Cultural Diversity Essays (624 words) - Black, Color, Darkness

Cultural Identity is described as many different things: ethnicities, beliefs, languages, or even how a person looks compared to you or me. Although no person is the same, everyone is culturally diverse including me. Coming from a German, Italian, and Irish heritage is what makes me a diverse individual, but one thing a person must not forger is that one person is no different from the next. For instance, in the poem ?Dinner Guest: Me? there is nothing different about this black man compared to the white men except for his color. Therefore, why do the white men treat him so differently? What makes this black me so different from the white men besides his color? What makes him so different from you or me? The only real answer for these types of questions is how you think the black man is different from you or me. Even friends that you have had for years are different in ways that might not be apparent to you, but could be apparent to someone else if it is in common interest to both of them. You can never know everything about one person but this isn?t what makes you a person. A person is not made by where they?ve come from or what color they might be but from the experiences and people they?ve had to help them through life. In the poem, ?Dinner Guest: Me? all the white men see when they look at this black man is his color. They don?t see an intelligent black man sitting in front of them. All they see is what they think he is, an incompetent black man. All the black man is thinking to himself nothing will ever come of what the white men think of him. He thinks the white men will remain ignorant of who he really is on the inside instead of what he looks like on the out. This black man c ould be one of the smartest people alive but because they just judge him by the color he is they will never really know who he is or what he will become. My culture is what makes me and it will always be apart of whom I am and what I will become. I am living and breathing proof of what my heritage and my culture has made me. It has played a big role in my life as far as helping me to become an outspoken young woman. No one can tell my any different because I am confident this is who I am and the person I have become thanks to the people in my life. I just wish the black man would have spoken up to the white men at the dinner table and made them realize that he is not stupid and that he is sitting there listening to every word that they are saying. Making the white men know that he is an intelligent black man who speaks for himself. In my opinion cultural diversity plays a big role in who you are and what you become. I know my identity has been shaped by my culture and heritage because I know there is a small piece of everyone that I am close too and that surrounds me in my personality and no one can take that away from me except me. Just like in the poem, not one of those white men can take the blacks man intelligence except for him. He is the only one that can say he is stupid because that might be what he thinks or believes. A person is always the same person no matter who they are, where they come from, or what they look like.