Randall Cloke

EDU 704

10 March 2017

Social Group Membership

Perhaps most important for my understanding of myself, not every one of my identities

hold equal weight in the collective identity of which they are all a part. This does not mean that

these ‘other’ identities are unimportant to me; far from it, truly. But, when it comes to my

worldview, what I believe, and what I do, they simply are not as prominent in my mind when I

think or act. My white race, my male gender, my working-class background, and my sexual

orientation are a bit more salient than some of the other identities I have.

Each aspect of my identity is one which I have come to realize at different times.

Whether that be my whiteness, my maleness, my gayness, or otherwise, my recognition of them,

and the reflection upon them have occurred at different times, in varying intensity, and with

different results.

As hyper aware as I am now of my whiteness, this was not always the case for me.

Growing up where I did, there was only white people, and so that’s what I recognized people to

be. To see someone of a different skin color was an outlier of an experience; it did not happen

often. As often happens with one’s identity development, early schooling was formative for my

racial identity recognition. In the second grade, my class went from all-white to almost-all-white.

A black boy, Matthew, had moved to town and joined our class. We became friends, and I

realized for the first time that there were a whole lot of other people who looked like Matthew

and not like me and many, even, who looked like neither of us. As I grew older, my classes

became more diverse, and my white identity was only further legitimized in my mind.
 Similarly, my understanding of my male gender is one that I recognized quite early. No

doubt influenced by the socialization I will later detail, I remember wanting toys that were

“meant” for boys. And seeing the differences in the toys in stores or in commercials on TV only

further affirmed what I came to understand as a fundamental difference between boys and girls.

Going to school and seeing the differences in what we wore, what we did with our hair, and how

we acted or had interests in made me think that men and women were different. Early in

childhood I realized I was male, and I have never thought of myself as being anything other than

male.

My working-class upbringing was something I recognized was different than many of my

peers a little later in childhood compared to some of my other identities. Food was not always

plentiful growing up, and so going without a meal was not terribly rare. I thought this was

normal, even going through school. Talking about our meals was not something that we did as

kids at my school; I would seem to think most children would just have interests in other things.

But, as I visited more friends more often at their homes, I saw that they have cabinets and

refrigerators filled with food; I realized that what they experienced was closer to the typical

upbringing than it was for me. A change in guardianship would bring about different living

conditions as I neared teenage years, but I also spent a brief period homeless before that. These

experiences made me recognize my working-class identity, and though my financial means have

increased over the years since, along with all the benefits that come from that, few identities have

been as starkly contrasted in my life as this one.

I have known for a long time that I was not like most of my peers. I have fairly vivid

memories of kindergarten, wherein my male classmates talked about how they liked the girls in
our class. I usually kept pretty quiet when this happened, as I did not feel like my male peers did.

I did not like the girls in our class; I liked some of them.

And my homosexuality is something that I realized at a younger age than seemingly

many of my lesbian and gay peers. In conversations with them, many—granted, not all—started

to question or better know their sexual orientation closer to their pre-teen or early teenaged years.

For me, as I reflect, I knew fairly early on, as my detailing of kindergarten highlights. I also

vividly remember watching television of some kind when I was about ten, seeing two gay men in

a relationship, and realizing that that felt right to me. For me, I should say.

My other identities, including my religion, age, and ability, are all identities which are

less important to me, but nonetheless have been part of the development of identities that are

more important to me.

My religion, which I deemed a few years ago to be Fleeting Catholicism, is one which I

came to recognize when I was in CCD—Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, if you are not

aware—one night and knew that I simply did not want to be there. I appreciated Christ and the

things he taught and believed, but few people I knew actually acted, like we are born, in God’s

image. My family also drifted away from the Church around this time, as the priest abuse

scandals were the straw that broke the camel’s back. After my confirmation, I have only been to

mass once—during freshman orientation at Saint Joseph’s University. It was here where I met

many people, including one of my professors, a Jesuit priest, who represented what I believed to

be true Catholicism. They gave me hope in faith for others, but I have since deemed it something

that I do not need or desire.

