Black Man with a Nose Job Essay

The article, Black man with a Nose job by Lawrence Otis Graham basically talks about how Mr. Graham got a nose job. The reading has plenty of controversies whether he is less black due to him narrowing his nose. This was a really interesting article because there were several critiques regarding his nose in which he described very well. This man was born into a generation were the concept of oxymoron included such things as a black man with a nose job. The reading starts on were Graham and his father are in the car driving to his doctor. During the way over there he faces with several people who are really concerned about him. Moving on from this, graham thinks about how his father would take it. As they arrived to the plastic surgeon he starts to see catalogs and magazines to what nose he would like to have. As he chooses the doctor gives his opinion to him whether it will look good or not. Once he was in the Manhattan’s upper west side to have his rhinoplasty done, Graham stopped and thought that having this done it was an assault to his identity and people. Growing up in a white neighborhood were all of them would get a cosmetic surgery Graham says, it was done to look better in his situation these alterations were made due to issues of ethnicity and heritage. As said in the book he never compared to a white man but surely he did with his own people. Overall, this article is really interesting because it has plenty of other topics such as on how other people of different races as well have done a surgery and have not seem to be different from their own people. As mentioned in the book one’s racial identity is not embodied in one’s nose. This means that it shouldn’t be a problem because you are the same person who grew up in that race. The article mentioned self hatred of being an accusation done for anyone who has done a surgery. This is really hard to explain but in my opinion self hatred in general can be a problem for people who have a low self-esteem about themselves. If you were born with several, in my opinion people shouldn’t change it. People should be happy and appreciate were they come from. These issues will never change because we are in a world where the media really portrays many things for looking better. Everyone will always want to have what other people have but just as the article says it will not make you less of which ever ethnicity you come from.