Micro-Assignment 5, Identity at Play

Here are my words: open and grouping. When I was thinking how I should deal with these two words, I think it’s really hard to combine these two words into one object or item. So I decide to think about these two words one by one.

First, open could be either an easy or a hard word to consider. It can be very easy like open a door or open a window, but it’s too normal and even not worth to think! Then, I think about open a book. That is a good choice in my opinion. When I open a book and read it, I learn more knowledge and know more about my word. This is not just open a book! This actually is opening my mind! Open a book opens my mind! Then, I consider the book can be grouped by math books, science books, history books and so on. So, this could be a nice choice.

Then, I start to think the other word: grouping. I think grouping is the process we make thing that have the same property together. I can just use a filter screen to divide the rice and water separately. This is the first thing I thought of. And this has nothing relatedly to the word “open” at all I think.

Suddenly, I thought of a movie I watched several days ago, American History X. I was greatly touched by this movie. This movie talks about a former neo-nazi skinhead tries to prevent his younger brother from going down the same wrong path that he did. I think this could become a really amazing topic. And the object I choose is the stereotype. This is not a really object but this is a phenomenon that exists everywhere in our life.

We always attempt to group other people to one kind of people when we meet them first time which is the first impressions. This is the stereotype. For example, some people always working hard and seldom go to party or never play games, we might call them bookworm. Some people always go to party and have the bad grade in class, and we might think they are not a good person (maybe actually he is really a kind person). Sometimes we may not want to make friends with someone just because we had the bad first impression of him. We group him to the “bad people”. This is actually a bad thing. We should not just group them and refuse them just by our first impression. However, what we should do is open our heart and try to accept them. A person who “seems bad” really maybe a great person, then you could own a great friend! When we open our heart, we can find a lot of kind person and the world will be more beautiful.

Stopping grouping people by the first impression, no more stereotypes, try to open your heart and make more friends!