My young-adult age is one that is also fleeting in a way, as I get closer and closer to my

30s, something I never imagined would happen. I have come to love my age and my millennial
generation. My age identity is one which has developed intertwined with my personal politics,

and as I have come to realize the great power that we, as a generation, can wield. Despite this,

my age is not as important to me compared to some of my other identities.

Finally, my ability vs. disability is one which I recognized at an early age as a child in

school. I had a friend, James, who was mobile via a wheelchair, and in class we were friends. I

would sometimes spend recess with him because, well, he was my friend, but other kids would

often make fun of him for his disability. I would be made fun of for having a disabled friend. But

it was not the same for James and I, as we experienced that ridicule quite differently. If I wanted

to play kickball the same way the other kids did, I could. James could not, and that was the first

real contract, and understand of, my ability.

Of all my identities, I have some which are dominant, and some which are marginalized.

My dominant identities are my male gender, my Catholic religion, my White race, my ability

identity, and, with some question as to where this falls, my working class identity. My lone

target identity is my gay sexual orientation.

What I feel I have come to understand pretty well is how my collective identities—my

social group membership—have defined who I am and how I understand the world, and the

privileges and disadvantages that have worked in concert to define myself and the world. As a

white, Christian male, I have seen and understand how our social systems disproportionately

work in favor of people like me. I have met and know people from minoritized racial groups and

know that they do not have the same opportunities that I have; I have met and know women who

do not have the same opportunities that I have, and I have met and know non-Christians who do

not have the same opportunities that I have.

 But I also know what it is like to be a target, and how those same social systems have

provided for me a contrast to the privileges afforded to my dominant identities. As a gay person,

I have experienced being targeted for having this identity, and I know what it is like to be a part

of a system that not only excludes that identity, but actively works against it to further

marginalize it. Similarly, while I feel my working-class background and status has afforded me

certain opportunities and privileges that those confined to lower classes have not had, I also

know what the systems in place have made working class people a targeted group, and there are

opportunities that I did not have as a child that my middle-or-upper class peers did. All of my

identities have informed and been informed by my other identities. It is hard to say that they

occurred in a vacuum. At this point in my life, I feel comfortable with my identities, and while I

will continue to develop my understanding of them—a lifelong process that will never end—I do

not think that I have any identities that I am unsure about. I am open to this changing, of course,

but I do not currently foresee that happening.

Now, this is not to say that my understanding of my identities has only been influenced

by the others. No, socialization has played a major role, as it does for anyone, and this is the case

for nearly all of my identities. Harro’s Cycle of Socialization has helped me understand how I

came to develop my identities, what influenced that development, and the overall process of

identity development. Mostly, I can see how we, as people, are predisposed to adopting certain

identities from our initial forms of socialization, namely our families, friends, authority figures,

etc. And, it is not hard to understand how those identities—the agent identities—have their

validity and power reinforced culturally through various mediums like media and institutions.

Then, seeing how those dominant or agent identities are rewarded—and how the target identities

are not—follows along in the cycle, finally before the fork in the road of taking action versus
continuing the original, misinformed cycle created by our earliest influences. This is no different

than how our presuppositions and biases are created and enforced. As we walked through the

course, I was somewhat surprised about how interlinked our own biases and identities are.

It would be unwise—and in my view, incorrect—to ever assert that my identities do not

influence my practice in Student Affairs. I came to Salem State with the understanding that I

know very little. I know my experience and few others’, and that if I am to ever be any good in

this field then I must not only know, but desire to know, what other experiences of life are like. I

also know that I have had opportunities in my life that have not been available to others people,

and it is the absence of those opportunities that I want to know. While I do understand somewhat

what that is like given my target sexual orientation, that is not enough for me. I am committed to

learning as much as I can from my students for my students. Given my agent identities, the social

systems in place largely work and have worked in my favor. While it may be counterproductive

to question whether those systems can be dismantled or reoriented any time soon, I do know that

so long as they are in place that I must be an advocate for my students whose experiences do not

overlap with mine. In the systems that have displaced them, I must advocate for them to have the

same access to opportunities as I have. Whether my students choose to take advantage is

ultimately up to them, but when they are afforded that access, it is my job to support them to take

those opportunities as far as possible.