Racism Autobiography: Exploring Socialization and Identity Formation

This assignment is a sociological autobiography exploring the author's personal experiences with racism, analyzed through a sociological lens. The author examines how societal factors, particularly socialization within family and community, shaped their understanding of race and the development...Read More

Running head: RACISM AUTOBIOGRAPHY 1
Racism Autobiography
Student’s Name
University

RACISM AUTOBIOGRAPHY 2
Racism Autobiography
Racism is one of the widely debated issues in many countries in Europe because it is an
aspect that seems to affect most people. However, we may be blaming the people who are racists
and not blaming the socialization process that children go through to learn and develop the racist
elements. As a child, when I was born I had no idea that I was white or black and had no idea of
anything like race. This means that I was born tabula rasa and was only supposed to get exposed
to good knowledge through the socialization process within my society. The socialization
process that a child goes through at an early age shapes the perceptions and view that they have
on the people and the environment around them (Pon, 2009). This means that racism is a social
element that is acquired from the societies that we live in based on how we are socialized.
The racism elements that I have and portray are based on the cultural elements that I
acquired in the family and society that I live in. Since cultures only thrive if they provide ways of
communication and assisting their people to understand the requirements of society. People are
split into different groups based on racism that has developed over time and segregated society
into different groups. This makes differences between popular culture and minority culture.
Popular cultures are seen as the best and are defined by the superiority of a race (Nelson, 2009).
Thus in the society that I was brought up in, I was culturally made to understand that racism is an
element of cultural superiority. Through the cultural resources that were invested in me, I was
made to understand the importance of race and how belonging to a certain race gave me social
identity and status within the society. Bizumic (2014), suggests that by having such resources, I
was able to develop an autonomous cultural life that defines people by color and leads to the
monopoly of cultural resources that spread the myths about being white. This led to the

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development of ethnocentrism elements that have made me develop racial prejudice that makes
me view people differently.
Further, when growing up, black and white children or children of different races will
play together and share everything because they are yet to be socialized. Despite the fact that
race is a troublesome concept that has no generally agreed upon meaning, people have developed
racism attitudes based on the definition of skin color (Burt, Lei, & Simons, 2017). Thus this
means that when socializing their children, parents can intentionally or unintentionally send
verbal and non-verbal racist cues to their children that can make them adapt such traits. I have to
admit that as an individual I have been socialized through intentional and unintentional racism to
understand what race means and the difference between my skin color and that of others who do
not look like me. To develop racist attributes people learn through primary and secondary
socialization processes that they acquire as they develop.
Primary socialization is the process through which a child learns the aspects of the
society and communities that they come from. Since as a child, I spend most of my time with the
family members before starting going to school, then I was nurtured to be a racist in different
ways. I was exposed to racial attitudes within my family that I entailed, the type of movies that
were watched, the music that was listened to, the food, the dressing style and even the television
channels that we watched. Everything within the family was socially inclined to being white.
This means that when growing up, I never knew that indeed there are other people who were not
white like who existed in this world. I do not blame on the world but I blame it on nurture
process that entails the conscious and unconscious efforts exerted on a child.
Learning through nature entails the events that take place within the environment that a
child lives in. this means that the situations in the external environment that a child gets exposed

RACISM AUTOBIOGRAPHY 4
to and the impressions that are created to his or her mind shape the overall attitude that the child
develops towards some situations (Toomey, Shramko, Flores, & Anhalt, 2018). Thus when I
started going with my family, my view of the world and racism started changing. Since I was
able to see things and question where I did not understand, the socialization process still
inculcated the racial norms into me, which led to a permanent development of the racist self. For
example, when going for shopping or to church I would encounter people whose skin color was
different from mine and my parents would justify the racial differences between us and the other
people. Here my parents strategically ostracized a plan to white people in a different position
than the rest of the people. This means that my parents were counteracting my inquisitive nature
by giving me racial messages that made me understand that racism was something that is widely
accepted. This included the kind of books, games, movies, music and even the stores that we
went to for shopping. This socialization process made me understand that indeed people have
different colors and the colors are a form of inequality between them. Thus the messages that I
received emphasizing pride in being white and the ones that emphasized the differences in the
races. Thus this shows that racial socialization is not only prominent to minority groups but also
exacerbated by majority groups as a way of perpetuating discrimination among the races.
Ringmar (2015), argues that in the looking glass self, Goffman presents the dramaturgical
perspective of human actions that is understood based on how people exhibit certain behaviors at
different times. This means that the self grows out of the interpersonal relationships that people
have within society. This implies that people shape themselves based on the perceptions that are
created to shape what other people perceive and confirm other people’s opinion. This means that
the social experiences that people go through shape an individual’s personality. According to
Mead, the looking glass self describes the process where individuals base their sense of self on

