2.4 Activities and Applications
From theory to practice…
- Explore your own cultural identity. An awareness of your cultural heritage can help make you aware of the sources of the values and behaviors you may take for granted. Being able to articulate our own views – and their origins – can be helpful in intercultural encounters.
- Consider the nature of your social identity. Think about how the different groups you may belong to help constitute who you are – what you believe, how you behave, and how you interact with others.
- Evaluate your personal identity. To what extent do your individual tastes and preferences lead you in directions away from your family background, ethnic heritage, or group affiliations? Consider how you envision your future self.
For discussion and reflection…
1. Consider the number of groups to which you belong and the roles you play in each. How do the groups affect the way you think, feel, and act? By virtue of your membership in these groups, how are you treated by others? What are some of the groups to which you would like to belong but do not?
2. After reading the article by Peggy McIntosh, White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, and watching the selection from the documentary “Color of Fear“:
What’s your reaction to McIntosh’s essay and the excerpt from Color of Fear? To what extent do the views expressed reflect your own experiences? Is this type of conversation represented by the documentary useful? To what extent was the conversation affected by not including any women?
3. After watching the TED talks on women and identity by Liza Donnelly, Caroline Casey and Lizzie Velasquez…
How do you define who you are? What role does appearance have? Where do the rules for appearance and behavior come from? Are these rules universal? For women everywhere? Do you agree on the power of cartoons and humor?
4. After watching the TED talk by Pico Iyer on multicultural identities:
How typical do you think his personal experience with identity is? To what extent are we all “a work in progress”?
5. After watching the TED talk on prejudice by Paul Bloom:
Do you agree that our initial judgments about people tend to be accurate? What is your take on his recommendations for overcoming “bad” prejudice? Are there other approaches that might work?
6. Get together in groups of two or three. Spend about two to three minutes describing yourself to your group members. Now respond to the question: “Who am I?” Also respond to the question “Who is ‘A’ or ‘B’ where ‘A’ and ‘B’ and so on represent each of your group members. Compare your notes. The exercise may be modified for a discussion on biases and prejudices.
