Identity, Who Are We? Can Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Sexuality Identify Us?

Photo Taken from caribbeansinaction,com

As we continue to seek ways to define the Caribbean identity, we must first understand intersectionality, which is simply the outcome of the intersection of different sources. It is for this reason we experience simultaneous expressions of oppression and privilege, Confused? Take for example a black man, he is privileged due to his masculinity, yet he experiences oppression because he is black. In the Caribbean region, this intersectionality determines one's status, and leads to accessibility, dress and stereotypes.

Since colonialism, the Caribbean has has a hierarchical  system defined by race and ethnicity, which then brought forward racism. This was a central principle which was used to organise principles, as well as Caribbean life, and traditions. This also formed the basis for the cultural diversity and creativity, as well as what led to disparities in social and economic sectors.

Gender is the complex social systems of personal and social relations. In the Caribbean, gender roles are defined, and are expectations of how persons should act i.e. male should act tough and show no emotion. 

Masculinity and Feminism in the region is based upon the ideologies of colonization. And is still a place where masculinity is dominant and women occupy passive roles. Women's roles are still seen as caregivers and the carriers of culture, while men's role is to make up the labour force and impregnation of women. Few countries see women as national heroes, while few men are seen as caregivers and are looked at as strange.

Sexuality as it relates to the Caribbean is seen as the people being hypersexual, whose sexuality is a marker of identity. This ideology shapes the beliefs of persons both in and out of the region. Black slave women were raped and beaten but yet they were romanticized by European writers. With the closing of colonial economies and lack of diversity in the economies of the Caribbean, persons were forced to sell sex in order to make money. Heterosexuality is also seen as the norm in the Caribbean, while homosexuality is looked down upon, with persons often facing oppression.

In his book Black Skin, White Masks, Fanon showed that similar to the Caribbean, men of colour were immediately stereotyped based on their skin tone, and that black men are oppressed from the outside because they are immediately identified with their race. “I am a slave not to the ‘idea’ others have of me, but to my appearance” (Fanon 95). A brief overview of the book also suggests that women were present in a passive role, and in Fanon's conception of colonial identity-a mirroring relationship between white men and black men could be mediated through the bodies of women. This colonial dynamic suggests a sex-gender economy circulating women among men to construct and maintain racial categories as seen in the present day Caribbean.