Inherent Differences and Social Categories

Due to the difference between people, there have formed many social categories that label people in different groups. Based on the ethics, cultural backgrounds, intellectual degrees, financial conditions, and social statuses, people are labeled with different categories. I am not very comfortable with these labels and categories. That seems to set people apart and enables only people with the same label or in the same category to join together. That is where the social hierarchy comes from. Before I came to study in the US, I enjoyed a carefree and wealthy life in China due to my family background. Many people said that I was lucky to be born in such a good family. I was privileged in many aspects and easily made many friends. My family could offer me an opportunity to study abroad while many of my classmates didn’t have such a chance, even though they had better performances than me in the school. However, when I came to the US for further study, I lost all those privileges and was labeled in another category. I was from a different race, a different cultural background, and a different social class. I didn’t have common rights as a native citizen and I had to try hard to be accepted because I am a foreigner. Based on the social rules that label the category, I have to befriend with other international students from China. Nevertheless, it is never my intention to be labeled and limited within a certain group. People are supposed to understand and communicate with each other. That is the way we could achieve democracy and mutual prosperity.

Through the Implicit Association Tests, our subconsciousness and potential concepts could be exposed. I am eager for the pursuing for democracy and equality of the human society. According to my self-understanding, I will never hold any discrimination to anyone. However, after I take the Implicit Association Tests, I was a little shocked. According to the result, I still hold a racial concept of the White’s privilege over the Black. The test shows that subconsciously, I’d like to assign white people with good words like “pleasant” and assign black people with bad words like “unpleasant.” Does this result make me a racist? I don’t think so. I still firmly insist on the democracy and equality in the human society. Maybe this result confirms with Kirk & Okazawa-Rey’s theory that the formation of social categories is based on difference. People, in nature, are different from each other. Every individual holds his own unique experience with different impacts from every aspect of the society. Due to the different backgrounds and influences, people’s interpretations and understandings are different. The democracy and equality mean to achieve understanding and compromises when they differences collide with each other. The most effective way is through communication and dialogue. When people communicate with each other, “they are challenged to step beyond their prescribed reality to allow for more openness and newer understandings of self and group identity” (Zuniga “Dialogue”). Humanity’s need for companion and attachment may bond two persons together, but this relationship is not strong enough to go beyond this difference that people initially have. These differences set people into different categories and social groups. Then form the social order to organize the whole society. In order to go beyond the limit of these differences, people need to deepen their contacts and communications with each other. Effective dialogues and contacts could reduce the negative influence brought by these differences. It is unpractical to expect the absolute understanding due to these differences, but the increasing understanding could break the bondage of the social categories set by these differences.