Racial characteristics - Essay Example

Running head: racial characteristics 14th May The identity of an individual can be defined in different ways. Society usually indicates one’s identity by race, gender, class, and so on. Personal experience leads me to believe that race is always a significant reason that affects my life. Generally, society usually classifies race by our appearance. Because of my black hair and yellow skin, people know that I’m an Asian straight away. For the case of Panther, John, and Daniel in the God Grew Tired of us, they were identified by their black color.

Once my race is identified, it is believed that I must have certain characteristics, such as good at testing and hard working.Practically, stereotypes of racial discrimination affect my life negatively in education. As an international student, I need to have a super high SAT to get into a good university in the U.S. Especially for Ivy League universities, it seems usual for the admission office that Asian students have a SAT score with 2300+. Even though we work hard on it, admission office personnel believe that Asians are good at testing naturally and are not surprised about it.

But if a student from a different racial group scored a 2300 on SAT test, the admission offices tend to be more surprised of the student’s academic achievement.However, there are also many positive racial characteristics of Asians. It is widely accepted that Asian students are very hard working. When I was in high school, Asian students were always academically successful. Most Asians choose to spend more time on practicing the problems. Thus, it’s a worldwide acceptance that Asian students are very hard working in schools.

Race is a stereotype. Society tends to assume that one has certain characteristics because of his or her race. However, as the result of cultural changes, individual may depict certain behaviors. For example, the strange foods, intense culture of US and new customs resulted to shock for the three boys. Sometimes it can be critical and judgmental because many people do not fit their racial characteristics. However, there are also many positive racial characteristics that help people to give others good impressions.

Racial characteristics have disadvantages and privileges.