Poignant Reflection Alleged Diversity

The fourth chapter of the work of literature edited by Suzuki and Ponterro, "Cultural identity, racial identity, and the multicultural personality" alludes to the fact that ethnic and racial difference pertain a lot to the development of identity for an individual. It was somewhat surprising, however, to learn of the polarization of the concept of race considered within this chapter. The authors discuss developments and instruments relating to African-Americans, Caucasians, and those who embrace a multicultural conception of themselves. It is surprising to see such a simplified dichotomy when these categories leave out a variety of other different types of races including Asians, Latinos, Islanders, Native Americans, and various hybrids (although the multicultural identity can be applied to hybrids). I sincerely hope that the research of identity formation as related to race within the field of psychology has additional measures and concerns for other races and ethnicities; perhaps the limitations in this chapter were due to space constraints. However, the way the chapter reads there is a severe shortage in research conducted on the majority of races which currently populate the planet, as well as on the impact of their formation of identity for individuals constituting these various races.

African-Americans

I found it highly interesting, and even somewhat suspect, that when discussing the most recent developments regarding assessment measures for ethnic and racial identity in this chapter, the authors devoted approximately a page and a half to the Cross Racial Identity Attitude Scale, which is used to assess African-Americans, while devoting approximately a third of that space to the assessment measures for Caucasians and multicultural people, respectively. Perhaps the authors did so because "of the three instruments discussed, the CRIS has received most empirical attention" (Burkard and Ponterroto, 2000, p. 58). However, what certainly seemed incongruent...

There are six personality types all together, three of which largely eschew engaging in the "Black community" while another does so in "frequently unpredictable ways" (Burkard and Ponterroto, 2000, p. 56). Thus, it appears that the authors are attempting to emphasize the fact that African-Americans do not like either themselves or other African-Americans as denoted by the two-thirds of personality types discussed within this chapter. The remaining two personality types seem equally suspect. This assessment measure would have the reader and clinicians believe that there are some African-Americans (the so-called "Internalization Nationalist") (Burkard and Ponterroto, 2000, p. 56) who identify with being African-American more so than they do a man or a woman, based on the fact that there is a separate identity for those who do identify with their African-American heritage and other factors including gender, religion etc. Such assumptions and categorizations certainly seem unrealistic.
Multicultural

Of equal suspect plausibility is the majority of the chapter, which focuses on a "multicultural personality" (Burkard and Ponterroto, 2000, p. 59). The very notion seems a little silly, frankly -- that there are certain people who have personality characteristics that are predisposed to getting along with individuals of myriad ethnicities and cultures and there are others that are not. I believe the authors are overlooking the fact that such dispositions have less to do with innate personality traits than they do with personal experience dealing with someone of a specific culture. That experience will influence an individual's perception of dealing with additional people of that culture. In this sense, it appears as though the focus of empirical evidence and psychology seems a little misplaced. The intentions of the authors and of the individuals who have determined these theories based…