Every so often I dip back into books I’ve read usually prompted by a conversation, an article or another book.

Recently had a conversation with a friend about identify and they said we don’t have to take on the identity others force on us.

Some people may have the ability and privilege to be able to totally assimilate or mask characteristics about themselves. However, there are ‘others’, like me who are not able to do so whether we want to, or not, whether others want us to or not, or whether we just want to be our ‘authentic’ selves which so many people have been encouraging people to do.

In reality there are consequences in doing so, and consequences in not assimilating.

Damned if you do. Damned if you don’t.

Below is the extract from Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste that I revisited following the conversation.

“We think we ‘see’ race when we encounter certain physical differences among people such as skin color, eye shape, and hair texture,”the Smedleys wrote. “What we actually’see’ …are the learned social meanings , the stereotypes, that have been linked to those physical features by the ideology of race and the historical legacy it has left us.”