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Possible midterm question

Summarize the discussion of the relevance of race in interracial interactions in your textbook and in our discussion in class. What is your assessment?

Summarize the discussion of racial identity formation in the textbook and in our discussion in class. What is your assessment?

Summarize the discussion of racial authenticity found in the textbook and in our discussion in class. What is your assessment?

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INTERACTION ORDER

The interaction order is the face-to-face domain of life

Between large-scale structure and individual psychology
Verbal and nonverbal communication
Impression management
We “give” and “give off” messages

“The ultimate behavioral materials are the glances, gestures, positionings, and verbal statements that people continuously feed into the situation, whether intended or not.” – Irving Goffman

For Goffman, the self is best described as an arrangement of social performances, the face you present to different audiences at different times.

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FRONT STAGE / BACK STAGE

Front Stage: Where we try to impress an impression on others
Back Stage: Where we can relax and not have to impress others
The distinction between stages tends to be much more distinct and clear for people of color than for whites
In most of life the front and back stage are almost one for whites when in comes to their racial practices
Because white people belong to the dominant racial category, they need not be reflexive to get ahead, nonwhites do
Whites do not need to “check their whiteness at the door”
Whites do not need to know terribly much about nonwhites to navigate society, nonwhites do
Racial survival strategies

Testing: Feeling out members of other racial or ethnic groups to evaluate their level of racial tolerance
Wear a mask (of an explicitly racialized character)

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INTERACTIONAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS

The display of moral behavior by members of one group may well look like deviant behavior to members of the other

Greetings (see next slide)
Refusing work assignments

Blacks are more likely to refuse work assignments than whites

Blacks might view whites as fake
Whites might views blacks as lazy

Arguing

Some whites find nonwhites to be loud and confrontational
Nonwhites often find backing away from arguments as disingenuous

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INTERACTIONAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS -- GREETINGS

Oftentimes, when a white person meets another, he or she looks to categorize the person according to her or his social roles

Where are you from? What do you do?

Oftentimes, when a black person meets another person, her or she likes to talk about the “here and now”

“signifying” – hinting that information is desired
Instead of “How old are you?” an African-American person might ask, “Did you just graduate from high school?”

This can lead to misunderstandings

“Black people are rude”
“White people are pushy”

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THE SELF AND IDENTITY FORMATION

Interaction Order
Racial Identity Formation
Homophobia and Race
Racial Authenticity
Rejecting Whiteness

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RACIAL IDENTITY FORMATION

Coming to terms with our racial and ethnic identity is an important part of crafting the self

For people of color, the vast majority are socialized at a young age to understand themselves in racial terms
Racial identity formation begins much later for white people than black people (see next slide)

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WHITE IDENTITY FORMATION

When whites think about their racial identity, many find the process confusing

Many would like to see themselves as individuals rather than as group members
Others deny their racial privilege (first stage, some never develop beyond this stage)
Others become aware of their racial privilege, provoking feelings of guilt and shame (second stage)
Many desire to fight racial privilege but don’t know how (third stage)
Some whites may regress, blaming people of color (fourth stage)

Trade guilt for anger

Whites begin to cultivate a healthy and honest relationship with their whiteness (fifth stage) (see next slide)

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POSITIVE WHITE IDENTITY

Begin to come to terms with the ways they are privileged
Start to “unlearn their whiteness”

Begin to interrogate attitudes they long have held about racial domination

Begin spending more time in multiracial settings and antiracist whites
Realize how they unintentionally feed racial domination
Learn how they can join in the struggle against racial injustice

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NONWHITE IDENTITY FORMATION

Unaware of racial domination (first stage)

Short-lived because many nonwhites encounter racism at a very young age

Realize that you are nonwhite in a society enveloped by racial domination (second stage)

Painful realization

React by immersing yourself in communities that share racial make-up, learning about history and culture (third stage)

Some grow bitter towards different ethnicities and cultures
Racial identity becomes master identity

Must think of self as more than a victim, your being cannot be defined by your racial identity alone (fourth stage)

Develop a critical race consciousness, criticizing the systems that perpetuate racial domination, resist ethnic chauvinism
Form interracial coalitions, join antiracist organizations

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DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS

A central component of developing a nonwhite identity is the formation of a double consciousness

“The Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world, a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro: two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” ~ W. E. B Du Bois

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THE SELF AND IDENTITY FORMATION

Interaction Order
Racial Identity Formation
Homophobia and Race
Racial Authenticity
Rejecting Whiteness

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HOMOPHOBIA AND RACE

Double Rejection: Homophobia is higher among African Americans and Hispanics than whites
Gays and Lesbians of color are ostracized by larger society for their skin color and by their ethnic community for their sexuality

Why is homosexuality “un-black”?

Historical records show that Europeans created a myth that homosexuality did not exist in Africa

Slide 44

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THE SELF AND IDENTITY FORMATION

Interaction Order
Racial Identity Formation
Homophobia and Race
Racial Authenticity
Rejecting Whiteness

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RACIAL AUTHENTICITY

Race is both ascribed and achieved; it is marked and made

“You are not black because you are (in essence) black; you are black…because of how you act” – John Jackson Jr.

Racial authenticity seeks to define the essence of Mexicanness or Arabness or whiteness by including or excluding certain behaviors from the repertoire that constitutes a group’s aesthetic identity

Racial authenticity is deeply tied to histories of suffering

Jews and abstinence from pork
African-American couple jumping over a broom

New black nativism – must be descendants of American slaves
Real Indian – requires one to be frozen in time

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THE SELF AND IDENTITY FORMATION

Interaction Order
Racial Identity Formation
Homophobia and Race
Racial Authenticity
Rejecting Whiteness

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REJECTING WHITENESS

Most live comfortably with their whiteness; a minority actively reject it
They see their whiteness as lifeless, dull, sexless, oppressive, and painfully normal
Some attempt to take on other ethnic or racial identities, often no more than shallow stereotypes

Ali G Rejecting his Whiteness

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