Papaer About Me

There are many races and ethnicities in the United States. While we are all in the same country we have many differences. These differences are sometimes noticeable just by looking at a person. Other times you can only find out about them only by diving deeper into the person’s background and see their cultural differences. I’m going to give you an example of race and ethnicity by presenting a profile of myself.

I’m a twenty-three year old African American male from Chicago. My great great grandparents were slaves in Mississippi. Sometime during the slavery days a slave owner had sex with one of my grandmothers, which I have lighter skin than most African Americans. Since I have slave ancestry, I have no idea which part of Africa my forefathers came from. Another reason I know that I am African American is because my phenotype matches that of people from African descent.

I was raised on the south side of Chicago, so my subculture derives from what I was around growing up. I was around the whole “ghetto” culture; baggy pants, rap music, gangs, etc. Even though I was around those things growing up I didn’t fully absorb the surrounding culture. Growing up I did adopt the local fashion and slang, but I eventually grew out of that. I never adopted the local mind set, which was gangster life. That consisted of, dealing drugs, not excelling in school, treating women badly, ready to fight at a drop of a hat, and the mindset that the (white)man is out to get them. I never found those qualities attractive so I never adopted them. Since I never acted like the people around me, I was mostly shunned as an outcast. It wasn’t considered “cool” to not conform to that way of life. This is what I think is the ultimate downfall of my culture. Anyone not conforming get picked on and some are forced to conform. All this does is creates a cycle of people not excelling in academics because it’s the “cool” thing to do. This creates a negative image of my culture and ultimately my race as well. Even though I was raided around mostly rap and R&B I like all genres of music. Growing up I had to listen to other genre in secret, since if any of my peers found out I would be labeled as trying to be white, which was looked down upon. When growing up I picked up on the surrounding language which they called