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Re-Addressing Identity

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Re-Addressing Identity
Daniel Grind
Charles Miles
1301-295
17 November 2013 Re-Addressing Identity In her essay, "Are We Worried About Storm's Identity or Our own?" Patricia J. Williams asks the philosophical question, "Are we worried about Storm's identity or our own?" Her argument implies that we worry about our own identity as she describes her analytical process, a personal narration from which she derives her analytical thoughts, as well as an analogy. Williams' writing thoughts are effectively expressed in her essay and consequently, the philosophical question, "are we worried about Storm's identity or our own?" At her introduction, Williams starts off with a short personal anecdote: "When my son was 2 years old, he went to a nursery school where he often played with a cheerful little girl I'll call Jessie." Williams establishes herself as a mother off the start and as a maternal figure, she compels the reader to settle down and listen to what she has to say as she has established her credibility. As Williams continues with her anecdote, she illustrates a cute story of her male child and his playmate whom she calls Jessie, and concludes her anecdote with the nursery school teacher identifying her child after a security guard and Jessie after a "mini-hostess with the mostest!" In comparison to the main topic and Williams' story, Williams paves the way with a transition into the topic of assigning gender roles. After the anecdote, Williams creates an instant shift from a colloquial maternal figure to a writer of liberal perspectives in culture and politics. Descriptive phrases such as "smiled warmly" and "gosh-darned adorable" turn into, "center of an international controversy" and "a full fledged commitment to life-long gender suppression or neutered identity." Having written with these intellectual word bombs award credibility to Williams once again and with sophisticated

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