Who Am I? – Part 7: White Identity Development

In the past 7 weeks we have explored identity development for different groups. Scholar Sue Helms has offered a 6 stage model on how whites develop a sense of their whiteness in the context of whites versus blacks.

1. Contact: At this stage there is minimal experience with blacks and they may profess color-blindness without biases. Societal phenomenon of white superiority and unequal treatment of blacks is not noticed and individuals at this stage would not recognize themselves as the dominant group. Racial and cultural issues are considered unimportant.
2. Disintegration: People at this stage become more aware of their whiteness and may be conflicted in choosing loyalty to their own race versus acceptance of others. For example, they may believe that they are not racist but would want their offspring to only marry another white person.
3. Reintegration: Feeling a need to resolve the dissonance of stage 2, individuals will move in the direction of defending whites and being intolerant of other groups. There is a more ardent view that whites are superior. Other racial/ethnic groups are blamed for their own problems.
4. Pseudo-Independence: This stage is marked by a transformative experience where there is an awakening to the inequities faced by non-dominant groups. At this stage people begin to attempt to understand racial, cultural, and sexual orientation differences and may reach out to interact with minority group members. However for the most part the groups that are chosen are ones that are most similar to the dominant group and the interactions are more at an intellectual than experiential level.
5. Immersion/Emersion: Many dominant groups may stop at stage 4 but if there is desire to continue a personal exploration of oneself as a racial being, questions become focused on what it means to be white. Helms believes that at this stage individuals search for an understanding of the personal meaning of racism and the ways by which one benefits from white privilege. Individuals are willing to earnestly address their own biases.
6. Autonomy: Individuals at this stage are knowledgeable about racial, ethnic and cultural differences, value diversity, and are no longer fearful, intimidated, or uncomfortable with the experiential reality of race. Development of a non-racist white identity becomes increasingly strong.