Thursday, November 13, 2008

Sociology Fact

Gender trumps race in my self identification process.
Let me explain. I'm in an exercise class that is comprised of 6 Black women, 1 White woman, 1 Black man, and 1 White man (me). Yes, I notice these things.
If you ask me about my minority status in the class, I will assume that you are talking about my status as one of the few males in the class. And when it comes to identifying with and chatting with my classmates, I gravitate to the other guy in the class not the other White person. We chat about guy stuff and communicate in an easy casual manner even though we don't know each other well. By contrast, while there's tons of guy stuff to talk about (I wear a Wizards t-shirt, the other guys got a Dallas Cowboys shirt on, 2 subjects right there), there's no "white stuff" small talk subjects out there and I guess I'd be disturbed if there was. So gender easily tops race in terms of identification. But vive le difference!
I'm not sure why I thought of this now. Maybe it was the election.

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