Support the Indie Screen scene: Watch “Lucky”

A few days ago I attended a test screening of “Lucky”, a film shot entirely in South Africa and in Zulu Hindi and English. The movie centers on a little boy who loses his mother to AIDS and runs off to Durban to attend school. In the midst of his struggles in the city, he meets an elderly Indian woman. As they begin to see the humanity in each other, we are quietly reminded of the long and painful history of racism, segregation and distrust that has shaped them. For more information check out:

http://www.brooklynfilmfestival.org/films/detail.asp?fid=672

I Am Whoever I Say I Am….

In Gary Younge’s book Who Are We he addresses the problem of identity. He utilizes the book as a tool for exploring how we identify ourselves and how those identities inevitably divide us. Younge began by providing the reader with a description of what it was like growing up in England the son of Bajan immigrants. He described his mother as a woman who endured many hardships as a single parent; his father had returned to Barbados leaving his mother in England to care for Younge and his brothers. She was thus defined by society as another single black mother.

The point of Who Are We was to demonstrate to the reader how our identities are intertwined and ever-changing. The book used examples that ranged from the scrutiny of the then Supreme Court justice nominee Sonya Sotomayor, to the election of Barack Obama, to the extreme patriotism that was seen throughout the US after 9/11. In addressing these issues Younge successfully demonstrated that our differences inevitably shape who we are. He also points out that power and identity go hand in hand, and are equally important when defining the ‘other.’ Those who have power, whether it is social or economic, do not have to question their own identities, they simply are who they are. It is that power, according to Younge, that also allows those individuals to define the identities of others and in doing so, determines how the ‘other’ should be treated.

While reading this book I could relate to the idea of intertwining identities. I grew up in a Caribbean neighborhood in Brooklyn where I was a member of only a handful of black American families. I went to elementary school in a predominately black neighborhood but was one of only three children of color in my class. I went to college at Penn State at which my identity was clear, being one of only 1200 black women at a school of 45000. My identity was shaped by where I was and whom I interacted with. In my neighborhood in Brooklyn I was an American, in college I had several identities. I was black, a woman, a New Yorker and a college student. As such, my experience was defined by the racism I encountered, the misogyny I endured, and the resentment I dealt with. At Penn State I dealt with my fair share of ignorance based on race, however, it was the misogyny within my own ethnic group that proved to be the most difficult, and went unaddressed. The resentment that I, and many of my fellow black students, encountered upon returning to our neighborhoods was based on the fact that our educations had made us “talk white.” Thus, my identity had shifted based on my environment. How others define me has had a greater effect on who I am than how I define myself. Identity, as Younge stresses, is fluid. It is shaped not only by us, as we define ourselves, but on how the world views who we are. It is this fluidity that inevitably blurs the lines that divide us.

Although I agree with Younge on the fluidity of identity, I believe that his idea that we don’t need identity does not apply today. With racism, misogyny, homophobia, anti-Semitism and other such prejudices still rampant around the world, to say that identity has no place is to ignore the fact that for many, the struggle to be recognized, based on those identities, is ongoing. I believe that before we can look at each other as simply fellow human beings we must first accept our differences. Fear of the other is ever-present; as Younge describes the immigration issue “their task is not to be fair but to keep gate – to defend the integrity of our boarders from unwanted intruders” (pg.97). If we are to simply become human beings we must embrace what makes us each unique and only then can we move forward, simply ignoring our differences in favor of our similarities is an injustice to all of our struggles.