Me,Myself and I Response

Ilene Lee
English 1B
Professor Sabir
TTH 9-10:50

Understanding that one’s true identity can be possible is extremely crucial in the eyes of hip hop audiences. In Felicia Pride’s response to “Me, Myself and I”, ideals of profiling and false representation is stated to describe the way people identify themselves to others. People constantly feel that there is a certain way they should behave and display in the presence of others. Pride breaks down the qualities that constitute what representing one’s true identity is and counters these characteristics with the main idea that people choose to express false profiles because it is more convenient (10). By creating an illusion and image that is more acceptable, people dodge the critiques of others. They do not need to feel scrutinized for their qualities because they represent what society expects of them.

Pride goes on to further explain the reasons behind these actions and provide personal anecdotes to give a sense of reality within this problem. She goes on to define the expectations of what society demands and includes new ideas that I never really considered. Here, she articulates the negative aspect of society’s expectations and set images of people,
“As a society, we like labels, boxes, and other ways to confine and categorize…There’s always a level of disappointment for outsiders when we don’t live up to misconceptions. Even if you’re comfortable in your skin, and know exactly who you are, others aggressively attempt to promote their own idea of who you should be.” (11).
In her analysis, I realized that we, as a society, are very judgmental when we approach new people and their personalities. We create this ideal that people feel they need to live up to and impress our views. Despite how confident someone may be, others still continue to tear at their characteristics and find flaws to undermine them. Similarly to Pride’s last essay to “Not Enough, I see a connection with societies’ unquenchable hunger for acceptance and perfection. Nothing ever seems to be good enough for everyone to just accept what is.

Although the future of societies’ expectations may look bleak, Pride stresses the importance of defending one’s personal beliefs and thoughts. We all should embody these traits about ourselves and love the spirit and soul that we possess. The power to defy the expectations that others hold depends on one’s abilities to do so for their own identities. We are in control of how we want to be perceived and we shouldn’t let others hold us back from our identities. Perfectly stated, Pride says “a city is built when folks pave their own streets” (11). We determine the futures we want; it all lies in our hands.