Racial and Ethnic Identity Development

Racial and Ethnic Identity Development

As correctly pointed out by W.E.B du Bois, the first African-American to earn a Ph.D. degree at Harvard, the biggest problem that the twentieth century is facing is racial in nature. There is hatred found in the hearts of people especially students belonging to different race and culture. Each perceives another to be a threat to its cultural roots and identity. This gives rise to conflict where students take teachers of a different color to be a threat to them and where girls fear being raped by people just because they belong to a different race.

Helms defines racial identity in the words "a sense of group or collective identity based on one's perception that he or she shares a common racial heritage with a particular racial group" (Helms, 1993, p.3). McIntosh (1989) blames the white for the racial and oppression present in the United States. Ethnic identity on the other hand is defined by Yinger as "a segment of a larger society whose members are thought by themselves or others, to have a common origin and to share the segments of a common culture and who in addition participate in shared activities in which the common origin and culture are significant ingredients." (Yinger, 1976, p.200)

RACIAL AND ETHNIC IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT MODELS

Although many such models exist, the three main models that deal with this most appropriately are known as:

1. The Cross Model of Psychological Nigrescence

2. Helms' White Identity Development Model

3. Phinney's Model of Ethnic Identity Development

The Cross Model of Psychological Nigrescence

This model is a five staged process which defines the resocializing experience where a healthy individual's identity undergoes a transformation from non-Afrocentrism to Afrocentrism to multiculturism. The first stage as explain by Cross is called "Preencounter" where race is of no significance and the general idea among people is to be accepted as human beings.

The second step is Encounter where an individual comes into contact with people from other races and their behaviors completely destroys his view. Here the individual undergoes an encounter and then with the accumulation of different such encounters that he has faced, he looks at the world with a different perspective. Anger develops within him and soon he seeks information about a new black identity.

Immersion-Emersion is the third stage that marks the individual ridding himself of his old identity and fantasizes about new black self-images. He determines himself to change. They isolate themselves from people of other ethnicities or skin color and immerse themselves within people of the same color. All this leads to the factors that are part of the fourth stage known as "Internationalization."

Internationalization marks the stage where an individual starts thinking more critically about his culture and achieve a sense of acceptance that he is black and thus gains self-confidence. This leads onto the renegotiation of relationships with people from other ethnic groups including whites.

The last stage, Internalization-Commitment is where the individual replaces the 'I' with a 'we' thus traveling from an egocentric perspective to a group perspective.

Helms' White Identity Development Model

Helms wanted to eliminate racism by moving towards a non-racist white identity. Thus Helms suggested a model which has six statuses spread over a two phases.

The first status of Phase I, is known as Contact and is when an individual comes into contact with the black people. Eventually whites in this status will come to realize that blacks are treated different in the United States and one this realization comes to place, they move onto the next status.

Disintegration is the name given to the second status and includes whites who recognize the moral dilemma associated with being white. There is emotional discomfort when he sees the hypocrisy in what the society teaches and what it actually practices. They then want to believe that racism is not because of the whites.

Reintegration is the last status of the first phase where an individual accepts the supremacy of the whites and inferiority of the black. He then has no feelings of guilt and anger develops within him. Either he would start treating black inferiorly or remove himself from a society where blacks are present.

Status 4 or Pseudo Independence marks the beginning of Phase II. In this feelings regarding racism are sympathetic in nature. Whites seek to interact with blacks in an attempt to change them to act like whites as far as acceptance and success is concerned. Here individuals may not posses either a positive or a negative white identity.