1. Theories and Developmental Models
White Racial Identity
Theories and Developmental Models

2. Socio-political definition of race
Remember, race is:
A socially constructed system of classifying individuals according to phenotypical characteristics that are genetically determined but not always consistent.
“A concept which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodies.” (Omi & Winant)

3. Who gets to define “whiteness”?
“The colored people of this country know and understand the white people better than the white people will ever know and understand themselves.”
-- poet and anthologist James Weldon Johnson (1912)
“While the average Nordic knows nothing of how Negroes actually live and what they think, the Negroes know the Nordic intimately.”
-- Black journalist and novelist George S. Schuyler (1927)

4. Whiteness as a group identity
Four factors influence strength of racial/ethnic identity
Size
Power
Discrimination
Appearance
Copyright Arunas Juska, Ph.D.

5. Whiteness as a group identity (cont.)
Strengths of paradigm
Acknowledges social construction of race
Acknowledges political meaning of racial construction
Acknowledges existence of racist institutions and racial socialization
Limitations of paradigm
Fails to recognize that all Whites benefit from white skin privilege
Fails to acknowledge unintentional racism
Fails to acknowledge “relative evil” of different racist behaviors
Normalizes white racism, causing many to avoid dealing with the issue on both a personal and community level
Does not recognize personal progress toward unlearning racism
Does not prescribe any plan toward increasing social justice

6. Whiteness as an equivalent to racism
James Baldwin: On Being “White” and Other Lies (1984)
“Adopting and treasuring a white identity is absolutely a moral choice, since there are no white people….As long as you think you’re white, there is no hope for you.”
“The cost of whiteness involves not only a struggle of whom to exclude from the private club of full humanity but of what huge sections of the human experience to exclude from one’s sense of self or visit surreptitiously after dark.”
Noel Ignatiev, publisher of Race Traitor
The white race is a historically constructed social formation. It consists of all those who partake of the privileges of the white skin in this society. Its most wretched members share a status higher, in certain respects, than that of the most exalted persons excluded from it, in return for which they give their support to a system that degrades them.
The key to solving the social problems of our age is to abolish the white race, which means no more and no less than abolishing the privileges of the white skin. Until that task is accomplished, even partial reform will prove elusive, because white influence permeates every issue, domestic and foreign, in U.S. society.
The existence of the white race depends on the willingness of those assigned to it to place their racial interests above class, gender, or any other interests they hold. When possible, it [Race Traitor] will support practical measures, guided by the principle, Treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity.

7. Whiteness as racism (continued)
Strengths of paradigm
Acknowledges social construction of race
Acknowledges political meaning of racial construction
Acknowledges existence of racist institutions and racial socialization
Acknowledges that racism can be unintentional
Acknowledges that all Whites benefit from white skin privilege
Limitations of paradigm
Does not acknowledge “relative evil” of different racist behaviors
Blames and attacks white Americans, causing many well-intentioned to avoid dealing with the issue on both a personal and community level
Does not recognize personal progress toward unlearning racism
Does not recognize any societal progress, short of abolishing whiteness

8. Whiteness as privilege
The privilege to be oblivious to, to ignore, or to deny the impact of race and racism in our society
The privilege to surround oneself with members of own racial group, if one wants to do so
The privilege of interacting with people in authority who are members of own racial group
The privilege to be judged as a person, rather than be stereotyped as a member of a group
And…The privilege to not have to wrestle over what it means to be white

9. Whiteness as privilege (continued)
One of the important steps that whites must go through in learning about racism and their role in combating it is to recognize themselves as white. While...ethnic minorities are forced by their racial oppression to be aware of themselves as members of racial groups, whites generally have the luxury to feel "normal," not aware of their whiteness Echols, Gabel, Landerman, & Reyes. (1988). An Approach for Addressing Racism, Ethnocentrism, and Sexism in the Curriculum.
If we follow through on the self-reflexive nature of these encounters with Africanism, it falls clear: images of blackness can be evil and protective, rebellious and forgiving, fearful and desirable — all of the self-contradictory features of the self. Whiteness, alone, is mute, meaningless, unfathomable, pointless, frozen, veiled, curtained, dreaded, senseless, implacable. Or so our writers seem to say.
Toni Morrison, from Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (New York:Vintage Books, 1993) p. 59.
[Blacks are mired] in a very natural process of inversion in which we invert from negative to positive the very point of difference — our blackness — that the enemy used to justify our oppression. ...One of the many advantages whites enjoy in America is a relative freedom from the draining obligation of racial inversion. Whites do not have to spend precious time fashioning an identity out of simply being white. They do not have to self-consciously imbue whiteness with an ideology, look to whiteness for some special essence, or divide up into factions and wrestle over what it means to be white. Their racial collectivism, to the extent that they feel it, creates no imbalance between the collective and the individual. This, of course, is yet another blessing of history and of power, of never having lived in the midst of an overwhelming enemy race.
Shelby Steele, The Content of Our Character (New York: Harper Perennial, 1990).

