YETMO

"Who are you?"

Identity.

How is it determined and by whom? Can the individual set his or her own identity or is that privilege left to a third party of society at large? I suppose the answer is all of the above although most of us would probably say that we form and control our own.

Who am I? I'm male, married with children, white, and middle-aged. In that order.

It's interesting how we view ourselves. Recently I was sitting around with my friend, Ron, discussing and solving, of course, all the world's problem. Don't ask me how, but the conversation got around to how he saw himself. Did he think of himself first as a man or as a black person?

He looked at me like I was crazy and had just announced that I planned to parade down Pennsylvania Avenue naked. He guffawed. Ron's good at doing that.

He knew that I already knew his answer. After all the time we've worked and socialized together, the response was predictable. Black first, male second.

This got me thinking. If people probably prefer to self-identify, I wondered if Ron's sense of identity was because of black pride or the effects of being a member of a racial minority.

Again, knowing Ron, I knew the answer. Notwithstanding an obvious sense of racial pride, his identity was more outer-determined than inner. All his life he knew he was black. The world reminded him constantly. It wouldn't allow him to feel otherwise.

Perhaps minorities of any kind stand out due to their inherent "unusualness," or different, status. My only personal experience with this phenomenon comes from being left-handed. The world is not designed for us and we just have to learn to fit into a right-handed planet. All my fellow lefties know what I'm talking about. Righties may not. Just ask any lefthander about scissors, irons, and shirt buttons for starters.

Being in the lefty minority is small potatoes compared to being in a racial minority. Left-handedness doesn't impact my ability to compete and receive fair treatment in our economic, social and justice systems. At least, I don't think it does. [Make a note: study this further and report back.]

Race is different. It's always different. Will it always be so, now and forever? How sad and dreadful. If it's true that we're doomed to be a band of peoples who first and always are race-conscious and limit or deprive others of liberties and opportunities on that basis alone, then chew on this.

Believe it or not, racial treatment in the U.S. for blacks compared with other countries may be bad but it's "comparatively" better. Again, that's according to Ron, my resident expert on such things. He's traveled the world for years in his job and unequivocally avers that his general sense of comfort, equality, and opportunity is far greater here than in any of the dozens of other countries he's worked and lived. Not that he's jumping for joy with America's track record, but when it's put into perspective...

Presumably this may be as good as it gets. Now that's a sobering piece of food for thought. How should we react to this? Give ourselves a pat on the back or a kick in the backside?