Cultural Synthesis Essay

“They come in and they profile me and say that I’m not who I am,” said Deshawn Currie, a black teen, after being accused of theft and being pepper sprayed by a bunch of cops in his white foster parent’s home. This incident shows that our culture and race still affects the way that we view others. Black people are still being accused of crime when they are really innocent, and they are still being racially profiled by white people. There is a difference between seeing people as a different color or race, and racially profiling people as people who aren’t as good as you. This is still a big problem in our society and it is definitely something that affects some people’s lives in a negative way. Many people think that cultural differences don’t have an effect on the way that we view others.

These people just need to watch the news and see all of the different racial profiling incidents that are happening. Just as I mentioned above, a black teen was pepper sprayed for simply walking into his own home! How can someone think that cultural differences do not affect the way that people are treated and how they are seen by others? This just goes to show that part of these people’s cultural identity shows that they aren’t interested in knowing about the culture they live in. Whether it’s race, whether it’s color, whether it’s heritage, whether it’s religion, or whether it’s simply gender, there is always somebody or some social group that judges you, accuses you, or sees you as different.

Gender also has an effect on the way that we view others no matter what your color or race is. Now I’m not saying that one gender is better than the other, but you know what I’m saying. Guys and girls always think things about each other that are sometimes true and sometimes not true at all. One thing that guys are accused of is having horrible memory. If you think about this, it’s actually true. Girls do seem to remember more things than guys. In the article Dudes have horrible memories, Melissa Dahl says, “Researchers are finding some preliminary evidence that women are indeed better at recalling memories, especially autobiographical ones” (1). This makes sense as I don’t have the sharpest memory myself, and we can see why from this quote.

Girls have better memory than guys. Some guys will say that girls are stupid. Some guys will say that girls aren’t good at anything. Some guys will say that girls aren’t as good as them. Some guys are prideful idiots and think they are better and more successful than girls. Some guys think that being a guy in comparison to being a girl is the difference between being able to play football and just being able to play volleyball and soccer. If you look at the world and see all of the accomplishments that girls have made that guys haven’t, you can see that girls are just as good at most things that guys can do. Charles Lindberg was the first American pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Amelia Earhart answered back and accomplished the goal of being the first women to do the same thing. It was almost like she was proving that women can meet the same accomplishments of guys.

The last part of culture I want to talk about is one’s heritage. Heritage really does play a big part in the way that we view others whether it’s because of their religion or because of their nationality. Different people grow up following certain practices and ways of life and other people are definitely guilty of judging and thinking bad things about people who live this way. In the article An Indian Father’s Plea, the father of an Indian child going to an American school says to his sons teacher, “He is five years old, in kindergarten, and I can’t understand why you have already labeled him as a slow learner”(1). The child, Wind-Wolf, practices Indian culture and is trying to adapt to a new way of learning in a different culture than his own.

The teacher just assumes that he is a slow learner just because he isn’t picking up the new culture very fast. This is Wind-Wolf’s heritage and it’s the way that he grew up and the way he has lived his whole life. At school, people are teased and mocked for the things they practice just because it is different than how they live. Religion is also a part of one’s heritage that people look at as different. People with different religions practice certain clothing styles, different ways of praying, and different kinds of churches. All of these things affect the way others view them, whether people think it’s weird or whether it’s cool. I’ve even seen instance where people are getting mocked and yelled at for being open about being Christian, and this is because people think it’s stupid and different.

All of these parts of culture are a huge part of what makes people see others as different and somebody is always judging the way people do things. Even though some people might not think so, it’s very true. Race, gender, and heritage all affect the way the way that we view others whether we like it or not. This is just how the world is and it is actually sad in some cases when people are labeled as something just because of their color. The world is at its best, and the world is at its worst. There are so many things that are getting worse as time goes on and there are also so many things like technology that are getting better as time goes on. Cultural differences are becoming more accepted than in the past, and these are one of the things that we don’t know whether it will continue to get better or begin to get worse.