Racial Identity
Development in
Adolescence
Professional Development Day
English Department
Oct. 8., 2004
James Marcia described four identity “statuses” to characterize the
variation in the identity search process:
1.
2.
3.
4.
diffuse, a state in which there had been little
exploration or commitment;
foreclosed, a state in which a commitment has been
made to particular roles or belief systems, often those
selected by parents, without actively considering
alternatives;
moratorium, a state of active exploration of roles and
beliefs in which no commitment has yet been made;
and
achieved, a state of strong personal commitment to a
particular dimension of identity following a period of
high exploration.” (Tatum)
1. Pre-Encounter
This is the stage where the Black child,
ostensibly the child of color, absorbs the
values of the dominant culture—just as
every other child does—only for the child
of color, this involves inculcation into a
culture that is not his own by heritage.
“Simply as a function of being
socialized in a Eurocentric
culture, some Black children
[children of color] may begin to
value the role models, lifestyles,
and images of beauty
represented by the dominant
group more highly than those of
their own culture” (Tatum).
This is the stage where the child of
color, absorbs the values of the
dominant culture.
The damage that can be done in this
process can be reduced by parents
and in our case by teachers, who are
“race-conscious,” who actively provide
their children of color with positive
cultural images and messages about
what it means to be a person of color.
2. Encounter
The transition from pre-encounter to
encounter stage usually follows an event
or series of events that force the young
person to personally acknowledge the
impact of racism.
The child begins to deal directly
with what it means to be a
member of a targeted group.
Encounter
Institutional cues
“Ability grouping” often produces “a
recognizable racial pattern to how
children are assigned, which often
represents the system of advantage
operating in the school” (Tatum).
There is a stronger awareness of
the development of racial and
ethnic identities in Black
students, particularly Black
females.
Encounter
Dating cues for Black Females
Black girls in predominantly White communities
may become gradually aware that while their
white friends start to date that they do not. This
relates messages about who is sexually desirable,
who is beautiful and who is not.
Encounter
Differing cues for Black Males
In predominantly White school, Black males
may experience a degree of social success,
especially if they are talented athletes.
This is a coveted role embraced by the
dominant culture, and these boys are often
pursued by Black and White girls alike.
encounter
Other societal triggers
Subtle remarks by classmates, teachers,
administrators, and others often trigger racial self
reflection. Consciousness of ones solitary racial status
in classroom discussions, and stereotypical comments
made unconsciously by others can push children into
an awareness of their racial or ethnic identity.
2. immersion/emersion
In this phase the person attempts to:
“Destroy all vestiges of the old
perspective,” while simultaneously
experiencing, “an equally intense concern
to clarify the personal implications of the
new frame of reference” (Cross).
Immersion
Into the ‘world of color’
Adolescents begin to soak up their own
culture or the culture of other people of color
and attempt to reflect this through patterns of
thought, dress, action, and speech. This is
the stage when the actual conversion to the
new identity is occurring (Cross).
Often, the adolescent of color finds that
their confusion with the often negative
racial encounters are invalidated by white
people who have little understanding of
these experiences.
They are often told they are being,
“oversensitive,” or that the person who
insulted them “is a good person who would
never mean it like that.”
At this point we often see disengagement,
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White friends are often unprepared to
respond in supportive ways.
Students of color need a place to meet
where they can validate the reality of their
experiences.
Students of color may turn to each
other as sources of behavioral
knowledge.
Yet often this knowledge is based in
dominant cultural stereotypical images
of people of color gathered from media
Possible Coping Strategies
1. Oppositional Social Identity
One common psychological pattern found among
students of color, particularly in African American
students is the development of an oppositional social
identity as a “response to the anger and resentment
they feel in response to their growing awareness of the
systematic exclusion of Black people from full
participation in U.S. society…” (Tatum).
Students at this stage are often using a limited
definition of racial behaviors.
Achievement can often drop, as academic
achievement is falsely understood by
those in oppositional identity stages of
development to be associated with
Whiteness, and therefore an undesirable
trait.
2. Others choose to achieve
and separate themselves from
other students of color so that
they can keep being accepted
by their White friends. This
strategy is known, by
researchers Signnithia and
John Ogbu Fordham, as
racelessness.
3. Instead of seeing themselves
as raceless, students can see
themselves as emissaries.
In this case they see their
own achievements as
‘advancing the entire race or
group.’ This often comes with
a strong political statement of
commitment to the group.
