Black Mens Studies. Serie McDougal III
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are going to be a man, you’ve got to be willing to take your own name, your own place, your own definition of reality and accept nobody else’s unless it is compatible and synchronized with your own. (p. 70)
For Black men, gaining knowledge of self is not just to boost morale, but to prepare them for the quest for empowerment and collective self-determination.
Racial Identity Development
Positive racial-gender identity is an important protecting factor that Black men must possess to lead them to stronger self-acceptance and to neutralize the effects of anti-Black male racism (Franklin, 2004). One African proverb found in different languages across the African continent is I am because we are, and because we are, therefore I am. This proverb is an excellent point of departure for discussing the importance of Black racial identity and consciousness. Black ethnic/racial identity is the sense of attachment, knowledge, and connectedness to one’s ethnic/racial group. The combination of circumstances that shape Black males’ self and their identity challenges are unique compared to African American females, or any other ethnic group (Belgrave & Brevard, 2015). Many scholars assert that Black men experience a greater share of negative myths, images, and stereotypes compared to any other subpopulation in America (Johnson & Cuyjet, 2009; White & Cones, 1999). These images include uncivilized creatures, brutes, buffoons—unintelligent and unemotional. These images, of course, are based on Eurocentric understandings of what Black males are and should be (Johnson & Cuyjet, 2009). In fact, society’s expectations of what behaviors, personalities, and ways of life Black men should possess are largely based on a body of Eurocentric ideas (Johnson & Cuyjet, 2009). True to a history of racism, many Whites and other non-Blacks continue to impose their performance expectations on Blacks (Young, 2007). Therefore, Black males must reconcile with the extent that they hold any negative self-images and then remove those false understandings.
How does the development of racial identity work for Black males? The Nigresence Model is a framework characterized by movement through a series of stages in which a person develops a psychological alignment with Black racial/ethnic consciousness (White & Cones, 1999). Nigrescence is a resocialization process of discovery and transformation through which a non-aligned person develops a ←46 | 47→new ethnic consciousness. The stages consist of pre-encounter, encounter, immersion-emersion, internalization, internalization-commitment. Black men at the pre-encounter state are likely to have little awareness of what it means to be a Black man in America. A person at this stage could be of any class and any profession, who believes that he or she is judged solely based on his or her intelligence and work ethic. According to White and Cones (1999), “Malcolm X’s pre-encounter view of the world, for example, was formed by the assassination of his father in Lansing, Michigan by local Whites, by the breakup of his family after his mother was committed to a mental hospital, and by the racist advice from a White teacher that Black boys should not aspire to become lawyers” (p. 122).
The encounter stage consists of the experience of an event or series of events that call(s) into question a person’s pre-encounter beliefs. For example, a person may deal with instances of racism at work, school, or in public. Sometimes high-profile national events can impact racial consciousness, such as the assassination of Martin Luther King, the Black Power movement, the Million Man March, high-profile police killings of Black people, or Black resistance movements. These events spark a great deal of emotion (and sometimes anger) that prompt Black men to reject their pre-encounter beliefs and recognize the importance of struggling on behalf of Black people. Malcolm X’s arrest was his encounter experience, causing him to examine the roles of racism, power, and economics and how they shaped the lives of Black people. “He was convinced that he received a longer sentence than usual because two members of his burglary gang were White females” (White & Cones, 1999, p. 123).
In the immersion stage, the transition of consciousness takes place. At this stage, a person moves away from their pre-encounter beliefs and embraces new ones that haven’t been fully formed. They may join groups about Black people’s advancement, embrace Black-oriented reading preferences, African American and African styles of clothing and adornment, and attend Black cultural, social, and political events (White & Cones, 1999). A person may attempt to cast off pre-encounter beliefs by adopting a thought process of “everything Black is good and everything White is bad.”
As a person enters the emersion stage, they begin to become less intense, and more calm and reflective. White and Cones (1999) explain that when Malcolm X entered the emersion stage “he examined seriously the Black Nationalist philosophy to which he was introduced by his brother, who was a member of the Nation of Islam, the Black Muslims. And he began correspondence with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam” (p. 124).
In the internalization stage, a person integrates Black consciousness into his daily life with an inner strength and intelligence. No longer does he feel compelled to prove his Blackness and judge the Blackness of others based on surface-level manifestations (clothing, speech, etc.). His definition of Blackness is more multidimensional and rooted in knowledge of history and cultures. At this stage, an individual is able to determine when an outcome is the result of institutional racism or irresponsible behavior (White & Cones, 1999). More secure in their Blackness, a person at this stage exercises more discretion rejecting and struggling against racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression, rather than rejecting all Whites.
In the internalization-commitment stage, a person becomes committed to the long-term struggle for liberation and to help others. White and Cones (1999) explain that in his internalization-commitment phase, Malcolm X took on a leadership position in the Nation of Islam, spoke nationally, and ultimately became a global Pan Africanist open to organizing with others geared toward challenging oppression. However, people can recycle through or go back to stages due to new crises and challenges that trigger a refocusing of values. Reaching the internalization stage can help resolve racism-related challenges.
Phinney (1990) developed a stage-wise model of ethnic identity development. Stage one, diffusion, is when one’s racial identity has yet to be explored (unexamined). In stage two, the foreclosed stage, one is dependent upon the positive or negative views of others about their ethnic identities. Stage three, ←47 | 48→moratorium, is when the person begins to become aware of their ethnic identity and explore it. The fourth stage, the achieved stage, is characterized by a person being secure and comfortable in their ethnic identity.
Phinney and Chavira (1995) formulated a typology of three main ethnic minority responses to racial discrimination. Active responses are those that involve challenging racism in an assertive and non-hostile manner. Aggressive responses are those that involve hostile responses to perpetrators of racism. Passive responses do not address racism. Instead, they represent acceptance. Wakefield and Hudley (2005) studied the relationship between African American adolescent males’ ethnic identity and their outcomes and responses to racial discrimination. They found that African American adolescent males who were in the diffusion stage (unexamined) of exploration more strongly endorsed passive responses to racism, while those who were in the achieved stage engaged in more active responses. Achieved identity is likely to develop as a result of parental racial socialization.
The Multidimensional Model of Racial Identity (MMRI) is a non-stage-wise (non-sequential, non-linear, or non-chronological) model that conceptualizes racial identity as multidimensional with four dimensions. The first dimension, salience, refers to how important race is in a person’s overall self-concept. The second dimension, centrality, refers to how central race is to a person’s self-concept. The third dimension, ideology, refers to attitudes about how African Americans should act in relation to society. There are four different ideologies in the third stage: nationalist (being distinctively African American), being a minority (seeing African American oppression as linked to other people’s oppression), assimilationist (emphasizing how African Americans are like other Americans), and humanism (emphasizing the shared qualities among all humans). The last dimension is regard, divided into two segments. Private regard refers to the extent to which an individual feels positively about other African Americans and about being African American. Public regard refers to the extent to which an individual feels that others view African Americans positively or negatively (Wester, Vogel, Wei, & McLain, 2006).
Racial Identity as