Identity Development
COMPARATIVE CULTURES
JEANETT CASTELLANOS, PH.D.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA,
IRVINE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Y2K3mX-FXk&feature=related
Learning Objectives
 Explore dominant and subordinate cultures
 Identify the role of institutional racism
 Address the various identities people subscribe to
 Discuss issues related to the idea of privilege and
examine your personal experiences with privilege

Exploring the ISMs in society
 Define and critique key concepts in the literature
about identity development
 Identify similarities and differences between the
White experience and the experience of VREGs.
Activity
 What is American
culture?
 Once you forget your
culture you become
dangerous
 What is White culture?
 Why has there been
minimal to no emphasis
on European ethnicity in
the US in relation to
White identity?
No history - no self
Know history know self
 A History’s People of the
US: 1492 to Present
Unique Points
 A group of White people were oppressed in the
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history of America
A number of Whites were indentured servants in US
Cheaper to have free labor
Whites have bought into White privileges but we all
have unique privileges
There are dominant and subordinate identities
White consciousness is not a necessity for White
Americans
Privilege
A SPECIAL ADVANTAGE OR
IMMUNITY OR BENEFIT
NOT ENJOYED BY ALL.
IT OPERATES ON THE GROUP
AND STRUCTURAL LEVEL.
Privilege Chart
People Who are DENIED or
Have Less Privilege
Youth
Religious Groups
Poor
Differently Labeled
Women
ESL
Elders
Labeled Fat and Skinny
Racially Visible Ethnic Minorities
Uneducated
GLBT
Less -abled
The Concern
Privilege +
Power used negatively
→ Oppression
→(-isms)
The ISMS
 Racism
 Classism
 Sexism
 Heterosexism
 Anti-
Muslimism
 Anti-Islamism
 Anti-Semitism
 Sizeism
 Lookism
 Linguistism
 Ableism
 Adultism
 Ageism
 Alphabetism
History and Privilege
 1964

2/3 of the US in
correction facilities were
White and 1/3 were people
of color
 1994

2/3 are people of color
(AA and Latina/o) and 1/3
White
 Theory 1: Crime Spree and
rate of crime for each
group changes
 Theory 2: Social Control
What happened in the 1960s
 Civil Rights Movement
 Formal discrimination
was outlawed



Jim Crow no longer
allowed
Different social control is
needed
Criminalize certain people
and actions
 Theory 1: Crime Spree
and rate of crime for each
group changes


Crimes have not changed
for AA in the past 25 years
60% of all violent crime in
America is committed by
White people

Only 23% of the people in
jail for violent crime
 Theory 2: Social Control

Increased concentration of
policy reinforcement in
communities of color after
1964
Tim Wise and Institutional Racism
 Tim Wise
 Born in Tennessee
 Civil Rights advocate
 Anti-racist activist
 Louisiana, New Orleans
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C55zE_qJd2g
Tim Wise and Institutional Racism
 Tim Wise
 Born in Tennessee
 Civil Rights advocate
 Anti-racist activist
 Louisiana, New Orleans
 What are your reactions
to Tim’s discourse?
 What are your thoughts
about the statistics that
demonstrate
disproportionate penalty
across groups?
Implications to Institutional Racism
 Social Control
 Social Inequity
 Labor Force
Discrimination
 Educational Tracking
 Fear
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-VEWJncnsk&feature=related
Implications to Institutional Racism
 Social Control
 Social Inequity
 Labor Force
Discrimination
 Educational Tracking
 Fear
 What was surprising
about Tim’s lecture?
 Why is this information
important?
 How does it relate to you
as a future professional
or service provider,
doctor, lawyer, engineer,
manager?
Race vs. Class
White Privilege (Kendall Clark)
White privilege, a social relation – a form of social privilege
 A right, advantage, or immunity granted to or enjoyed by White persons
beyond the common advantage of all others; an exemption in many
particular cases from certain burdens or liabilities.
 A special advantage or benefit of White persons; with reference to
divine dispensations, natural advantages, gifts of fortune, genetic
endowments, social relations, etc.
 A privileged position; the possession of an advantage White persons
enjoy over non–white persons.
 The special right or immunity attaching to white persons as a social
relation; prerogative.
 display of White privilege, a social expression of a white person or
persons demanding to be treated as a member or members of the
socially privileged class.
White Privilege (Kendall Clark)
 To invest White persons with a privilege or privileges; to
grant to White persons a particular right or immunity; to
benefit or favor specially white persons; to invest White
persons with special honorable distinctions.
 To avail oneself of a privilege owing to one as a White
person.
 To authorize or license of White person or persons what is
forbidden or wrong for non–whites; to justify, excuse.
 To give to White persons special freedom or immunity
from some liability or burden to which non–white persons
are subject; to exempt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=makRKNmF4ZQ
Examples of White Privilege - McIntosh
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I think whites are carefully taught not
to recognize white privilege, as males
are taught not to recognize male
privilege.
My schooling gave me no training in
seeing myself as an oppressor, as an
unfairly advantaged person, or as a
participant in a damaged culture. I was
taught to see myself as an individual
whose moral state depended on her
individual moral will.
I was taught to see racism only in
individual acts of meanness, not in
invisible systems conferring dominance
on my group
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVu9dfXTeSY

