Struggle for Identity

In my Lifelong Learning class, we recently watched the Academy Award-winning movie Crash, directed by Paul Haffis, 2004.  Our professor challenged us to watch the film from the perspective of how people learn and find identity within and between communities of practice. Set in present-day Los Angeles, several stories about racial and social tensions interweave within a two-day period and reflect how rigid boundaries reject the meanings of other cultures thereby creating creating conflict, stereotypes, and power struggles.  Sometimes individuals find themselves balancing membership within two competing communities of practice.  An ensuing struggle for identity occurs as individuals seek to find their place within each group.  

The movie, Crash, portrays how identity is impacted by the demands of multimembership within communities of practice that oppose each other. One character, Cameron is a very successful Hollywood film director, who happens to be African-American. His participation and success within his workplace has marginalized him within his own ethnic group. Rigid boundaries contribute to stereotypes and unfortunately the stereotype of a black man living in Los Angeles is not that of a successful film director. 

In his book, Communities of Practice 1998, Etienne Wenger says that full participation in one boundary often means marginalization in the other.  Being inside a community of practice implies, and is largely defined in terms of, being outside of the other community of practice.  Non-participation then is a defining constituent of participation. This situation makes boundary crossing difficult because each side is defined by opposition to the other and membership in one community implies marginalization in another. Multimembership requires some work to reconcile the different forms of membership that corresponds to a single identity (p. 159).

The resulting conflict of Cameron's multimembership within his family, work and ethnic group largely impacts on his  identity.  During an argument, Cameron's wife, Christine, tells him that he is not black because he does not know the hardships that come with being black in L.A.  At work, his colleague tells him that a black actor was not speaking “black enough" and he tells Cameron to shoot the scene again. These covert and subtle acts of racism are difficult for Cameron to process. As Cameron participates in his work practice, he moves further to the margins within his own ethnic group.

In contrast, the overt acts of a racist, white police officer redirects Cameron's trajectory  within his own oppressed cultural group.  Cameron's dignity and power are taken away when he is pulled over for a supposed traffic violation.  Under the guise of a pat-down search, Officer Ryan sexually molests Christine.  Ryan then gives Cameron and his wife the choice of being arrested for the traffic violation or apologizing to him and going home. Numb, Cameron decides to apologize and go home.  Later as he and his wife argue, it is clear that Cameron felt powerless because he is a black man up against a racist, white police officer with a gun.  Cameron's powerlessness caused him to identify more fully within his own cultural group.  He realized that his identity as a black man in L.A. left him powerless and that even his position of affluence as a successful film director could not afford his or his wife's dignity.

Later in the movie, Cameron comes face-to-face with black car-jackers who fit the cultural stereotype he has tried hard to escape.  It is interesting that Cameron chooses to fight back.  It could simply be that he has reached a breaking point, but I think there is significance in his action to fight the black men who try to steal his vehicle. In essence, he is fighting the stereotype he deals with everyday of his life both covertly and overtly. When the police come upon the fight, Cameron challenges them and refuses to submit to their commands thereby becoming the stereotype that the police expect. When the ordeal ends, Cameron tells the speechless car-jacker that he embarrasses both Cameron and himself.

In an interesting twist, Cameron then seeks to reclaim a part of his identity within his cultural group when he joins other black youth and men who are throwing garbage into a burning car. His experience of oppression causes him to fight back.  As a result, Cameron renegotiates his identity within his cultural group, leaves the margins and redirects his trajectory towards the centre of his cultural community of practice.   

Cameron's identity crisis causes him to constantly relocate his position within each community of practice's social landscape (p. 167).  In order to be successful at work, Cameron chooses not to participate within his cultural community of practice.  Wenger refers to non-participation as strategy whereby identity lays outside of his culture (p. 170).  Of course, Cameron's choice is dictated to him through the systemic racism referred to by Wenger as Institutional non-participation (p. 169).

Identities are not something we turn off and on (Wenger, 159).  We can act a certain way within one community of practice and a totally different way within another community of practice.  However, we carry our memberships with us and we constantly reconcile our different forms of membership within a single identity (p. 159).  For Cameron, reconciliation was difficult because he was a member within two opposing communities of practice.

Cameron's struggle rings true for many minorities throughout North America and Europe.  Cultural communities of practice have been stereotyped, which makes crossing over to other communities of practice difficult.  As seen in Cameron's case, the reconciliation work was not harmonious and the process was not done once and for all.  As long as racism continues to form divisions and rigid boundaries, multimembership will involve ongoing tensions that will never be resolved (p. 160).