What are the different ways that identity plays a role in how people behave, are treated, organize (around a cause such as feminism) or are discriminated against? 

In Cynthia’s culture in Kenya, being a female means you are chosen to do the housework and daily chores to ensure a stable home. If you are a male, school is available for you and it is expected that you attend. In this society, it is uncommon that women graduate secondary schools. They are discriminated against if the women choose school, it’s almost taboo. “Sometimes intercultural encounters make us aware of our own ethnocentrism...” After reading the article on Cynthia, I realized how important an education is and how lucky any women is to get the chance to go to school, but also we need to raise awareness of these issues.

Question: What are the different ways that identity plays a role in how people behave, are treated, organize (around a cause such as feminism), or are discriminated against.

     Identity plays a big part in how people identify themselves and thus also how they organize. In the article Blood Quantum by Christina Berry the author discusses the concept of blood quantum which is used to categorize which individuals belong to the Cherokee tribes. The concept is foreign to the old ways of the Cherokee who have tended to “adopt” individuals with no concern of their ancestry or heritage. As Berry herself writes in the article, I believe there should be more focus on self-identity and an individual’s involvement with said community. In my opinion, the blood quantum also results in discrimination as it seeks to lessen the heterogeneity (9) within an already compromised minority in what many times seems to be based on economic interests (13). An additional consequence of this exclusion of people who identify themselves as Cherokee is that they also will not obtain the economic benefits that certain Native American tribes enjoy due to their classification as sovereign micro states. The economic condition is also applied to poorer tribes who only receive government funding for those tribe members who fulfill the criteria, making it harder to accept new tribe members whom they possibly may not be able to feed and care for. The blood quantum essentially keeps old colonizing values alive by classifying people by blood percentages, skull sizes, and methods based on race biology.

      Berry, Christina. “Blood Quantum – Why It Matters, And Why It Shouldn’t.” AllThingsCherokee. AllThingsChereokee, n.d. Web. 28 Jan. 2017.

     Martin, Judith n, and Thomas k Nakayama. Intercultural Communication in Contexts. 7th ed.

www.allthingscherokee.com/blood-quantum/

Since the beginning of time women have always played a vital role when it comes to nurturing and being the foundation of a family but however, when it comes to the working field men have always been superior to women. Society has always been sexes about women in the working field. Women and men can have the same position and men will still earn more because of the fact that they identify as being stronger then women and they also have less emotions so they can make a decision based on logic and not emotions. However, technically women are stronger then men if you really think about it we as women have to work, take care of children, take care of a household, and also maintain a marriage so pretty much a women can do it all, whereas to men just work and the women does the rest. one of the success stories from the website global funding for women, there was a success story on a girl named Cynthia Muhonja when she was 11 she lost her mom to HIV/AIDS and she had to take care of her siblings and go to school as well. After she became involved with the global funding for women, she rose to be top student finishing with an A average while taking care of her siblings. Cynthia believes that if women understand their rights and work for them, then they will grow a society that has a different mindset about the sexes, they will grow a society where the same value is placed on all genders. whether you are a boy or girl is doesn’t really matter. Overall, Identity plays a role in how women identify to society, men are identified as superior to women and stronger than women, hopefully one day Women will be view more that just caretakers and caregivers and will be given the same rights as men when it comes to the working world.  

What are the different ways that identity plays a role in how people behave, are treated, organize or are discriminated against?

Downtown Beirut, Lebanon’s capital is a beautiful place with shops and cafes but there never seems to be any people. The city has been divided ever since the civil war in the 1970s. "It is a fragmented city, made of more or less self-sufficient neighborhoods, or sets of neighborhoods, with clear, segregated lines,” says Mona Harb a resident and professor at a college in Beirut. There is much division in Beirut between the people because of the different religions they practice. Palestinian, Christian, Sunni and Shiite Muslim are the different religions. It is even divided into different sections, Muslim West and Christian East. People can’t even go into bars where they don't practice the same religion. Identity is the most important thing to the people of Beirut. The whole city is organized around maintaining different parts for different religions. This is how identity plays a role in how the people of Beirut are organized and how they behave.

Fordham, Alice. “Ghosts Of The Past Still Echo In Beirut’s Fragmented Neighborhoods.”

NPR

, NPR, 2 Oct. 2014.

Martin, Judith n, and Thomas k Nakayama. Intercultural Communicatio in Contexts. 7th ed. Page 5.

http://www.npr.org/2014/10/02/353042413/ghosts-of-the-past-still-echo-in-beiruts-fragmented-neighborhoods

The Demographic Imperative: Blood Quantum

By Shane Kellum

What are the different ways that identity plays a role in how people behave, are treated, organize, or are discriminated against?

Christina Berry’s article, “Blood Quantum - Why It Matters, and Why It Shouldn’t,” touches on how blood quantum is used to determine one’s eligibility for citizenship in a recognized Indian tribe. Quantum, however, was never an issue before the U.S. government involved itself in Indian Affairs. As Berry states in her article, “many American Indian tribes practiced adoption, a process whereby non-tribal member would be adopted into the tribe and over time become fully functioning members of the group.” In other words, a member of a foreign Indian tribe could become an equal in the eyes of the indigenous tribe. If this is the case, should it not be left to the tribes, themselves, to decide who qualifies as a tribal member?

Intercultural Communications Contexts, by Judith N. Martin and Thomas K. Nakayama uses the terms heterogeneous and homogeneous to describe the differences and similarities in a group, culture, or population, respectively (8). The book states that, “instead of thinking of cultures as either heterogeneous or homogeneous, it is ore useful to think about cultures as more or less heterogeneous (or more or less homogeneous)” (8). The authors mean to say that it is important to not only see what sets a person’s culture apart from our own; we must also take into account the similarities that that individual’s culture shares with ours. As this relates to blood quantum, what percentage American Indian (i.e. the difference) should not qualify them to being a tribe member, but rather their cultural connection (i.e. the similarity) to that tribe.

The Demographic Imperative

What are different ways that identity plays a role in how people behave, are treated, organize, or are discriminated against?

Religious diversity can play a big role in one’s life on behavior, how they are, treated or are discriminated against. For example, blood quantum can be an issue on the way tribal natives behave or are treated. Blood quantum is the percentage of your blood to determine your authenticity. According to Christina Berry, The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians requires that you be 1/16 or higher to join. That’s similar to saying that I’m not Hispanic or African American because I'm mixed with both ethnic groups. A percentage shouldn’t indicate if you belong to that nationality or not.

-Bruce Davis

What are the different ways that identity plays a role in how people behave, are treated, organize (around a cause such as feminism), or are discriminated against?

Self-Awareness that comes through intercultural learning may involve an increased awareness of being caught up in political, economic, and historical systems--- not of our own making. Our age, gender, and race affect how others perceive you and how you perceive yourself. You build your identity through the choices you make. In the class activity we did for Beirut, we categorized examples for religious diversity, relationships with new immigrants, and immigration and economic class. For religious diversity, Shia owns the market area. Also, there is a Muslim West and Christian East and southern. Religion is a key factor in causing the people of Beirut to become more diverse because people of one religion automatically oppose people of another religion. Lastly, whenever somebody from Beirut brings up gender inequality, people get defensive and argue that it is not as bad as it is in Iran or Saudi Arabia. But progress still needs to be implemented because women are forced to abide by these absurd laws.

Martin, Judith; Nakayama, Thomas. Intercultural Communication in Contexts. 6th edition, 2013. The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.