian bookstores and Farah call my mysterious Hollywood I could go to the cinema and see if vents through the lens of European directors and most of all I could share an evening talk that talk with Jack McFarland the man I most admired at the time. Knowledge was becoming a bonding agent. Within a year to the Persona of the disaffected Hipster would prove too cynical to alienate to last. Before our time it was new and exciting it provided a critical perspective on society and it allowed me to act as though I were living beyond the limiting boundaries of South Vermont.” (Page 37). Rose believed that after he met McFarland, he could do anything. He was able to override his social identity and persuade what he wants to as he lives his life paths. As Rose had McFarland as a role model, he was able to see that this world has in hold for him.
Rose and Coates both were shaped by their social identities and how they were treated. In Coates story, he was able to teach his son the information he needs to live in a world where blacks are mistreated. He talks about America as if the things they did harm his body in a way he was unable to succeed. For Rose, he was taught that no matter your upbringing with the help of a persuasive adult you can do what you need to succeed.
