Hybrid Hour

Ken Yoshino, writes a very powerful essay on the idea of how people can’t truly express who they are and that sometimes people have to hide from the their true self’s. In the essay Yoshino talks about how people have a true self and a false self. A true self is basically defined as when you can freely express who you are without being judge or harassed. A false self is when you hide behind something and lie about who you are so that you wont be judge or harassed. You cover yourself up. Yoshino has a true and a false self, and he hides from people that he is a gay Asian. . Yoshino wants us to believe and consider that civil right laws need to be changed so our diverse society can truly express themselves and don’t have to cover anymore to protect themselves.

Everyone wants to be their true self and be loved, but depending where in society you fall you may not be accepted for who you are. Depending on you race, national origin, sex and then whether you are straight, gay, want to have an open relationship, or if you are disabled you may not be accepted for who you want to be and hide behind your false self which is your fake life. Therefore I agree with Yoshino when he asserts that civil rights can’t be fully mandated by the government to ensure that there is equality for all. There will never be equality for all because there will always entitled assholes that think you need to do everything that is always expressed as the normal social norms. Reason why people might judge or harassed is because it goes against there political view or their culture views, or they just want to discriminate against someone for being their self. A statement that supports this view is “Today, race, national origin, sex, religion, and disability are all protected by federal civil right laws”(pg539). This quote taken from the essay states that you can be protected by the federal civil law. In the essay Yoshino makes lots of claims to the fact of how hard everyone being treated equally is. One claim that stood out to me was “…the persistence of the covering demand presents a puzzle…”(539). When you break this down your social life is one big puzzle. You act different around each and everyone of your friends, and by doing that you have to think of you being the puzzle piece and where your going to fit into the puzzle in your friend group. Lastly another claim that supports Yoshino is “Covering is a hidden assault on our civil rights,”(540). This quote is very deep due to the fact that even though everyone should be protected by civil rights they still need to cover which defeats the purpose of civil rights which is why if refers to hidden assault on civil rights. In the world their is always going to be people who are going to be cruel and think that they are superior beyond everyone else because other people aren’t like them. There are way to many excuses people make to think that it is okay to judge and harass someone for who they want to be.