White Racial Identity Development

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Arts Humanities

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Jan 9, 2024

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White Racial Identity Development The woman who, when asked about her race replied that she is “just normal” has really stuck out in my mind, and I think about it often. I think the other thing that was powerful was thinking about the reality of experience and perspective between being a White ally and being antiracist (although I benefited from Sue et. al.’s explanation). But when I read about disintegration I really perked up. “The societal inequities they now notice directly contradict the idea of an American meritocracy, a concept that has typically been an integral part of their belief system. The cognitive dissonance that results is part of the discomfort that is experienced at this point in the process of development” (Tatum, 2017, p. 82). This is where I see a lot of my high school students beginning to really get dose of reality. This time of year, Freshmen start to question the validity of the Thanksgiving myths; the first doubt creeps in that maybe the White settlers following manifest destiny were not kind, cheerful neighbors with the Native Americans. When students begin to question some of the statements, they’ve heard all their lives and see the reality of the world around them, sometimes they really struggle. One student very recently told me how they had become friends with Black and Latinx peers, and he tried to repress his shock that they and their families were kind, intelligent, clean, and normal; society, television, and his parents had led him to believe that all Black people came from an NWA music video and all Latinx people were just like Cheech and Chong. For some adolescents, seeing the dawning truth that “most Americans have internalized the espoused cultural values of fairness and justice for all at the same time that they have been breathing the smog of racial biases and stereotypes pervading popular culture” (Tatum, 2017, p. 93). Although this student was genuinely overcoming the racist “smog” he had been breathing

all his life, he still struggled to believe his friends were the rule and not the exception. He had been told it was minorities who brought the discrimination upon themselves, and the reason people of color are more likely to end up in jail, or poor, or uneducated was because of they were more likely to commit violent crimes, have more children than they can afford, and are too busy buying or selling drugs to go to school. He is struggling to believe that the systemic racism and hegemony he sees are the truth, and not the distortions he has been fed his entire life. There is a real difference between racial integration and racial tolerance, and neither one of those necessarily incorporate respect or kindness for other races. As Tatum explained, “Research on Whiteness and White privilege points to an important barrier to racial understanding for White Americans: the invisibility of their Whiteness to them and/or its impact on their lives” (Bell, 2003; Hegarty, 2017; Helms, 1990; Spanierman, Poteat, Beer, & Armstrong, 2006; Tatum, 1992; Todd & Abrams, 2011, as cited by Sue et al., 2022, p. 131). Again, this reminds me of my students in a school that is 65% White. Most Caucasian students believe that their identity is the norm, and anything else is a deviation from the norm. Different races are measured in terms of how different they are from their own “normative” values and ideas. “Although the experiences of White individuals are socially multifaceted, Whiteness remains a powerful life‐shaping identity and cultural influence, and it is one that White people are typically less prepared to understand than any of the other dimensions of their social experience” (Sue et al., 2022, p. 132). One day we were talking about racism in class, and one student defiantly pronounced, “I am gay! Don’t tell me what it is like to be discriminated against!” She was speaking to a Black student as we were discussing the experience of a Native American protagonist. As the class was discussing visibility, the effects of generational racism, systemic discrimination, the same student compared slavery and the Trail of Tears to Matthew

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