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Kwame Anthony Appiah's Racial Identities

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In today's society, many of us are label gay or straight, black or white . Do these labels define who we are? Does a specific genre of music or style of cooking belong to a specific group of people? Kwame Anthony Appiah discusses the issues of identity, race and culture in his essay "Racial Identities". Appiah uses references from poets and scholars who see different or similar views on race and culture. Matthew Arnold, Thomas Sowell, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Charles Taylor are few of the scholars and poets that are used in "Racial Identities" and how their literary texts, views and issues contributed to Appiah's essay.
Matthew Arnold poem was used as a reference in the "Racial Identities", where he discusses culture. Arnold was born on December …show more content…
Du Bois's literary text in his essay. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born on February 23, 1868, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts (Taylor). Du Bois's ancestral roots are African American, French, Dutch and Native American, but he acknowledge his self as an African American. He was raised in the era where blacks and whites were segregated. Du Bois received a doctoral degree in Social Science at Harvard University. He wanted to stop the poor treatments of blacks living in the States. He told blacks to be "inspired with divine faith of our black mothers, that our blood and the dust of battle will march victorious" (Taylor). He did not bring religion into his arguments about discrimination. Du Bois is one of the founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Color People (NAACP) and the Pan- African Congress. Du Bois assists in the leadership of the Peace Information Center which is an anti- atomic bomb group. He was the first editor of the NAACP journal, the Crisis. In the journal Crisis, Du Bois wrote about his support for black artists, writers and musicians. He also spoke out on the unfair treatments of blacks in the Crisis. W.E.B. Du Bois's journals were misleading according to Appiah in the essay "Racial Identities". Du Bois idea of Badge of Color was a concept of being labeled black or white but Appiah found the Badge of Color faulty. He believes labelling a group of …show more content…
Hacking was born on February 18, 1936 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada ("Hacking"). He was a writer and philosopher. His literature analyzed methodology that gives pleasure to philosophers and non-philosophers. Hacking understanding of science became entwined with culture wars. According to the journal Social Construction of What, Hacking point of view were not socially accepted but was respected by other philosophers. His understanding on "how culture was rest on ancient philosophical concerns as well as his taxonomy of the kinds of social construction" (Hetherington). Appiah states how Hacking defends "dynamic nominalism" on how individuals are labeled. Appiah continue to analyze Hacking theory with black American and how actions can shape and define an individual to a group of people. Appiah disagree with Hacking's idea of "garcon de café". According to Appiah, it does not make sense to ask someone if a job define who he/she is but the role of the job that is

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