Intersectionality influences the type of events and outcomes a person will experience throughout their life.  I can’t imagine how my life would change if I were a different gender, race, or social status.   For example, Rachel Dolezal identifies herself as a black female, which sadly exposes to her various disadvantages and more discrimination.  According to Dolezal’s interview with Melissa Harris-Perry, Dolezal has had her hair searched at TSA, which Harris-Perry understands as a violation of privacy.  Whether TSA will admit it or not, the person was racial profiling Dolezal because she had to walk through a metal detector, which would have identified any foreign objects in hair.  However, on the other side, Dolezal claims to have been disadvantaged while attending Howard University.  She sued the school for favoring African American students, however, the judge dismissed these accusations.  We can see through her experience how intersectionality can impact a person’s life (Cohen, 2015.  I’m not saying that her life speaks for the entire population because white people tend to be favored more than black people.

There are many visual cues humans associate with race and gender.  Personally, hair is a big determining factor in race and gender.  We typically associate short hair with males, which isn’t always the case.  My mom has short hair because it’s more convenient to not have longer hair. Another visual cue is skin color.  Black people are associated with having extremely dark skin to the point where some blacks who have lighter skin have been discriminated against.  I have a friend who is considered light skin, and during high school the darker black students refused to hang with her because she wasn’t “black” enough for them.  This visual cue can cause serious problems among people as if the color of our skin truly determines our character.  Freeman’s experiment showed how businesspeople typically have a higher-status than a janitor, which may be true in terms of money.   However, the study showed that white people were associated with higher status than their black counterparts, which isn’t true (Freeman, 2011).  This leads me to my next visual cue of dress.  The way a person dresses shouldn’t associate them with a race or gender, but how they choose to express themselves.  For example, there was a female on twitter who wore a traditional Chinese Kimono to her prom, and people were scrutinizing her for making fun of Chinese culture.  By wearing a Kimono, she wasn’t associating herself with the Chinese, rather expressing that she liked the way she looked and felt in the attire.  People should be able to wear whatever clothing they feel they can best express their personality.  Finally, the people we hang out with is seen as a visual cue.  For instance, Dolezal claims she felt more involved in the black community when she adopted her two younger black siblings.  By raising them she felt connected to other black moms (Cohen, 2015).  Overall, there are many visual cues as a society we use to determine a person’s race and gender, and I would argue there are as many non-visual cues such as a person’s hometown that are used in the determination as well.

My ideas regarding race and gender has been shaped in a variety of ways including my family, community, education, and media. First, my family influenced my perception of race and gender by discussing the differences between skin color and body parts at a young age.  They wanted to expose me to these topics early on, so when I started school I understood other children would look differently on the outside but have similar qualities on the inside.  My community also shaped my thoughts on race and gender because I grew up in a community that lacked diversity.  Sadly, this caused me to be very narrow minded on the concept of what made a man and woman until I started school at Michigan State.  During my time in high school, I believed someone’s gender was determined by their body parts.  However, I have taken a few courses and learned from peers that a person’s body type doesn’t always determine their gender.  These experiences altered my beliefs, so I understand a person can identify with the opposite gender or not know exactly what gender they are.  Finally, media plays a major part in almost everyone’s life, so based on what media we are exposed to determines our concept of race and gender.  The way media captions their articles and posts photos, such as mug shots affects how we perceive race and gender.  Also, the media does certain things to stir a reaction that causes unnecessary confusion on how people perceive race and gender.  Personally, if people didn’t listen to media, they would be able to make their own thoughts on their perception of race and gender without influence from others telling them what they are supposed to hear.  Overall, my family, community, education, and the media has shaped the way I perceive race and gender.

Cohen, I. (2015). Watch Rachel Dolezal’s Long, Unbelievably Incoherent Interview with Melissa Harris-Perry. The National Review. Retrieved from https://www.nationalreview.com/2015/06/dolezal-interview-isaac-cohen/. 

Freeman, J. B., Penner, A. M., Saperstein, A., Scheutz, M., & Ambady, N. (2011). Looking the Part: Social Status Cues Shape Race Perception. PLoS ONE.