I can go shopping alone most of the time,
pretty well assured that I will not be followed
or harassed.

I can turn on the television or open to the
front page of the paper and see people of my
race widely represented.

When I am told about our national heritage
or about "civilization," I am shown that
people of my color made it what it is.

I do not have to educate my children to be
aware of systemic racism for their own daily
physical protection.

I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes,
or not answer letters, without having people
attribute these choices to the bad morals, the
poverty or the illiteracy of my race.

I can speak in public to a powerful male
group without putting my race on trial.
The role of invisible power (Kendall Clark)
 In studying historical examples and theories of
oppression, it becomes clear that social (in)visibility is an
important strategy.

Early feminists make this point over and over. If men and
women equally believe, for example, that women are by their
very nature subordinate to men, then gender oppression
seems natural, inevitable, timeless.
 If you can design structures of oppression which are
invisible, which seem natural, they will be more effective
than structures which are visible. If you can convince
everyone, but especially members of the oppressed group
itself, that the way things are is natural or inevitable or
unavoidable, people will be less likely to challenge the
way things are.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ8f1eLZ1cs
Privilege and Identity
 Because of their privilege status in society, Whites
have not been lead or forced to examine their own
roles in relation to race relations in the US
 The White racial identity development process
involves coming to terms with one’s own unearned
privilege in society, followed by an honest selfexamination of one’s role in maintaining the status
quo and ending with a balanced identity
characterized by self-awareness and a commitment
to social justice.
Research Findings
 Herbert Gans “Symbolic Ethnicity” findings
 White ethnicity is voluntary and inconsequential to daily life.
 Whites express ethnicity symbolically through food, music of
holidays

i.e. Irish celebrating St. Patrick's Day or Italians eating pasta
 Mary Waters "Ethnic Options” findings

Whites ethnicity is an proscribed, voluntary, inconsequential choice

There are no consequences to whites’ choosing to identify with their
ethnic ancestry (Irish, Scottish, Italian, etc.)
 i.e. Italians claim they are Italian and other co-workers, authorities or
neighbors do not challenge them or question their authenticity
Mary Waters Research (Cont)
 Non-white ethnicity is ascribed (by others), &
consequential

Asian American citizen (born in the United States) are asked
“where are you from?” People assume they are “others” or not
synonymous with American. Their ethnic identity is
questioned.
Lets go deeper: If they answer “America” people continue to ask
“But where are you really from?...You know what I mean…Your
parents”
 How do you think someone who is third or later generation US
citizen react to this?

