Looking for parallels should be done cautiously. For example, the advantaging associated with race may be different from the one associated with heterosexism. It’s also hard to disentangle [dis]advantaging where social class, economic class, race, religion, sexuality, ethnic identity, and other factors interact.
Black Racial Identity Development
The stages are presented linearly, but often individuals revisit an earlier stage as a result of new encounter experiences. However, the subsequent experience of the stage may be different from the original experience.
Pre-Encounter
The African American has absorbed many beliefs and values of the dominant White culture, and seeks to be accepted by Whites, and distances themselves from other Blacks. The de-emphasis on one’s racial-group may contribute to a belief in a US meritocracy.
Encounter
Precipitated by an event(s) that forces the individual to acknowledge the impact of racism in one’s life, and the fact that they cannot truly be White.
Immersion/Emersion
Characterized by the simultaneous desire to surround oneself with visible symbols of one’s racial identity and an active avoidance of symbols of Whiteness. Tendency to denigrate White people, and glorify Black people.
Internalization
Secure in one’s own sense of racial identity, with less need to assert the “Blacker than thou” attitude. Establishing meaningful relationships with Whites who acknowledge and are respectful of the individual’s self-definition.
Internalization-Commitment
Translates their personal sense of Blackness to concerns of Blacks as a group, which is sustained over time. Blackness becomes “the point of departure for discovering the universe of ideas, cultures, and experiences beyond blackness in place of mistaking blackness as the universe itself.”
White Racial Identity Development
Contact
A lack of awareness of cultural and institutional racism, and of one’s own White privilege. Naïve curiosity about or fear of PoC, based on stereotypes.
Disintegration
Precipitated by experiences that cultural and institutional racism exist, often leading to discomfort, e.g., guilt, shame, and anger. Coping mechanisms: denying/questioning evidence, victim-blaming, withdrawal from PoC and racial conversations, naïvely trying (and failing) to change attitudes of friends and family.
Reintegration
A desire to be accepted by one’s own racial group, even at the cost of reshaping one’s belief system to be more congruent with an acceptance of racism. Blaming PoC as the source of discomfort. If avoidance of PoC is possible, most Whites become stuck here.
Pseudo-Independent
Precipitated by information-seeking, and abandoning beliefs in White superiority. Experiences alienation from other Whites, yet may be rejected by PoC who are suspicious of the individual’s motives. Trying to positively redefine what it means to be White; literature on White antiracist allies to PoC is empowering.
Autonomy
Antiracist behavior and attitudes are more consistently expressed, allowing easier forging of alliances with PoC.
White Privilege
“My [white] skin color was an asset for any move I was educated to want to make. I could think of myself as belonging in major ways, and of making social systems work for me."
Not all privileges are inevitably damaging; some are unearned advantage, e.g. expecting that race won’t count against you in court. These should be the norm in a just society.
Other privileges, e.g. being able to ignore the hostilities against PoC which exhaust and anger PoC, confer dominance.
The thinking about equality and equity is incomplete if unearned advantage and conferred dominance are kept taboo. We shouldn’t just try to get folks into a position of dominance, while denying that systems of dominance exist.
Google Trends for “white privilege” in the US from 2004.
The spike in June 2020 coincide with the murder of George Floyd on May 25th, 2020. A value of 100 is the peak popularity for the search term over the given region and time.
Implications for Reducing Resistance When Teaching about Race
Raise awareness about the model of racial identity development. This allows the individuals to be less frightened when collisions of developmental processes occur, e.g., a White person not personalizing or feeling threatened by an African-American’s anger during Immersion/Emersion.
Create a safe climate, e.g. confidentiality, mutual respect, no comic-relief during anxious conversations, and speaking from one’s own experience instead of generalizing.
Create opportunities for self-generated knowledge as that tends to be less prone to denial, e.g., having a White person go apartment hunting with an African-American person.
Empower learners with the possibility of change, e.g. developing action plans for interrupting racism, taping an initial interview and replaying it at some later point to let them see how they’ve progressed since.
Implications of Teaching About Race for Institutions
In a White-majority environment, educating even a fraction has ripple effects, e.g. they share literature, involve peers in projects, are better allies in settings like meetings.
PoC are able to give a voice to their own experience, and to validate it rather than be demoralized by it. They may be able to move beyond victimization to empowerment.
References
- Talking about Race, Learning about Racism: The Application of Racial Identity Development Theory in the Classroom. Beverly Daniel Tatum. Harvard Education Review, Vol. 62. Mount Holyoke College. equity.ucla.edu . scholar.google.com . www.connectedpapers.com . 1992. Cited 2083 times as of Sep 18, 2022.
- White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. Peggy McIntosh. Wellesley College. files.eric.ed.gov . scholar.google.com . 1990. Cited 6595 times as of Sep 18, 2022.
- Intersectionality. en.wikipedia.org . Accessed Sep 18, 2022.
Isn’t this the crux of intersectionality studies?
Intersectionality identifies multiple factors of advantage and disadvantage. Factors include gender, caste, sex, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, religion, disability, weight, and physical appearance. These intersecting and overlapping social identities may be both empowering and oppressing. Criticisms of the framework: tendency to reduce individuals to specific demographic factors; its use as an ideological tool against other feminist theories; ambiguous/undefined goals; reliance on subjective experiences (standpoint theory) leading to contradictions and inability to generalize.