Emersion
The next step is emergence from the emotionality and
oversimplified ideological aspects of the
immersion experience (Cross).
During this step the person begins to
regain control of his or her emotions and intellect.
The adolescent begins to see
this role model as operating at
a higher stage of development
and decides that he or she will
attempt to become more like
his or her model.
3. Internalization
This stage "signals the resolution of
conflicts between the old and the new,"
(Cross) and is exhibited through a calm
secure demeanor.
This stage is marked by a shift in
perspective:

from concern about how their friends of color see their confidence in
their own personal standards of behavior, to the adolescents comfort with
self

from uncontrolled rage toward White people, to controlled anger toward
oppressive and racist institutions

from symbolic rhetoric to quiet, dedicated , long-term commitment;

from unrealistic urgency to a sense of destiny

from anxious, insecure, rigid, inferiority feelings to cultural pride, selflove and a deep sense of the communalism often found in racial/ethnic
cultures (Cross).
4. Internalization-commitment
After developing a radicalized identity individuals
in this stage continue to be long-term activists.
These adolescents demonstrate a commitment
not only to incorporate the new identity but also
to “struggle to translate personal
identity into actions that are meaningful to the
group” (Cross).
Development of White Racial Identity
Janet Helms, in her work, Black and White Racial Identity
Development: Theory, Research, and Practice, says:
“… the task for people of color is to resist negative
societal messages and develop an empowered
sense of self in the face of a racist society … the
task for Whites is to develop a positive White
identity based in reality, not on assumed
superiority” (Tatum).
Becoming Aware of Whiteness
I’m just normal
The Contact Stage
At this stage of the development
of a White identity, adolescents
pay little attention to the
significance of their racial identity
If White adolescents have lived in
a predominantly White environment
They usually consider themselves part of
the racial norm and are not conscious of
White privilege (the systematically
conferred advantages they receive simply
because they are White).
At this stage, just like everyone else in our
society, White adolescents have been “breathing
in the ‘smog’ and have internalized many of the
prevailing societal stereotypes of people of
color,” (Tatum ) and are typically unaware of
this socialization process.
This stage is also accompanied by the
perception of self as ‘color-blind,’
completely free of prejudice and a lack
of awareness of their own assumptions
about other racial groups.
At this stage their definitions of
racism involves individual acts of
meanness and discrimination of
members of one group towards
the member of another group.
While some Whites grow up in families
where openly racist ideology is taught,
most Whites passively absorb the subtly
communicated messages of the dominant
society.
Pamela Perry, in her Shades of White:
White Kids and Racial Identities in High
Schools, relates the findings of her 4 year
study of White adolescence in two
different California high schools.
With no one to compare themselves to,
they believe themselves and their
experience to be the norm, as Perry
reports in a section titled, “White means
never having to say you’re ethnic.”
cognitive gap
Perry speaks of a ‘cognitive gap,’ which
she compares to “common sense” “that
which goes without saying because it
comes without saying.” She says that it is
“understandable that youth who were
most identified with and integrated into
the mainstream culture would be least
reflective about that culture.
Reflection
Stage two: Disintegration
This stage is involves a growing
awareness of racism—a system of earned
privilege given to one group over
another—and the ties of this privilege to
Whiteness.
This stage usually begins to occur through personal encounters of
people of color in “which the social significance of race is made visible”
(Tatum).
These encounters can occur through
friendship, romantic relationships, through
seeing racist incidents in the media, and
through shared classrooms where the
“social consequences of racial group
membership are explicitly discussed as
part of course content” (Tatum).
The silence about race that comes from
‘color-blindness,’ this silence is broken
during disintegration and it is through
discourse that racism becomes visible.
This stage is often uncomfortable for the White
adolescent.
Emotions of guilt, shame, and anger related
to one’s personal prejudices or the
prejudices within one’s family.
It is as this stage that White adolescents become aware that their own
lives have been affected by racism, not just the lives of people of color.
This is the most dangerous stage.
It is here where the White adolescent can
continue on their journey towards the
creation of a positive White identity, or
where they can turn back and shut down.
There are two major concepts that must be dealt with at this stage:
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The idea of an American Meritocracy
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The concept of Individuality.
