One of the things that I though was interesting (and something that is still a little fuzzy) from today's class was the idea of racial fantasies. What I have gathered so far is that these fantasies is what all of us expect someone of a certain race to be. It is our human tendency to place people in a category that we are familiar with, so that we can try to figure that person out before making ourselves vulnerable enough to actually know that person as an individual. It is our way of putting people at a safe distance. However, what I found most interesting about our discussion of racial fantasies is just that; they are fantasies. They are unrealistic/unattainable by real people. We have this image of an all black person, but who is really ALL black? Not only in terms of mixing races, but in terms of mixing what races OUGHT to be. This was most interesting to me because it really exemplifies the idea that race is an individualized, but also, socially constructed phenomenon.
One of the examples from class that exemplifies this is how Deck became more 'black' in his environment. He became influenced by black power. He felt as though to be more 'black' he needed to find himself a strong black woman, grow and Afro, and throw the N word around. But that doesn't make him ALL black -- he was still an intellectual in out of Harvard.
This is just what I have understood so far. If I have the wrong idea, please set me straight!
Meredith Cotter, Post #21
No comments:
Post a Comment