How Does...

How Does Gender, Race, and Class Develop the Digital Self?



      The basis of self begins at birth. Male or female, we are born into the world with our first fragment of identity. Family rounds out what we know about ourselves at an early age, which adds more fragments to the idea of self. As we grow into what we presume to be ourselves, we are introduced to the world as a whole. History has taught us that we are not all the same. It introduces racism and the differences in class and how it has been clearly practiced in the past; however, much has been done to correct the immutable and vast differences in race, gender, and class status in the United States. The classification of being either white or black, male or female, was how an individual is categorized in the early 1900’s. Today, the digital era has broaden that categorization to include the digital self.

      Quicksand by Nella Larsen, reveals important and relevant issues about the author’s own personality and life events. Helga Crane, the main character, is based on Larsen herself. Being born to a black father and a white mother, she strives to attain and establish a self-identity. Crane finds herself tangled in the web of sociological complications because of her mixed race. Crane states, “Negro society, she had learned, was as complicated and as rigid in its ramifications as the highest strata of white society. If you couldn’t prove your ancestry and connections, you were tolerated, but you didn’t ‘belong’” (34). Belonging is what Crane strived for, along with happiness and fulfillment. She was faced with racism, discrimination and rejection from her family, further proving that she was alone. Quicksand illustrates the profound pressures Crane felt because of the conflicting demands of being both black and white, and the class struggle enforced on her because of it.

      Throughout the history of the United States, discrimination against race and gender has been documented, creating...