Examining White Racial Identity: An Exploratory Study (original) (raw)
Related papers
Problematic White Identities and a Search for Racial Justice
Sociological Forum, 2001
Blauner (1995, Racism and Antiracism in World Perspective. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage), Winant (1998, Ethnic and Racial Studies 24(4): 755–766) and Bonnett (1997, New Communities 22(1): 97–110) all express concern over the construction of “racism” as a white-only phenomenon and the corresponding degree to which whiteness is essentialized as a negative identity. This paper explores how white antiracism activists mediate between a static construction of “white racism” and a more contextual understanding of racism and possibilities for white activism. While whiteness is clearly hegemonic in the larger social world, within movements for racial justice, whiteness is often seen as suspect. Given this, white antiracism activists spend a fair amount of their activist hours negotiating a problematic identity. This paper explores the mechanisms by which such an identity is negotiated. I conclude that while white activism is complicated by a definition of racism that tends to essentialize whiteness, the activists have found ways to empower themselves and to conceptualize their relationship to racism and antiracism activism in a less rigid way. All of this contributes to our understanding of the complexity of white identity and efforts to demonstrate how it is an identity that, like other identities, is always in formation.
STUDY GUIDE, 2012
New Perspectives on Racial Identity Development, second edition takes a critical look at how race and racial identity are experienced and understood given the changing demographics of the United States and the dynamic nature of the social, cultural, and political climate in which models of identity develop and evolve. Authors explore the impact of various approaches to human development, current social forces, and emerging frameworks from related disciplines and interrogate, critique, and revise their work. Readers are presented with updated models, tools, and pedagogical practices that enable them to understand and study racial identity within a cultural context where race and other identities are socially constructed, and carry signifi cant social, political, and group meaning. In addition, they are challenged to think of identity in a more holistic and global perspective given the signifi cant attention paid to intersectionality and other frameworks throughout the text. Chapter authors use multiple vehicles, including historical and theoretical analysis, research studies, and personal narratives to illustrate the connection between theory and the lived experience of individuals. Chapters in the fi rst section of the book highlight the history and evolution of theoretical frameworks related to race and identity across seven racial groups. Authors in the second section provide insight on the complex interconnection between race and other social identities, the enactment of identity across situations and contexts, and pedagogy and practice related to teaching about racial identity.
Fighting for the Right to Be White: A Case Study in White Racial Identity
Journal of Hate Studies
Membership in extremist groups, such as White Revolution and the Ku Klux Klan, embody specific behavioral attributes. These attributes include practicing endogamy and exhibiting racial pride. There is general consensus among members as to what it means to be part of a socially constructed extremist group. There are also strong motivational factors that support maintaining in-group solidarity and dominant status. By adhering to the rules dictated by group membership, both the self and the group are uplifted based on white racial identity. The process of self-categorization for white racial activists accentuates their own physical similarities along with perceived negative physical differences among racial and ethnic groups. The result is a reinforcement of norms that favor the in-group over the outgroup. Subjective belief structures, such as the superiority of whiteness and heterosexuality, legitimize the existence of a universal higher status ingroup (at least in the white supremacist worldview). This project is based on ongoing field research that began in July 2009, survey data collected in May 2010, and discussion topics posted on the hate site, Stormfront.org in 2013 and 2014. These findings, among others, contribute to literature about why some people join extremist groups, adhere to racialist ideology, and believe that whites are superior to all other groups.
For many years, scholars have focused on analyzing, interpreting and producing models of identity and identity development. In the 1950s with his book Childhood and Society . Erik Erikson building on Freud's work developed an eight stage model of identity development that covered the entire lifespan. This model became part of the education of mental health practitioners who could use it to augment their understanding of particular diagnoses of the many DSM that we have had to all learn about. His identity development stages describe the poles of each stage that a person will confront at approximate times of life. Thus the infant struggles with the pole of trust versus mistrust and the older adult facing the declining period of life confronts ego integrity or despair. While Erikson attempted to provide a more universalistic understanding of identity by overcoming the sole emphasis on sexuality that Freud's work was centered upon, recent scholars have argued that no comprehensive analysis can be reached without attention to other identity issues. Researchers in the mental health field and in the academic sciences are now aware that identify is not only a "human" issue, that is one that ALL humans cope and deal with, but that identity is influenced by race, gender and sexual orientation. In the following brief summary of work on identity we wish to focus on race, although some of the issues can be applied directly to issues of gender and sexual orientation. The infant's resolution of the trust/mistrust identity issue manifested itself later in life as an adult issue. Since racial identities are learned very early in life, they work as a lens for interpreting, understanding, experiencing and participating in the world as well as a way of connecting with and identifying with others. These identities can change when they are challenged by life experiences. This suggests that any discussion of "universal" identity processes needs to be supplemented by discussions of racial identity. Race dictates how gender, sexual orientation and other aspects of identification are experienced, practiced and processed. We cannot talk about separate gender or sexual orientation models without keeping in mind that White and non-White women, for example, may differ greatly in their development and identification in the same stage of the life cycle. Having a model of racial and gender identity development for our clients allows us to be much attuned to our clients' sense of self and provides us with a more sensitive and perceptive understanding of the way they will view us and their world. We will now summarize some of the major racial identity theorists.
Zeitschrift für Soziologie
This article depicts two cases of “lost Whiteness” and unintentional racial “passing.” Based on years of ethnographic research, we present the story of two White people who – largely because of their truly-determined commitment to racial justice activism – were thought by others as being or becoming Persons of Color. These activists were not trying to pass. Rather, they are manifestations of a “reverse racial pass,” defined as “any instance in which a person legally recognized as white effectively functions as a non-white person in any quarter of the social arena” (Harper 1998: 382). These two cases illumine the relationships between the ongoing, negotiated process of racial identity formation and antiracist activism in the United States. We argue that Whiteness and antiracism are enmeshed in a paradoxical dynamic: Social emphases on antiracist activism enabled the reception of White activists as People of Color, while conversely, emphases on activists’ Whiteness enabled observers t...
Integrating Process with Content in Understanding African American Racial Identity Development
Self and Identity, 2010
Historically, racial identity research has focused on either the process by which identity develops or the content of the identities that individuals hold. This paper investigates the nexus of these approaches. Specifically, cluster analysis was used to locate 204 African American college students in one of four statuses of development outlined by Phinney (1989) and examine movement across clusters over time. Mean differences in the content of individuals' racial Centrality, racial Regard, and racial Ideology beliefs across clusters at both time points were then assessed. Results indicate some relationship between process and content such that higher levels of development are associated with higher levels of identification with and more positive attitudes toward one's racial group.
Multidimensional Model of Racial Identity: A Reconceptualization of African American Racial Identity
Personality and Social Psychology Review, 1998
Research on African American racial identity has utilized 2 distinct approaches. The mainstream approach hasfocused on universal properties associated with ethnic and racial identities. In contrast, the underground approach has focused on documenting the qualitative meaning of being African American, with an emphasis on the unique cultural and historical experiences of African Americans. The Multidimensional Model of Racial Identity (MMRI) represents a synthesis of the strengths of these two approaches. The underlying assumptions associated with the model are explored. The model proposes 4 dimensions ofAfrican American racial identity: salience, centrality, regard, and ideology. A description of these dimensions is provided along with a discussion ofhow they interact to influence behavior at the level ofthe event. We argue that the MMRI has the potential to make contributions to traditional research objectives of both approaches, as well as to provide the impetus to explore new questions. 18 Requests for reprints should be sent to Robert M. Sellers,