CITIZENSHIP

The relationship between citizenship and identity is both simple and complex. Simply put, one's identity as citizen is expressed through her or his actions within a public space. Thus, citizenship can be seen as an outcome or product. Actions as simple as voting, writing a letter to the editor, running for office, attending a council meeting, or even refusing to allow a political sign on one's yard may all serve as signs of citizenship—of actively engaging in one's community for better or worse. In each case, an assertion is made about one's commitment to the community—it may be positive or negative, it may be lauded or reviled, but in both cases, it is clearly a statement made about one's views on the issues of the day.

The more complex sense of one's identity as a citizen, as one who enacts citizenship, can be approached through several avenues. A focus on race or ethnicity, for example, would reveal a very different sense of one's identity than a focus on class might present. A focus on White masculinity would not necessarily incorporate recognition of how an African American male would express citizenship in a quest for the presidency of the United States. Conversely, a focus on Black masculinity, and the rhetorical options available to Black males, would create a different picture of how one enacts citizenship. The same would be true in thinking in terms of different classes: The wealthy may enact citizenship through large donations of money, attending dinners on behalf of political candidates, and pledging support; the lower classes may enact citizenship through volunteering time, as paying for the dinner may not be within their interest, even if within their means. A focus on one's citizenship via political action will reveal only one facet of one's identity; a sense of self as a volunteer within the community is as much a part of one's identity as citizen as whether one is or is not politically active. The sense of citizenship—how should one behave or act or what one should be as a citizen—is far from simple.