American Meritocracy
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Because so much of what is taught in
schools has to do with the concepts that in
America everyone is equal and that there
are equal opportunities for all, when the
realities of racism becomes evident to the
White adolescent, the cognitive
dissonance that results produces a great
deal of discomfort.
If the student remains engaged, this
discomfort can be transformed into action.
This action which is spurred on by the anger created from the
awareness of racism, and can take the form of educating
others—pointing out stereotypes as they watch T.V.,
interrupting racial jokes, writing letters to the editor, sharing
readings with family and friends (Tatum).
here are dangers here:
1. like all new converts, people experiencing
disintegration can be quite zealous. This is
the time when many fall into what I call the
“missionary trap.”
They can become empathetic as opposed to
sympathetic and decide that people of color
can and must be saved, specifically by them
2.
that the early feelings of “guilt or denial
may be transformed into anger toward
people of color.”
The logic here is, “If there is a problem with
racism, then you people of color must have
dome something to cause it. And if you would
just change your behavior, the problem would
go away” (Tatum).
“But I’m an Individual”
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One of the most common reactions by
White adolescents is resentment of being
seen not as an individual, but as a
member of a group.
While people of color learn early that they are
seen as by others as a member of a group, this
knowledge often comes hard to Whites.
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This idea of “rugged individualism” was
also part of our education of what it
means to be an American, and so the
knowledge that one is seen by others, not
as an individual cause anger and pain.
This acknowledgment is particularly hard for White males, who
often feel personally attacked as others talk about the systematic
racist barriers to progress.
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(It is similar to the reaction that males often feel
as they first become aware of sexism.)
It often seems to White males that they are
being told that they “don’t deserve” their
individual position. This jump from seeing self
as an individual to seeing self as a part of
institutional behaviors, some of which include
racism, is a difficult cognitive leap.
This realization by White adolescents
of others perceptions of self are often
met with anger and hostility.
This too is a stage full of danger.
Many White adolescents shut down at this stage,
and refuse to continue on the road to a positive
White self identity.
Giving students the tools to deal with their raised
consciousness is essential. Helping all student,
White and of color, to identify their “own sphere
of influence… and to consider how it might be
used to interrupt the cycle of racism” will keep
identity development on the right path.
Accepting Whiteness as personally and
socially significant
Coming to terms with the Past
As White adolescents are faced with the racism
that they see as part of the past, their reactions
commonly fall into two separate types of
narratives.
Perry has found that different “types and
proximities of interracial association; they ways
racial-ethnic differences were structured by
school practices; and the ways youth defined
their relationships to people of color” effect the
narrative the White youth create.
This is also the stage at which White youth deal with the realization that
such a thing as “white culture’ may exist, and because of this they
begin to look for their own traditions and heritage.
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Most students, those in a predominantly White
school as well as those in a predominately
multicultural school seem to define White as
having ancestors from Europe.
What many White students find is that their
families have not held on to ethnic traditions
over the years, and they are acutely aware of
what has been “lost in the good ol’ melting pot,”
as one student of Perry’s said.
There are several reactions to this new realization,
depending on the predominant racial atmosphere
of their surroundings.
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In predominantly White schools, having no
cultural ties was “a matter of fact that caused no
apparent stress” (Perry).
In the predominantly multiracial schools where
the “informal culture of the school impressed on
youth the importance of knowing your racialethnic background,” many White students “the
lack of an origin story was a charged issue”
(Perry).
Symbolic Ethnicity
In this narrative, White students,
in reaction to a culture full of
the importance of a story of
origin, “will choose an
ethnicity and embrace it
largely in name only for the
purpose of providing meaning
and a sense of community”
(Perry).
Some students will connect to a culture totally unrelated to their own families and find
attachments. (ex. the White student who is so fascinated with Native American
culture that they spend a summer on a reservation.)
Other White students react by delving
deeper into one or several of their own
family’s ethnicities.
Postcultural
A second narrative that White students
create when constantly faced with the
concepts that there is meaning in having
community and knowing one’s origins, is
what Perry refers to as “postcultural.”
“By ‘postcultural’ I mean a self-concept that dismisses all
relevance of and indebtedness to the past.
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“
It is a decidedly present- or future-oriented
identity that emphasizes innovation and genius,
as opposed to an ethnic identity, which is pasoriented and emphasizes tradition and
continuity” (Perry).
This narrative is seen in students’ statement
such as: “We’re living in a different world [from
slavery times]. A different society. We can’t look
back and drag on and judge people form their
ancestors” (Perry).
