1. A step on the road to reconciliation
Racial Identity
A step on the road to reconciliation

2. Questions for discussion
What thoughts does the term “racial identity” bring to your mind?
How would you define a healthy racial identity?
Do you feel you possess one?

3. Identity Development for POC
Pre-encounter
Encounter
Immersion/Emersion
Internalization

4. Pre-encounter
Race does not tend to be a salient issue; not much thought is given to race
General tendency to value majority culture and to devalue own culture
May have positive view of own group (parental transmission), but have not thought through for self
Some may see race as a stigma
Some may harbor “anti-POC” attitudes
In extreme, may see self-hatred

5. Encounter Something catches person off guard
Encounter causes to re-think one’s racial identity
Encounter need not be negative
Often accompanied by high emotionality
May cause alarm, confusion
Sense of disequilibria
New motivation to develop a different sense of self as POC individual

6. Immersion/Emersion Active exploring aspects of cultural identity
Fueled by energy of encounter
Intense process of immersion in own culture
May involve rejection of dominant culture
Things associated with old self rejected; new identity embraced
May show anger at “white culture”
May hold dichotomized view of the world
Emersion – process of leveling off from intensity of immersion

7. Internalization Deeper integrated sense of one’s own ethnic identity
May (or may not) result in high degree of involvement in own culture
Newly organized, stable, sense of self as a POC individual
Synthesis of “POC-ness” with one’s personhood
Specific race becomes a backdrop for life’s transactions

8. Identity Development for White People
Contact
Disintegration
Reintegration
Pseudo-Independence
Immersion-Emersion
Autonomy

9. Contact
Characterized by an innocence and ignorance of race and racial issues
Person is not conscious of his/her race or the race of others

10. Disintegration Person consciously acknowledges that he or she is white
Realization that white people have privileges in this country
Moral dilemma of holding whites responsible for inequity or continuing as normal occurs
Dilemma is too overwhelming, so POCs are blamed for their own victimization

11. Reintegration Person considers white as superior
Continuation of blaming persons of color for their conditions
Can remain in this stage for a long time

12. Pseudo-Independence
An appropriate positive view of whiteness is present
No longer believe that white is superior
Realization of political implications of race, but denial that whites are responsible for racism

13. Immersion-Emersion
Effort to understand the reality of the brutal history of white people in the US
Active exploration of racism
Assumption of personal responsibility for racism
Realization of the deficits of being white

14. Autonomy Confrontation of racism
Quest to develop a humanitarian attitude towards people regardless of race
Feeling of safety and security within oneself when engaging in experiences that nurture his or her whiteness is defined

15. Resources/Further Reading
Let Justice Roll Down – Dr. John Perkins
Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? – Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum
New Perspectives on Racial Identity Development - Charmaine L. Wijeyesinghe
wijeyesinghe-pat-griffin-barbara-love.html
RAAN Network (raanetwork.org)