What does this tell us about our conception of ethnic identity in America?
Why so we ask this of Asians but not of Irish Americans?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWynJkN5HbQ
Current Research , 2009
 Tomas Jimenez “Ethnic Replenishment”
 Third and later generation Mexicans in California and Kansas
regarding ethnic identity
 Many subjects’ ethnicity was ascribed instead of
proscribed
 Subjects who self identified as American, spoke only
English and had little association with their Mexican
ancestry were often identity by others as Mexican,
illegal or immigrants.
Example of Pedro
 Pedro lives in an upper middle class area, is professional
third generation Mexican American who hardly speaks
Spanish and went to his real estate property to work on
landscaping. Pedro’s “appearance left him open to
stereotypes about his ethnicity, nativity and legal status”
such as the following incident of “being pulled over by an
INS official after doing yard work at a rental property”
Example of Pedro
 “Its INS border patrol. SO I get out and the guy says “Vete
aqui!” I go, oh no, and I’m laughing. I come over and say,
“May I help you?” He says “Do you speak English?” I said,
“What the hell do you think I just said?” He says “Do you have
some ID?” I go “What the hell do you want to know if I have ID
for? I wasn’t going past the speed limit. Besides you’re not a
cop. You’re border patrol. All right, I’ll play your game.” He
said “Do you have some ID?” So I pull out my driver’s license
and show him my wallet. “Do you have something else?” I said
“Yeah.” And I showed him my social security card. He wanted
to reach for it, and I go “You ain’t getting this. Forget that.” He
goes “You have anything else?” I go “Sure I do.” So, I pull out
my American Express card. And its green. I said “Don’t leave
home without it…This is harassment…”
Class Discussion
Situation: Suppose there is a shooting at the LA Marathon and
there is no information on the suspect.
 What are your initial thoughts regarding a possibility for the
suspect? Why?
 What would happen if you found out the person was of Irish
Ancestry or White?
 How do you think society would react? What explanations
would they speculate for the person committing the act? Why?
 What would happen if the person was Hispanic? Middle
Eastern? Black?
 How do you think society would react? What explanations
would they speculate for the person committing the act? Why?
Assumptions to White Racial Identity Models
Sue et al, 1998
 Racism is integral to US life and permeates all aspects of
our institutions and culture
 Whites are socialized into society and therefore inherit the
biases, stereotypes, and racist attitudes, beliefs and
behaviors of the larger society.
 Whites can perceive themselves and process their reactions
as an identifiable sequence that can occur progressively or
in a non-progressive fashion.
 The desirable outcome of the model is that individuals
accept their status as White persons in a racist society and
define their identity in a non-racist manner.
Models of White Identity
 Hardiman, 1982
 Ponterotto, 1988
 Helms, 1992
 Sabnani, Ponterotto, and Borodovsky, 1991
Helm’s White Racial Identity Model
 The process involves abandoning one’s racism and
developing a realistic and self-affirming racial
identity
 Because Whites are socialized in an environment
which they are privileged relative to other groups,
they internalize a sense of entitlement and learn to
maintain their privilege by distorting race-related
reality and at times, by aggressive actions against
perceived threats to the racial status quo
Helm’s White Racial Identity Model
7 Ego statuses
 Contact
 Disintegration
 Reintegration
 Pseudoindependence
 Immersion
 Emmersion
 Autonomy
Helm’s White Racial Identity
 Stage I - Contact
 A White person is in the Contact Stage the moment he of
she first encounters the idea that Black people exist. There
is limited social and occupational interaction with Blacks.
Race focused comments - I don’t notice what race a person
is . . . You don’t act like a Black person . .
Helm’s Model - 7 Stages
 Stage II - Disintegration
 The individual acknowledges his/her whiteness and
understand the benefits of being White in a racist society.
Conflicting stage
caught between wanting to be accepted by the norm (White
group), while at the same time experiencing a moral dilemma
over treating (or considering) Blacks inferior than Whites.
 Emotional in-congruence because moral belief is in contrast to in
group expectations.
 “I hate to feel this way -- that is why I minimize race issues and
let them fade from my awareness ..”

Helms – More Stages
 Stage III - Reintegration
 Person accepts the belief in White racial superiority. Racist
identity. Negative conditions associated with Black people
are thought to result from Blacks’ inferior intellectual, moral,
and social qualities. There is an effort to protect and reserve
white privilege.
Reintegration - Continued
 I’m an Italian grandmother. No one gave us welfare or
a helping hand when we came over. My father worked
day and night to provide us with a decent living and put
us through school. In America, if one works hard, one
can make it. I see the Black welfare mothers standing in
line for food stamps. . You can’t convince me they are
starving. . . Laziness. . Is what I see.
Reintegration - Continued
 So what if my grandfather owned slaves. He didn’t
mistreat them. Besides, I wasn’t even here then. I
never owned slaves. So, I don’t know why I am
expected to feel guilty. Nowadays, reverse racism
hurts more than slavery. At least, they got three
meals a day. But my brother can’t get a job in the
police department because they have to hire less
qualified Blacks.
Helms Continued
 Stage IV - Pseudo-Independent
 First stage of phase two - Redefining a non-racist white
identity. Individuals begin to acknowledge their
responsibilities of Whites for racism. They examine how their
own actions have perpetuated racism and maintained the
status quo. Begin to search for a new White identity. Still can
behave in racist ways. In this stage, the individual is still
thinking of the issue from an intellectual perspective rather
than a personal responsibility.
Helms Continued
 Stage V- Immersion

Individuals immerse themselves in the search for accurate
information about race and gain a deeper understanding of
their own racist socialization.
An individual in this stage might become involved in social
activism to fight racism.
 Immerse oneself in biographies of Whites who have made similar
identity journeys.