Learning to feel good about being White in the context of
commitment to a just society
Defining a Positive White Identity
The next stage in White racial identity
development, similar to the racial identity
development of People of Color, involves
immersion into one’s own culture.
First comes the recognition that one needs to find a more positive self definition.
What is most important at this stage is the understanding that role models here will not be found in
People of Color but in other White people.
Learning how to research the lengthy history of White protest against
racism is one of the first tools that should be given to White adolescents
at this sage of development. This is difficult because not many
teachers—White or of color-- are aware of this history. Finding a local
White antiracist activist to talk to students is a great help here.
Understanding the role of a
White Ally
By talking with other White antiracist
activists, White adolescents can
understand that the role of the White Ally
“is not to help victims of racism, but to
speak up against systems of oppression
and to challenge other Whites to do the
same” (Tatum).
By talking with other White antiracist
activists, White adolescents can
understand that the role of the White Ally
“is not to help victims of racism, but to
speak up against systems of oppression
and to challenge other Whites to do the
same” (Tatum).
There are behavior that can be encouraged
at this stage of White identity
development which will not only give relief
to the confusion that many White
adolescents will be feeling, but will help
the student realize a positive White
identity based not in superiority to People
of Color, but in a personal commitment to
a just society.
Participation in White
consciousness-raising groups
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Encouraging White student to gather “specifically for the
purpose of examining one’s own racism” is a good way
to make further progress.
Students here can be joined by White adults who are
committed to a similar path. Having such a group made
solely of White students can keep away some of the hurt
that students of Color may feel if they were present to
hear White student’s stories, feelings and frustrations.
“Listening to those stories and problem-solving about
them is a job that White people can do for each other”
(Tatum).
Realizing that living as an Antiracist is a
Process not an
Accomplishment
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A major part of the continuation of the development of a
positive White identity is the realization that racist
thoughts and sometimes behaviors are liable to
resurface. The ideas that are inculcated from the
dominant mainstream American culture are strong, and
these ideas don’t disappear because an individual has a
new race-consciousness.
Knowing that one needs other antiracist White people—
those with positive White identities—with which one can
share stories and from whom one get honest feedback,
makes life much easier.
The Multiracial Self (Perry)
Pamela Perry defines the
“multiracial self” as follows:
In sum, the multiracial self means that race is
premised on an interdependent relationship
between the self and other that is not only an
external relation, but also—and possibly most
significantly—an internal relationship.
The self and the other are one and the same. And
this internal self-other relationship is itself
multiple. The experience and definition of the
racial self shifts, if sometimes minutely,
depending on the social-discursive context and
hot the internal other is defined and dealt with.
“Communities of Difference: A critical a Look at Desecrated Spaces
Created for and by Youth,” Michelle Fine, Lois Weis, and Linda C.
Powell propose the following framework for creating ‘true’ integration in
schools, which begins” with equal status contact theory, which posits
(1) ‘contact should occur in circumstances that
place …groups in equal status,’
(2) ‘contact should involve one-on-one interactions
among individual members of the …groups,’
(3) ‘members of the …groups should join together
in an effort to achieve superordinate goals,’ and
(4) ‘social norms, defined in part by relevant
authorities, should favor intergroup contact.’”
(Perry)

To prevent this from happening, they
recommend that the equal status contact
“be accompanied by three political and
social conditions:
(1) ‘a sense of community’—namely, of
shared ideology, identity, and vision;
(2) ‘a commitment to creative analysis of
difference, power, and privilege’—what
[Perry] has described as ‘critical
multiculturalism; and
(3) ‘and enduring investment in democratic
practice with youth’” (Perry).
The youth themselves need to be
active in leadership roles in
constructing multiracial
communities
Suggested Bibliography
Perry, Pamela. Shades of White: White Kids and Racial Identities in
High School. Durham, N.C.:
Duke UP, 2002.
Tatum, Beverly Daniel. “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in
the Cafeteria?”: and Other Conversations About Race. New York:
Basic Books, 1997.
Cross, William E. Shades of Black: Diversity in African-American
Identity. Philadelphia: Temple
UP, 1991.
Fine, Michelle, Lois Weis, Linda C. Powell. “Communities of Difference:
A Critical Look at Desegregated Spaces Created for and by Youth.”
Harvard Educational Review vol.67 (2) 1997:247-84.