There are many races and ethnicities in the United States. Even though we are all in the same country, we have many differences. These differences are sometimes obvious just by looking at a person. Other times you can only discover them by diving deeper into the person's background and seeing their cultural differences. I will give you an example of race and ethnicity by presenting a profile of myself. I am a twenty-three year old African American male from Chicago. My great-great-grandparents were slaves in Mississippi. At one point during the days of slavery, a slave owner had sex with one of my grandmothers, who have lighter skin than most African Americans. Since I have slave ancestry, I have no idea what part of Africa my ancestors came from. Another reason I know I'm African American is because my phenotype matches that of people of African descent. I grew up on the south side of Chicago, so my subculture comes from what I grew up with. I was surrounded by the whole “ghetto” culture; baggy pants, rap music, gangs, etc. Even though I grew up with these things, I didn't fully absorb the surrounding culture. Growing up I adopted the local fashion and slang, but eventually grew out of it. I never adopted the local mentality, which was the gangster life. This consisted of drug dealing, not excelling in school, treating women poorly, ready to fight at the drop of a hat, and the mentality that the (white) man is out to get them. I never found those qualities attractive, so I never adopted them. Since I never acted like the people around me, I was mostly shunned as an outcast. It wasn't considered "cool" not to conform to that lifestyle. This is what I think is the ultimate downfall of my culture.