Myths are stereotypes are replaced. Affective and experiential upheaval
leads to a feeling of rebirth
 Stage VI - Emersion

There is a withdrawal from the previous frantic search and a
new identity that is characterized of immersion and the
embracing of a new community of reeducated Whites where
one can be rejuvenated and empowered in continuing one’s
identity development.
Immersion and Emersion
 I know that I did not personally participate in the
horror of slavery, and I don’t even know whether
my ancestors owned slaves. But I know that
because I am White, I continue to benefit from a
racist system that stems from the slavery era.
Helms
 Stage VII - Autonomy
 Cognitively complex and flexible person opened to opportunities
to learn about other cultural groups. Work toward eliminating
other forms of oppression (e.g. sexism, ageism). Opts to not be
involved in activities that perpetuate racial oppression.
White Racial Consciousness
Development Model
Ponterotto, 1988
 Pre-exposure
 Exposure
 Zealot-Defensive
 Integration
White Racial Consciousness
Development Model
 Pre-exposure
 Individuals have given little thought to MC issues. Generally
naive about racial issues and their inherited privileges as
Whites in America.
 Often believe that racism no longer exists and do not
understand or comprehend the subtle notion of racism.
White Racial Consciousness
Development Model
 Exposure
 Individuals enter stage when first confronted with MC issues
(generally in MC course if student).


Begin to understand institutional issues and issues faced by
minority-group members. Initially, students feel a sense of
empowerment over new and accurate info, but begin to realize that
they have been lied to throughout their education.
Begin to feel angry and guilt at the same time.
White Racial Consciousness
Development Model
 Zealot-Defensive
 Some response zealously and become pro-minority in
philosophy, dealing with their guilt
 Some respond to their anger and guilt in a defensive manner
taking information defensively and withdrawing from the
topic, with students sitting at the back of the class, with seldom
or stop of participation in the class, avoiding eye contact with
professor - blaming the professor as anti-White.
White Racial Consciousness
Development Model
 Integration
 Individuals are able to process and openly discuss feelings,
accepting realities of modern racism and acknowledging their
own contribution to racism.
 They feel good as members of White cultural group, wanting
to know more about other groups, often devoting energy to
other identity commitments such as gender to combat sexism
or heterosexism.
Models of White Identity
 Hardiman, 1982
 Ponterotto, 1988
 Helms, 1992
 Sabnani, Ponterotto, and Borodovsky, 1991
 Pope-Davis, Vandiver and Stone, 1999
Integration of Models: Sabnani et al
 PreExposure/PreContact
 Person is unaware of social expectations and roles with regard
to race. They have not yet begun to explore their own racial
identity. There is an unconsciousness of Whiteness,
acceptance to stereotypes
Integration
 Conflict
 Race relations knowledge, an expansion of knowledge
about race and racial interactions, new information
challenges individual about whiteness
 Pressure to confirm from white acquaintances, wishing to
uphold nonracist attitudes
Integration
 ProMinority/Actiracism
 Strong pro minority
 Self focused anger or guilt
 Retreat into White Culture
 Retreat from minorities, challenged by peers who sense a
disloyalty and betrayal
 Also questioned by minorities
Integration
 Redefinition
 More balance identity
 Recognize their responsibilities
 Non racist identity
 Healed and healthy sense of self
 Flexible and opened to cultural learning
Questions
 What effects does privilege have on your daily encounters?
 How does privilege contribute to personal interactions,
societal integration and upward mobility?
 Throughout the history of higher education, there has been
a debate on ethnic specific organizations and structures
that celebrate diversity and remind us of the historical
legacy of exclusion, do ethnic organizations perpetuate
further segregations? What do they offer?
 Consistently, individuals focus on sameness and pluralism,
what are the dangers of not recognizing differences and
perpetuating a color blind, gender neutral, ability
unconscious society?