10. Whiteness as a developmental process
Janet Helms’ (1990, 1995) White Racial Identity Model
Assumes existence of white superiority and individual, cultural, and institutional racism.
Sees white racial identity as an oppositional identity
Assumes individuals start with a racist identity and must first move away from such an identity before they can develop a non-racist identity
Assumes individuals can be in more than one “stage” at a time (i.e., have multiple statuses)
Posits that different statuses are associated with different ways of processing racial data

11. White Racial Identity Development
Six statuses of white racial identity (Helms, 1995)
Contact
Disintegration
Reintegration
Pseudo-Independent
Immersion-Emersion
Autonomy
Abandonment of racism
Redefining a positive White identity

12. Contact Passive lack of racial salience and awareness
Unaware of most forms of racism
Unaware of white-skin privilege (class exercise on Thursday)
Unlikely to attend to or remember racial stereotypes
Limited interactions with non-whites
Most relationships with other Whites
Exposure to people of color mostly vicarious (e.g., media)
Possible cross-race friendships with “pre-encounter” people of color
Naïve curiosity and/or timidity about people of color
Color-blind philosophy and ideology
Evaluates people of color with “white” criteria
Responds to racism with denial
Perpetrates racist behavior unknowingly (e.g., “You’re not like most Blacks)

13. Disintegration Increased awareness of racial inequalities
Usually due to interactions with members of minority group
Recognition of moral dilemmas associated with whiteness
Freedom and democracy vs. racial inequality
Individual merit vs. racial stereotypes
Most relationships still with other Whites
Cross-racial interactions feel threatening and increase anxiety
Copes with discomfort by avoiding cross-racial interactions
Tries to convince other Whites that people of color are not inferior
Color-blindness no longer espoused
Knowledge of racial inequality creates cognitive dissonance, which manifests in feelings of guilt, depression, helplessness, anxiety, discomfort, & resentment
Seeks and attends to information to the effect that racism is not the White person’s fault or no longer exists

14. Reintegration (into “Whiteness”)
Relatively good awareness of racial inequalities
Members of minority groups blamed for inequalities
Negative stereotypes about minority groups prominent
Selective attention to information that confirms racial stereotypes
Idealization of whiteness
Endorsement of white superiority (e.g., intelligence)
Strong preference for relationships with Whites
Enjoyment of racist humor that promotes white superiority
Guilt and anxiety transformed into fear and anger
Active Expression: oppression, violence
Passive Expression: avoidance of people and situations
Possible endorsement of minority group superiority in domains that are usually considered of lesser importance

15. Pseudo-Independent Intellectual enlightment about racism
Questions inferiority of (and stereotypes about) people of color
Begins to acknowledge responsibility of Whites for racism
Begins to realize how he/she may help perpetuate it
Greater interaction with people of color
Intellectual acceptance and curiosity about people of color
Sincere desire to help people of color
Focus on helping people of color meet majority group standards (become more white)
Unaware that criteria may be inappropriate
May be met with suspicion from both Whites and people of color (marginalization)
May still unintentionally perpetrate racism

16. Immersion-Emersion
Emotional intense period of “soul searching” for a healthy racial identity
Focus shifts from changing people of color to changing self and other white people
Honest reflection on what it means to be “white” in this country
What is an appropriate personal response to racism?
May be associated with some guilt, but dominant emotions are generally hope and motivation

17. Autonomy Internalization of healthy, positive, White identity.
Race and people of color are no longer a threat
No longer feels need to oppress or idealize people because of group membership
Actively seeks to learn from other cultural/racial groups
Increasingly aware of relatedness of various forms of oppression
Ongoing racial self-actualization
Guilt is replaced by motivation and commitment to fighting racism

18. Stages (Schemas) of White Racial identity Development
Phase 1: Abandonment of Racism
CONTACT
DISINTEGRATION
REINTEGRATION
Phase 2: Defining a Nonracist White Identity
PSEDO-INDEPENDENCE
IMMERSION/EMERSION
AUTONOMY

19. Critiques of White Racial Identity Model
Erroneously based on racial/ethnic minority identity development models.
Too much emphasis on the attitudes toward minorities; not enough on attitudes toward self or own racial identity.
Linear development conceptually inaccurate
Implicit hierarchy based on creator’s ethics
(Behrens & Rowe)

20. Double Consciousness
“It is a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others…. One ever feels his twoness, -- an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body…” (Du Bois, 1903).
White double consciousness exists too, but only in last two “stages” of development

21. Whiteness as a developmental process
Strengths of paradigm
Acknowledges social construction of race
Acknowledges political meaning of racial construction
Acknowledges existence of racist institutions and racial socialization
Acknowledges that all Whites benefit from white skin privilege
Acknowledges unintentional racism
Acknowledges “relative evil” of different racist behaviors
Normalizes internalization of racism without normalizing racism
Prescribes plan toward becoming non-racist
Recognizes personal progress toward unlearning racism
Limitations of paradigm
Assumes development begins at a particular point
Fails to recognize influence of demographic and socializing factors
Fails to prescribe plan toward increasing social justice