She Said That? 11/15/15

From Ali Michael, Ph.D., Director of P-12 Consulting and Professional Development at the Center for the Study of Race Equity in Education at the University of Pennsylvania, in an article on huffingtonpost.com, “I Sometimes Don’t Want to Be White Either”:

Rachel Dolezal is a fascinating case study in White racial identity development.* [Rachel Dolezal was the head of Spokane’s NAACP branch who was revealed to be a white woman who “identified” as black and had assimilated into black culture.] She is stuck in the immersion/emersion stage, in which White people, having learned extensively about the realities of racism, and the ugly history of White supremacy in the U.S., “immerse” themselves in trying to figure out how to be White in our society, and “emerge” with a new relationship to Whiteness. Only in the case of Dolezal, her way of dealing with the pain of the reality of racism, was to deny her own Whiteness and to become Black.

She is an extreme example of a common phenomenon. The “immersion” stage is typified by White people taking more responsibility for racism and privilege and often experiencing high levels of anger and embarrassment for racism and privilege, which they sometimes direct towards other Whites. They sometimes try to immerse themselves in communities of color, as Dolezal did. She’s not alone.

I definitely experienced this. There was a time in my 20s when everything I learned about the history of racism made me hate myself, my Whiteness, my ancestors… and my descendants. I remember deciding that I couldn’t have biological children because I didn’t want to propagate my privilege biologically.

***

**White racial identity development was first theorized and written about by Dr. Janet Helms.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-michael/i-sometimes-dont-want-to-be-white-either_b_7595852.html

Thank you, Ali Michael, for not propagating your privilege biologically. We only wish that all people who feel the way you do would make the same decision. As Yale University and the University of Missouri have recently demonstrated, this country already has way too many screwed up kids.