MY Perception of MY Own Identity

This week as we learned about racism, and the Fatal Flood, topics of great interest to me, I was surprised to find myself thinking more about the identity exercise and the social identity wheel exercise. Since Wednesday I have honestly been upset as to why this was so. I mean we are talking about something as huge a racism and two little exercises that we did in class are for some reason or another what I keep thinking about. Why is that?! Thinking about why this is, I have concluded that maybe it's because I have thought a lot about racism before this class, or learned a little information on the Fatal Flood. Yet those answers don't really satisfy me... Who knows why I keep looking at these sheets, all I know is that I do.

I am going to break down these exercises and explain my selections for each:
Under each category we were told to label each category with how we feel about it. A triangle for if we feel it's important to us, a square if we feel unsafe or uncomfortable, a circle if we feel safe and comfortable, a rectangle if we feel oppressed and discriminated, and a star if we feel power and privilege. My markings were as follows:
Race= star, square
Sexual Orientation= circle, star
Language= circle, star
Ability= circle, star
Class= star, square
Religion= triangle, circle
Immigration= star
Age= circle
Gender= rectangle, triangle circle

Some of the observations and surprises that I felt after reflecting on my choices were the dominance of stars I put down. 6 out of 9 areas I feel power and privilege. That's a lot of power and privilege! Another interesting thing that I found was that I put down the same amount of circles, 6 out of 9 areas. That's a good amount of safety and comfort. On the flip slide, I only put down one rectangle, that being under gender. Something I noticed was that I regularly think about gender related oppression and discrimination that I feel, experience, or see, but I seldom recognize all the many areas that I identify with where I feel power, privilege, safety and comfort. This made me upset to think that I lack recognition in such areas and dwell on the area I feel oppressed and discriminated against.

For the Social Identity Wheel exercise we were asked to think about a variety of categories and break them down by labeling with one of four ratings. The ratings were: #1= identities you think most often about, #2= identities you think about least often, #3= your own identities you would like to learn more about, #4= identities that have the strongest effect on how you see yourself as a person.
My markings were as follows:
Ethnicity= 3
Socio-economic class=1
Gender= 1,4
Sexual Orientation= 2
Age=2
National Origin=3
First Language=2
Physical, Emotional, Developmental Ability= 1,4
Religion or Spiritual Affliction= 1, 4
Race= 3

One of the biggest things that I noticed was that in all places that I put a 4, I also put a 1. So in the areas that I think about most often, they are also the identities that I have the strongest effect on how I feel as a person.  But, I do have one area that have a 1 that stands alone (socio-economic class). That combination of the two numbers is something that I find very interesting because gender and religion were the only two areas on the identity exercise that I labeled with two of the same shapes and I marked them the same numbers on the wheel exercise.

I enjoyed these activities, because it allowed me to see and reflect on the areas and places I identify myself.