RACISM AUTOBIOGRAPHY 5
how they believe and view them. This implies that the judgments that people receive are used to
measure their own worth and behaviors (Rahim, 2010). Thus through socialization, the self
develops based on the social settings that people live in. Since the self is not there at birth, it
means that human beings develop their self through social experience. The theory of social
behaviorism explains that all behaviors are reflexes produced by the response to stimuli in the
environment that one lives in or are consequences of the history that the individual has gone
through reinforcement or punishment. This implies that as an individual I was socialized to learn
how to portray racist tendencies through conditioning that developed as a result of reinforcement.
To apply the racist elements, the socialization process takes place in the backstage while
the real racist actions take place in the front stage. Thus Smalls-Glover, Williams, Zuckerman, &
Thomas (2013) argue that when being socialized within the family, the looking glass self can be
used to understand the processes that take place in the backstage since they are used to prepare
an individual on how to present himself/herself in the front stage. When relating with the family
as a child, the racist tendencies are learned at the backstage where I was being prepared to appear
in the front stage. Thus the society unconsciously prepares people in the backstage on how they
need to appear in the front stage through conditioning that creates the required attributes in the
individual (Sullivan, Landau, Young, & Stewart, 2014). When with family members, the events
that take place in the family can be said to belong to the backstage since they act as preparations
on how the individual will be prepared. From the concept of the behaviorism by Mead, the racist
attributes are developed in the backstage and then presented to the front stage by the individual.
The looking glass self is thus used to define how the individual needs to present the racist
elements and how to approach the issues that revolve around race.

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Therefore, from the socialization process and the acculturation that I went through, I
developed ethnocentrism attitudes that made me understand the differences in races and how
racial attitudes can be fused into children when they grow up. Thus I would have been a different
person if I had been socialized differently and the events that I went through when I was a child
could have changed my approach towards people of different races. Thus racism is an element
that I developed due to the way I was socialized. This means that the events that I presented in
the front stage are developed in the backstage where I learned how to present myself as a racist
person in society and when relating with other people.

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References
Bizumic, B. (2014). Who Coinedthe Conceptof Ethnocentrism?A Brief Report. Journalof Social
and Political Psychology, 2(1), 3-10.
Burt, C. H., Lei, M. K., & Simons, R. L. (2017). Racial Discrimination, Racial Socialization, and
Crime: Understanding Mechanisms of Resilience. Social Problems, 64(3), 414-438.
Nelson, T. (2009). Handbook of prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination. New York:
Psychology Press.
PON, G. (2009). Cultural Competency as New Racism: An Ontology of Forgetting. Journal of
Progressive Human Services, 20, 59-71.
Rahim, E. A. (2010). Marginalized through the “Looking Glass Self; The development of
Stereotypes and Labeling. Journal of International Academic Research, 10(1).
Ringmar, E. (2015). The Problem of the Modern Self: Imitation, Will Power and the Politics of
Character. Presented at European International Studies Associa, 61. Giardino Naxos.
Smalls-Glover, C., Williams, J. L., Zuckerman, A., & Thomas, D. (2013). Parental Socialization
in Response toRacism: Implications for Family Health. Psychology Faculty Publication,
137.
Sullivan, D., Landau, M. J., Young, I. F., & Stewart, S. A. (2014). The dramaturgical perspective
in relation to self and culture. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 107(5), 767-
790.
Toomey, R., Shramko, M., Flores, M., & Anhalt, K. (2018). Family Socialization for Racism and
Heterosexism: Experiences of Latinx Sexual Minority Adolescents and Young Adults.
Journal of Family Issues, 3586-3611.